Setting the Stage for Success: Onboarding and Orientation Strategies

Starting a new job should feel energizing, not overwhelming. Yet research shows that nearly 30% of new hires leave within their first 90 days, a costly miss that often traces back to ineffective onboarding and orientation. Even more telling, only 12% of employees believe their company provides a great onboarding experience, which means most people feel the system fails them at exactly the moment they need it most. And considering that organizations with a strong onboarding process improve new hire retention by 82% and productivity by over 70%, the stakes for getting it right are high.

 In this episode of Bring Out the Talent, we’re joined by Dr. Mechelle Roberthon, a nationally recognized HR and organizational development leader, keynote speaker, and consultant. With over 15 years of experience helping organizations strengthen culture and elevate employee experience, Dr. Rob is known for her practical, people-first approach that turns talent strategies into measurable business impact.

This conversation is about shifting onboarding and orientation from administrative necessity into strategic advantage. From blending compliance with culture to designing orientation that truly resonates, Dr. Rob shares strategies leaders can use to set employees up for long-term success. Get ready for a future-focused discussion that will reshape how you think about onboarding, orientation, and those critical first chapters of the employee journey.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Bring up the talent. Bring out the talent.

SPEAKER_05 0:03

Bring out the talent. Welcome to Bring Up the Talent, a podcast featuring learning and development efforts discussing in a bit of a focus and industry insight. Students to hear our talent. Help develop yours. Now here are your hosts, TTH CEO and President Maria Melfaugh, and talent manager, Jocelyn Allen.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Hello, Jocelyn. Hi, Maria.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

It feels so long since we've been together again. I'm so happy to see you again for the episode that we have today for the exact same.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

It always feels that way when we get into our podcast roomslash studio in air. Yeah, it's good.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Oh, exactly. I knew you told me how to tell that.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

You're not supposed to tell people that. Yes. Yes. We just we just unlocked you about five minutes before. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Because you need to do recruiting and help find our wonderful talent network jobs. Yes. And help our clients. Yes, absolutely. It's very, very important. So it's all for good reason that we keep you closed up. It is.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

It's a reignite for my to charge my battery, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Yes, right. Exactly. Absolutely. Well, we are very excited to have one of our special guests back for the second time. We loved having her on so much last time. We felt absolutely energized. We ended up having a wonderful webinar afterwards. Got incredible feedback, probably the best feedback we've ever received from a webinar. So this woman is a pro. And it's also on a great topic on onboarding, right? We all love that topic.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

So it's all like so much of it happening right now, too, right? Like there is a recharge and reigniting onboarding programs. And I think it has a lot to do with the market changing again. Oh, people are hiring again. It's nice to be able to do that. Nice to see. It's very nice to see.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

So starting a new job should feel energizing, not overwhelming, correct? Yet research shows that nearly 30% of new hires leave within their first 90 days. They're like, I am getting out of that place. That place is a bunch of crazy people. They have no idea what they're doing. But that's a costly miss that often traces back to ineffective onboarding and orientation. Even more telling, only 12% of employees believe their company provides a great onboarding experience, which means most people that fail the system fails them at exactly the moment they need it most. And considering that organizations with a strong onboarding process can improve new hire retention by 82% and productivity by over 70%, the stakes for getting it right are clearly high. In this episode of Bring Up the Talent, we are joined by Dr. Michelle Robertin, a nationally recognized HR and organizational development leader, a keynote speaker and consultant. With over 15 years of experience helping organizations strengthen culture and elevate employee experience, Dr. Rob is known for her practical, people-first approach that turns talent strategies into measurable business results. Today's conversation is about shifting onboarding and orientation from administrative necessity into strategic advantage, from blending compliance with culture to designing orientation that truly resonates. Dr. Rob shares strategies leaders can use to set employees up for long-term success. Get ready for a future focused discussion that will reshape how you think about onboarding, orientation, and those first critical steps of the employee journey. Welcome, Dr. Rob. Thank you. I'm so excited to be back.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

This philosophy is so excited to have you. I'm so excited to have you, Dr. Rob. We've been waiting. It's we didn't need another reason, but we found one. So we're let's segue into onboarding and the conversation around it. Because I feel like when we talk about these things, and you can tell that people definitely want more out of it because these episodes do hold a lot of weight. They tend to be very popular. So we know people are inquiring about how do we not make this a checklist? Just we're doing it. Here's a form, here's a policy. Oh, and here's a quick tour, and that's where you make your coffee, and here's where you take your bio breaks, right? When you think about orientation of a part of that first step, right? Getting people acclimated and giving them that tour, so to speak. What does transformational onboarding and orientation really look like? What, like how is that experience developed and what are the feelings that come with it?

