Onboarding and offboarding – how not to lose an employee?

Have you had the pleasure of conducting onboarding? I did, and I still remember my first time. I prepared myself for the implementation of a new employee, confident that everything would go off without a hitch, while at the same time realizing that there are a thousand unwritten rules in the company that are not officially talked about. It’s a bit like inviting someone to your home and only after a week telling him that you don’t sit on the green seat and you can’t touch the Porsche model.

Onboarding and offboarding are like the prologue and epilogue of a good book – the former is designed to ignite enthusiasm in a new employee, while the latter can tell more about an organization than many an audit.

Imagine a wall of televisions in an electronics store. On each screen the same image, but in different quality. It’s the same with onboarding – every company has an onboarding process for a new employee, but the idea may be different, just as the resolution of the screens is different. In one company, the process will be like a movie in HD – with full support, a plan, a mentor and a conversation after each week. Onboarding at another company will be like a blockbuster movie watched on a black-and-white receiver – the employee will be given a few PDF files, a password to the system, and someone will throw him or her a “Good luck” on the way out, and that’s it.

It is worth realizing at the outset that onboarding is not training in procedures. It is a process that introduces a person to an organization – its language, the relationships there, the way of thinking. And yes, it takes time. Because a person is not “installed” in the system like software. A new employee needs a guide, information, and sometimes a simple human conversation.

The answer to this question is not very complicated. Well, onboarding does not represent a measurable value. While production, productivity, energy costs can be expressed in numbers, you can’t measure a new employee’s sense of security or commitment after the first month.

Many managers prefer to uncheck boxes rather than deal with emotions. The problem is that onboarding is not a list of tasks to tick off. It’s the moment that determines whether an employee will bond with a company or treat it as a stopgap. And every failed onboarding is a real cost – as much as €10,000 after three months, just counting the time and resources spent on the implementation.

There is no ERP system that will measure the value of good employee onboarding. But the data shows one thing: companies with refined onboarding record lower turnover (by 50%) and higher team engagement (up to 30%).

At explitia, we see this up close, working with industrial organizations. When the implementation process is logical, supported by technology, and leaders are aware of their role, the results are seen immediately. Failure to do so, on the other hand, results in mistakes, delays and frustration – not just for newcomers, but for entire teams.

Onboarding is the moment when an employee starts with a blank slate. The way it is carried out influences how quickly the employee will adapt and how he will evaluate the company. Therefore, this stage is insanely important. What can be the consequences of poor onboarding management?

If an employee is shown a “glass ceiling” at the start and his field is limited, his initial willingness to work may quickly drop. This, in turn, may result in a so-called “quiet departure” in the future.

When the spell of friendly greetings wears off and the entire team returns to their duties, the employee may feel alone as a finger. Lack of support is most risky when an employee’s motivation drops due to new challenges and an unfamiliar environment.

Putting pressure on an employee to tick off shuffles when he or she needs more time to understand the processes can stir up difficult emotions, including the feeling that “I don’t fit in here, though.”

How an employee is deployed very often projects his or her emotional state.

Treating onboarding merely as a checklist misses the human element and the individual approach to the employee. Keep in mind that the same process will not effectively handle both a graduate and a specialist with years of experience in one or more companies.

Onboarding processes are often created by HR departments, in isolation from management.

It’s a topic that most companies prefer to keep quiet about. Because why focus on those who leave? Except that this is when you see the true organizational culture.

Offboarding is not handing over equipment and signing documents. It’s a conversation in which you can learn more about the company than from hundreds of anonymous surveys. A departing employee is a source of knowledge about what works and what is a weakness in the organization. If we let the former employee speak – we get a free audit of the organizational culture.

And here you can see the contrast: mature companies say goodbye to people with class, others simply “kick them out of the system.”

Improper offboarding is seen as a big problem, because even if the process does not take place inside the company, it certainly takes place outside. Many companies treat offboarding lightly. What is this associated with? Here are some examples:

An employee who does not have the opportunity to express and work through his or her emotions leaves the organization and contributes to spreading such and such an opinion about the place where he or she worked. Very often these opinions are sincere, in which the slightest dirt can be seen. A disgruntled employee can do black PR for his former employer by spreading unfavorable information about a particular company. This, in turn, makes it more difficult to recruit the best candidates.

Companies that are not ready for feedback from departing employees usually do not have an internal, mature culture of giving feedback to each other. A mature organization should be open to talking about failures and ready for the emotions that can accompany feedback.

The exit from the organization is often handled very quickly and quietly. Sweeping the issue under the rug is the result of difficult emotions and often dissatisfaction on both sides.

It is not worth burning bridges, especially in airtight industries, where companies often “exchange” the same employees. There are situations in which the boss refuses to talk to a former employee and tells him to leave his notice at the secretary’s office. This is a veritable lack of respect, which can lead to an escalation of conflict.

It is reprehensible when an employee is erased from the organization during the notice period and cut off from everything. The issue of respect is to create space for the employee to feel part of the company until the end, without being banned from events or the office.

Rolls-Royce has shown for years that onboarding is an introduction not only to the company, but also to its quality philosophy. Every new engineer starts with a workshop, where he or she learns how his or her work affects the safety of people.

Amazon, on the other hand, views offboarding as a source of data on manager effectiveness. Departing employees anonymously assess the culture of the team – not to punish, but to learn how to retain talent.

These two companies have one thing in common: the understanding that a person is not a cost, but an indicator of process quality.

Every “good morning” in the company leads to some “goodbye.” What happens in between is the history of the organization. If someone leaves with class, it means they were well received.

The way onboarding and offboarding are carried out is very important, as it directly indicates the maturity of the organization and its attitude towards people. These two processes perfectly teach how to be a better employer, leader, person.