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Utah Business

What does a new hire experience on their first day at your company? I bet it could be better. This article will help you get there.

My first day at your company should be better than this

You know those first-day jitters? You’ve just landed the job, finalized all the preliminary emails and forms, and now it’s time to head to the office. Getting ready, you’re wondering if you should go full business or business casual… or maybe just black chinos and your favorite tee for a casual office-chic look. 

But let’s face it. When it comes to starting a new job, what to wear on your first day is the least of your worries—when you arrive you feel like the new kid on the block. First, HR has their way with you, your supervisor serves up an overly enthusiastic welcome (ladeled on the side with a gajillion expectations you’re hoping you can fulfill), then whatever poor schmuck is assigned to be your new buddy shows you to your desk, invites you to eat lunch with the cool kids later, etc. 

At my first “real job” out of college, I remember being steered to my cubicle, which was piled high with old binders, ancient Accounts Payable printouts, and campaign mock-ups from seasons past. Somewhere in the heap, I spotted a keyboard and monitor. I got a sympathetic “Oops I guess they haven’t cleaned out the old ‘library’ spot yet,” as my new buddy retreated to her desk and I was left to wonder how I was going to find a place to sit, let alone tackle this terrifying and exciting new job. 

Hopefully, your onboarding experience was better than mine—and by the way more companies are innovating the new-hire approach, chances are it was. As the business world focuses more on CX and UX these days, forward-thinking companies are also paying attention to EX. And employee experience (EX) begins with the onboarding process.

What does a new hire experience on their first day at your company? I bet it could be better. This article will help you get there.

Pack your bags

“We completely reinvented our onboarding process in the past year with a travel theme,” says Mike Cameron, CEO at Christopherson Business Travel, a Salt Lake City-based company with satellite offices and on-site teams throughout the country. “We turned it into a memorable travel experience. We start out by sending them a travel backpack loaded with bling and a handwritten personal note from my wife, Camille [majority owner], welcoming them into our family.

“Then we then give them the experience of booking their travel plans with us, and we fly them into Salt Lake City for their first day. We give them a two-day itinerary with them listed as new passengers. It includes tours of our offices, introductions to our key leaders, and two full days of learning about who we are: our mission, our values, and our vision. On their first day, they do a lunch layover with Camille and I and we develop a personal relationship with them.”

Cameron goes on to explain how Christopherson’s values focus on connecting people and places, valuing people and creating value, and becoming the travel industry’s employer and provider of choice. To that end, about a year ago the company took a hard look at their new-hire experience and realized there were some gaps.

Their previous new-hire experience sounds typical of many companies: “We have employees in 18 states,” says Cameron. “It was done remotely with the focus being HR paperwork and minimal onboarding by their new manager relating only to their specific job. Mission, values, and vision were not covered.” 

As they looked to improve the onboarding experience, they knew incorporating the company values and an actual travel experience would be critical. “We decided to start out every new employee making connections with all of the key departments to support that belief.” 

Ready for launch

For Galileo, a Salt Lake City-based global payments platform company, onboarding takes a similar “get to know our product, values, and every department” approach. “During our new hire orientation, we give [new hires] a high-level view of the company values. One of the unique things we do is give them an opportunity to sign up for our Galileo Money + product, which is a high-interest yielding account, so they can become live testers of our product itself,” explains Jeff Gardner, Galileo training and onboarding manager.

Even more immersive is the company’s “Launching into Galileo” program, a full-week experience that occurs during employees’ first month. The program essentially embeds new employees in a different department for a few hours each day. The idea is the newbies follow the customer journey while diving deeper into each department’s culture, day-to-day activities, and more. 

Each department has a “host” that welcomes the new hires, the new employees attend the department’s morning stand-up, shadow customer calls, and get a feel for the department’s objectives and vibe. “We’ve been doing this for about nine months now—the way it came about is important to understand,” says Gardner. “We had just finished up some focus groups within the company. Some of the things shared with us helped us see that for new employees, there had been pain points. They felt like they were thrown into the deep end, and that our processes were siloed, compartmentalized. We were able to take that feedback and develop this new program.”

Before we get started

For new employees at Dairy West, an industry association for dairy farmers in Utah and Idaho, their onboarding experience is so immersive new hires would be wise to pack along some galoshes for part of the orientation.  “We get them on a dairy farm; we take them on a dairy processor tour; we have them meet with every single functional area in our office. Whether they work in health and wellness or innovative partnerships, we get them on an eight-to-ten week onboarding schedule where they all get the same foundation, in addition to training for their individual roles,” says Crystal Wilson, Dairy West VP of employee development and engagement. 

Beyond a comprehensive orientation, Wilson explains that for Dairy West, the onboarding experience starts well before the first day on the job: “We believe it begins in the interview process. Our brand is about creating progressive and thought-provoking experiences. I believe that starts in the hiring process—we try to be very intentional and pay attention to all the details.

“You think about an employee, their wants, needs, and expectations, and then about your wants, needs, and expectations as an organization. If you’re looking at a Venn diagram, you want as much overlap as possible.”

From the cover letter to the job description, Wilson explains how Dairy West weaves in the organization’s values—trust, action, stewardship—at every point. The interview process involves two steps, which not only plunges the candidates into the brand and culture but also allows Dairy West to see how potential employees can swim. 

While candidates wait for the first interview, they’re offered dairy products—and the front office observes how the candidates engage with the products and treat the staff. Then they’re invited in to engage in a Simon Sinek-based activity that helps candidates distill their purpose, values, skills, strengths, and ultimately drill down to an eight-word summary of their “why.” 

Those who advance to a second interview are sent an assignment beforehand, based on Gallup’s CliftonStrengths. Then they’re invited to meet off-site with Wilson, a prospective supervisor, and the CEO. “We’re a Gallup Strengths-based organization, and this helps identify their prioritization of 34 key strengths. That’s in the back of our mind during our interview,” says Cameron. “We also want to see how they interact in public, how they treat the person that serves us our coffee, how they deal with an environment where there’s noise. We’re a marketing and public relations organization, so how they treat others matters.” 

What does a new hire experience on their first day at your company? I bet it could be better. This article will help you get there.
Paris, France – February 28, 2019: Street style appearance in detail during Fashion Week.

Totally worth it

By now you may be thinking, wow, that’s a lot of work just to get people hired and started—is it worth it? I was wondering the same thing, so I asked. Hands down, everyone gave a resounding “yes!”

“It takes a lot of time putting that onboarding schedule together,” admits Wilson. “But it has made a big difference. In my mind, I would say you can do the work now, or you can do the work later. You have a small window of time when someone is joining your company. You need to think about how you honor that space, what you create when that window’s open because if you try to undo or change things when that window closes, it’s hard.”

Gardner speaks to the impact that Galileo’s new approach has had on employee retention. “A lot of companies are putting more emphasis on the onboarding experience these days, especially when we’re in such a competitive market for talent. It really has reduced our first-year attrition.” 

Cameron offers, “Our number one source of finding new employees has become employee referrals. We want to become the travel industry employer of choice, and this onboarding investment has helped us achieve that. The process wows our new employees, and they, in turn, refer their former teammates to join our company.”

Well, there you have it. In Utah’s tight labor market, it’s time to get on board with more immersive onboarding experiences. 

(And please, whatever you do, at least avoid leading your new employees to an office-junkyard-turned-cubicle. I ended up loving that job, but working among the discarded wreckage made for a rough start.)