SPEAKER_02 5:00

You have no idea how well you set me up in that last sentence. Because it should start with a feeling. And I would have rejected that sentence, I don't know, six years ago. I would have said, please, I don't want to talk about emotions and feelings. I would have wanted the checklist, Jocelyn. I would have said, What do I do pre-orientation, during orientation, post-orientation? But I learned from a leader in healthcare who I reported to some years ago, and everything was about a feeling. And and y'all, I mean everything. If we plan for all of our systems leaders to get together, she would start with, what's the feeling? What's the feeling? I used to hate hearing that word. What's the feeling? And I read our I used to kind of reject, reject it mentally, like, okay, let's get on with the to-do list. And then I saw it as a cheat code. She started with feeling because she would then say, if if those are the feelings we want our leaders to have, we want our new hires to have, then what kind of experience would we create that would garner those feelings? And I was like, oh, this is great. This is why we put all the bells and whistles on a learning experience or an orientation experience. So a transformational onboarding and orientation begins with a feeling. You should ask yourself, what do I want my new hire to leave this event? And we'll talk about that because orientation is just that, the event. I want them to leave day one thinking what, feeling what? Week one, thinking what, feeling what. But a good leader is going to then say, at the end of 90 days, what do I want them to say? And I saw this really cool activity once. It's unrelated to onboarding, but it could apply here. And I saw it at a board of directors meeting, and it said uh this was maybe a board where I was, we were preparing for strategic planning and we had a consultant come in to help us out. And one of the lead-ins were a year from now, if a headline was being written about our work, what would you want the headline to say? So we said all these favorable things, and then so she said, so what are the things you would have to do from now until next year to garner these kind of headlines? The same thing is true. What do you want the new hire to say at the end of three months working for your organization? What's the feeling? And then you can curate an experience around those feelings.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

Working backwards. Yes. Yes. I think that I could say what feelings that I want our new employees to have, but I certainly we certainly do not put that or purposely put that as part of our program.

SPEAKER_02 7:43

Yeah. Most people don't.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

Many people say that orientation, as you're saying, is like day one. How do you prepare and how do you like complete an average? So they say average of 54 onboarding tasks that are built in within an onboarding program. How do you see them instead of as part of a long journey that shapes engagement and retention?

SPEAKER_02 8:09

Yeah. So this is the biggest myth I want to wanna kind of talk about and bring to the light. Orientation is an event on the onboarding journey. It's the first stop on the onboarding journey. It's not the journey. Why am I saying that? Because so many people put all of their eggs in the orientation basket. A good day one experience, a good week one experience. And we're shocked. And you talked about this, Maria, in your introduction. We're shocked when a new hire falls out of the honeymoon phase too soon. Honeymoon phase should last 90 days. Why do they drop out so soon? And drop out doesn't necessarily mean quit. They become disengaged, they're not as enthused, they seem to sour very quickly, and and we're shocked. And it's it's really because of onboarding. You gave them a good day one, but no one was prepared for days two through, continuous. And that's just it. Onboarding does end, but there should still be some sort of continuous development. So I think if people made a distinction first, onboarding is the long game, onboarding is the journey. And if they understood that I am not going to get 100% productivity out of this new hire for at least three months, it will stop them from trying to rush to get them up to speed. And I often advise my clients is that if you put yourself, if you put your new hire on a 30, 60, 90 day plan, you should up the ante in every 30-day increment. So what are some light, slowly get them acclimated things in their first 30 days that might be a tour, shadowing, meeting all the players, learning the quiet norms that we don't talk about out loud, and then the standard norms. Okay. And then maybe they're just shadowing, maybe they're doing routine things. For my second set of 30, I'm gonna up the ante a little bit. And now I actually want them doing all the things I just trained them on. And around my third set of 30, they are leading and I'm observing and just giving feedback. And maybe by day 91, they can fly solo for a while before it's time to just naturally train them again. But I'm not necessarily onboarding men. This is just their natural training. So I I think I want to help leaders alleviate themselves from rushing to give them everything during orientation. If you want them engaged and you want to retain them for the life of that retaining that employee, spread it out and cut it out.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Spread it out by cutting out. Yes, and cut out. We have in our employee handbook that every employee is on a trial period. And we call it kind of an orientation for them to see is TTA the right fit for them and are they the right fit for TTA? We did have the 90 days and we actually changed it to 90 to 180 days, so three to six months. And the reason why we did that is because of certain positions. We feel like so for a position like say marketing, we feel that we're able to really get a good idea of how the person is going to work out by doing what the steps that you gave, like the 30, just kind of going over, okay, this is the marketing team, this is what we are doing, having them observe, having them start participating in meetings, and then starting to give them tasks, um, little tasks here and there, and kind of build that up. So usually by 90 days, we have a failing whether they're going to do well or not. It's interesting though, some of our other positions, such as business development or sales, that's where sometimes we we might take a longer time to see how that person is doing. And not that necessarily our business is extremely complicated, but you know, in learning and development, we get involved in so many different areas and every day, every conversation is so different that we felt that by just only having the orientation for just three months, it was n it was not long enough. We did not have a good chance for both of us to be able to see we needed to spend more time on that onboarding.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

More than the three months, going up to six months to to look to see whether again, it's I'm looking at it probably more from like, is it is it a good fit on both sides? I love that.

SPEAKER_02 12:44

And you don't see often a lot of mercy in sales positions because they want you to produce so quickly. Show me what you got very early on, but we're not necessarily telling them how to sell the TTA way. What is our sales philosophy? What's in your kit, so to speak, or their one-pages, or their scripts, or how do you respond to common rejections? And and you would you might say, well, they should come preloaded with that. Yeah, they might have sales experience, but they don't know how to sell our way according to our value. So kudos to you all for recognizing 90 days was just the tip of the iceberg. You needed to stretch it out a little bit more to see really. And I love that you keep saying mutual fit. I love that because we tend to think new hires are at our mercy, but you need them too. And they're interviewing you too. And I think in the interview process, we all kind of overpromise under deliver. The employee is saying things like they're coachable, they're teachable, and and I I don't mind being corrected. First day on the job, you correct them, and they're don't talk to me like that. But the employer is also this promising too. We're a family, I'm flexible, we're easy going, open door policy, and you can't find your leader in week one. So I love that you keep emphasizing how mutual it has to be. Thank you for that. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

It's a huge part of I think a culture too, right? Is is that like we we've learned and evolved based on how our company has learned and evolved, and like what what is a good two-way street, right? So to speak, because it is that dual the dual fit. And it is, I think, the harder thing to teach, right? Like, like, because it it's how do I explain this? It's like it's learned, but it's it's I don't know that it's like it's like something that you sit down and like teach classroom style. It's like exposure therapy almost. It's like it's like that's like the best comparison that I can think of for like adapting and learning culture, is like not not being thrown into it, but like oh, here's this little piece of it, and oh, here's a little bit more. And the those little things like we want to know just as much from you if this is a good fit, is opening those doors. And so, like again, I want to transition into me that part of it, that strategy piece is the cultural alignment and how based on how difficult it is to teach, if we're looking at these periods of onboarding, where what strategies within that period have you seen that actually help culture be taught and learned? And then how does it and then it sticks with the new hires as well? I kind of went all over the place, but I'm it's how do you teach it? How does it stick? And then how do you guarantee that it's it's learned at the same time since it is just one of those harder things to get a grip on? This question is pure gold right here.

SPEAKER_02 15:41

If I was the producer, I would do right there. I want it right now.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

No threatened, ready, it's coming.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

It's coming. I love it. Okay, I've seen this done well once, and I've bragged about it ever since. I think during orientation, if you want culture to stick, you start off by introducing to new hires what we call your MVV, your mission, vision, values. It has to be a part of day one. And I and I and I want companies to spend time there. If there's an origin story that's unique to your organization, tell the origin story. Talk to them a little bit about what the values look like in action. Now that's going to be key to my second part of your question, Jocelyn, which is really great. So in in one company, we called it mission in motion. If you're living out the mission, it should look like this. If you are, if you are aligned to our values, it should look like this. And then give them what I call green flags, red flags. If you're doing it, we would see these kind of behaviors, this kind of way of thinking. If you're not doing it, you're gonna stand out. I know a culture is really great when the jerks stand out. When, and someone told me this just today at my advisory board meeting from my company. She says, We've been working on our culture so much that there's this, there's this employee from a while back that did not fit and they felt so uncomfortable. And I love that because you're gonna feel uncomfortable in an environment that's healthy when you're toxic. And and in this healthcare system where I worked, that was true. They introduced the mission, vision, values. They told us the origin story, they told us what the mission looks like in motion in our community. So they told us where they were putting out dollars and helping those most in need because that was important to them. At the same hospital, they said, okay, let's say one of their values were mercy. They said if a patient comes in the emergency room department and they vote differently than you, believe differently than you, or don't believe at all, maybe they smell bad because they live on the street, you better roll out the red carpet for them. They told us that on day one. Now, to answer the second part of your question, Jocelyn, how do you make it stick? You have to model it and hold people accountable to living out your values. So if I said accountability was one of our values at TTA and Maria struggled with ownership, who's going to talk to her about, hey, you're kind of misaligned with this value of accountability here? But if we let it slide, we don't mention it, we leave it up to just the manager, the, the, the direct manager, even though Jocelyn, you may see it, and maybe I'm the direct manager. Come pull me off to the side and say, hey, I saw Maria earlier, and we were in this meeting, and she just, everybody was falling on their sword, but she refused to. She said nothing was wrong. She didn't take any accountability. Just warning if you can have a conversation with her about that. And if I do my job, that's me making sure it sticks. I have to call it out and say, hey, I I know you're only on day 60, but I need to bring up something that happened in the meeting. Talk to me about this exchange you had when everybody was falling on their sword. So it's having those kind of conversations and it's also rewarding people who are modeling the values and the mission very well. That's what's going to be binding for culture.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

I love mission and motion. I love that. What a simple way of observing it and kind and putting it into a statement of what it what makes it actionable. I think that is Chef's kiss. I love that statement.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

I love what you were saying about. I mean, not that it's a great thing, but when you do have a toxic person and a positive culture that they stand out. And I must say, and I probably talked about this last time, that has always been one of the most important things to me, and probably the most important things I've learned in 31 and a half years of business of how important culture is and how it's non-negotiable. Because we've had people, we've had high performers. I know I've talked about that a lot, that they they might have been high performers, but they were were not a good fit for the culture. They were not good team players, they did not work well with other people. So it it is truly non-negotiable. And that's and that's hard sometimes to find out in the hiring process, right? So that's where after maybe 30, 60, 90 days, you you can see it quicker than ever. And again, like if you do have such a positive culture of people working so hard and working together like so well and really wanting the best of other employees, then it just it does not do well for an organization because what what we talk about a lot too is I believe everybody has good intentions. Like, and I believe that we've hired everybody that has had good intentions. And if people have good intentions, then we should be able to work things out. If not, then it's a whole nother story. But if they do, then we have to figure out how we can see eye to eye. Because of course we we are people, we have stress. Thankfully, that we we try to laugh and alleviate a lot of stress here, not take ourselves so seriously. We do hear laughing a lot here, because that that is a very important part of our culture. But it it yes, it's it it is such such an important thing. My sister is a psychologist, and we were actually speaking over the weekend, and she was telling me about how so many of her patients go in and they just have just such horrible toxic work cultures. And it's it's interesting because I always feel like, oh, that that must be like so 10 years ago, like how would a company still have such toxic work cultures like nowadays? But it I guess it does exist a lot out there. Oh yeah. So I just life is too short, and how that affects people, obviously, emotionally, they start developing anxiety, depression. I mean, it's just as it just it permeates everywhere. So it does. Absolutely. I never yes, absolutely everything. So people not getting their work done properly, not working well together. So yeah, so yes, so culture again is culture, onboarding, it's all kind of hand in hand, but I love this.

SPEAKER_02 21:59

Yeah, I I I want to commend everything that you were saying. It was so hard for me to sit on my hands on this one. I was a man in so much because it's so good. You cannot call an employee good if you are only looking at performance or behavior. You have to look at performance and behavior. I've even been doing a lot of presentations about employee retention, but using the nine box model, which is traditionally a succession planning tool, but I've been calling it the nine box model remix. Because if you Google nine box model, it's looking at potential on the y-axis, performance on the x-axis. My remix is looking at behavior on the Y, performance on the X. And just looking at all these intervals of these boxes and how it's problematic. And what you've just described, Maria, is the talented but difficult employee, high performer, horrible attitude. And we keep them around because they're the only ones who can insert the thing, run the machine, deal with that I rate client. They've been here 30 years. And the quick solve with this, cross-train other people. Because you know who else knows they're the only one who can do the thing and that you need them. They know it. And and likewise, the opposite person is problematic too. The high behavior low performer. You struggle to discipline this person too because we like them. She's so nice, she's so she's willing, she's so interested. She does sloppy work, she misses deadlines, she's confused all the time. You have to teach and teach and reteach, and she just doesn't get it. Ask me how I know. It's it's a problem. So I love everything that you're saying. It's no longer that, because if I don't address your bad behavior, I am saying consciously, we value performance over behavior. And a culture can't survive that way. It can't be either or. It's both.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Yes. And I must say, I think in a fairly recent situation, we actually worked longer with somebody because of a better behavior than other things. You you feel like they they must have it in them to be able to learn. And it's it's not again, it's like we were talking about it's not that anybody did anything wrong, it just it wasn't the right fit.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

I feel like those are that one is so much harder to identify to, though. Like I think it's gotten a lot easier for people who are just like really just not decent people to work with, that it's it's easy to be like this is this is not worth it. You know what I mean? Yes. But then the other side where you're like, this could be so worth it because this person is awesome if I just give them a little more, that it's so hard to let go of that because they are what the other person wasn't, right? Especially if they become in tandem. I think that's that is a that's a human thing that's very hard to let go of. I know.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

And here's what what we'll do as humans too. We're scared of the low behavior high performer. Most people fear this person because they have low behavior. This is not sometimes bad. They're consistently problematic, hard to collaborate with. Maybe they are not the say good morning, say good afternoon kind of people. They are just difficult. And but they're so talented and so smart. They might know more than you do, they have more tenure. We fear them. We fear that they're gonna leave and leave us in a in a lurch. But then the opposite person, we don't want to hurt their feelings. But just remember this the number one group of people complaining about both are your high performers. And low performers don't look for other jobs, high performers do. High performers talk, they complain, they have issues. And after a while, they're gonna say, wait, how are we all getting either the same or similar pay, same or similar perks? And I'm killing it. I go above and beyond. And what we accidentally do with high performers, we reward, we reward them with more work because they're old faithful, they're old reliable, they're old dependable, and you underdevelop your low behavior, low performing people because your high performers are carrying everything that you need until one of them quits and you're in a bind, and now you have no more rock stars on the team because you put all your eggs in those two people who you burnt to a crisp by just simply not elevating the rest of the team.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

How do you think that the like the onboarding handoff affects the clarity and the engagement of onboarding? Because I mean you hear sometimes too that these cross like interdepartmental collaboration for hiring is the especially if you have a recruiting department, is huge because those messages, like there is a messenger involved in that, along with the collaboration and a lot of moving pieces. So is there a because onboarding can be something that's very, very overwhelming. Do you think that there is a process or things that you've seen regarding that handoff from recruiting to the hiring manager of that new hire that is affecting engagement? And how do you change that without it affecting the drive of the business? Because obviously you hired that person for a reason, right? So how do you keep the how do you keep it moving?

SPEAKER_02 27:17

Well, one, there needs to be a process, there needs to be an intentional, documented handoff process. So, what we're calling onboarding at the recruitment phase is not onboarding, that's pre-boarding. So, recruiters have nothing to do with onboarding. They acquire the talent, somebody needs to develop the talent. And so when I think about my time in in-house roles, recruiters would recruit on day one orientation. The recruiter's job is done. They got to get back out there and source for candidates. They got to get back out there and start this cycle all over again. So the first handoff is from the recruiter to whoever your developer is. And that developer is typically somebody in a general role, like human resources. They're gonna do a generalized orientation for multiple positions, multiple departments, all the same orientation. So they all can hear the same information. That's why mission, vision, values, company history, how you clock in, here's your name, badge, security, cybersecurity, all the things. And then this is where Jocelyn, I've seen it fail almost always. The developer needs to pass the baton to the hiring manager and say, hey, listen, I finished my 35%. You own more than 50% of this whole journey. Do you, department manager, have a department orientation that you can bring them through? How do they know where to put their items, like their purse or their wallets or whatever the case may be? When is lunch in your department? That sounds so silly, but these are the things that that disorients a new hire. Are there any standing meetings that that new hire needs to attend? What about uniforms? Do we do anything special on Fridays? Can you go over my job description in detail? And that's day one of my department orientation. And then, leader, I'm hoping the next day, because you're not gonna drown me out now with all the rules and blah, blah, blah, that nobody's gonna retain. But the next day, the hiring manager comes back and says, Hi, Maria, welcome back to day two in our department. We're so excited that you're still here. And let me walk you through what your next 180 days is is gonna look like. Let me introduce you to Jocelyn. She's gonna serve as your buddy. You're gonna work with her for the rest of this week. She's gonna introduce you to our learning management system. We're gonna get you to get some modules done because that's really foundational knowledge. But guess what, Maria? You won't be doing that all day. You'll work with Jocelyn in those modules until 11 a.m. And then we'll let you go on an hour break, and then you'll spend some time with me where we're gonna go over active projects we're currently working on. Imagine this kind of slow build, but everyone's passing the baton at the right time. Recruiters need to know when to let go so we can do orientation. Orientation people need to pass it to the department heads, and then they need to have both an orientation and an onboarding ready. They almost always don't have a good system ready. They might have a good first week done, but after that, they expect that this employee just functions like they like they've been there a while. And I'm thinking, Maria still just started, y'all. She's only been here three weeks. And this is how it's kind of crazy. The Iron Manager goes, three weeks, that's all? Yes. Not 30 years, three weeks. Calm, slow it down. Check in with her, ask her if anything's confusing. And then this is gonna blow your mind. If I'm onboarding Maria, there's gonna be a day where I have nothing on the schedule for her. Because let her catch her freaking breath. How about we give her nothing where she could check emails, wander around the office, go fall forward, go follow up on all the things I'm giving you as to do. You should read this policy, you should go do that, go explore the internet. When is she gonna do that if every minute is notated in the plan? So give her some breathing, some breathing time and breathing days. She'll come back recharged if you say, okay, Thursday is the last training I have with you. On Monday, we'll get back in the classroom and I'll teach you something brand new. Most departments are not that robust, and that causes issues with not only retention, but really with the onboarding journey because now you're holding me to the same standard as somebody who's been here seven years and I've only been here three weeks.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

Excellent information. I don't think we build enough downtime and some of our orientation programs. So most people don't.

SPEAKER_02 31:24

Definitely.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

We have three new hires actually starting in two weeks, and we're actually working on that right now. So trying to update it. Yeah, so this will definitely be beneficial. So I know we talked a little bit, I used the example about our kind of trial period orientation period extending to six months. Some companies could say that onboarding it could even take like a full year, and I certainly could say that even longer than that. Where do you like see that happening? Is it for certain levels of positions, certain tech companies? When does it go that long? And when should it stop?

SPEAKER_02 32:05

I think it depends on the scope of the role for sure. If this is someone whose work is not typically black and white, their day-to-day is different, they're expected to be self-starters, they are a cross-company collaborator, having to talk with people at multiple levels and multiple departments. You might want to spend much more time getting them onboarded. And Maria, what I love is you said the magic things. Traditionally, it should take a year to get 100% productivity out of a new hire because you have given them a long runway to get up to speed. But most companies think that takes too long, or they think that they can't get anything out of them under that year. They're producing, they're doing things, but there's this nice exchange of train and practice. And there's a lot of grace and mercy and train and practice, a lot of one-on-one meetings, etc. So certainly you see this, the higher level roles, the higher up you go on the org chart. But I've also seen it at the more entry-level positions if the scope is not so black and white, and they have to own kind of their book of business and create their day-to-day workflow. Most companies are going to take a little bit longer getting those roles up to speed. But I absolutely love the idea of a one-year on-boarding plan that maybe ends in some sort of celebration. And you know why that's so fitting? Most people track success with their new hires by if they can retain them over one year or more. So if your new hires are leaving under the 12-month mark, that's a red flag that I would want to investigate to figure out why. So if we're evaluating at the one month, one year mark, extend onboarding then to one year.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

Of course, it's something that kind of like transitioned to me into another question because retention rates are a huge measure of success. It's always talks about it, it's a key indicator, KPI, of like good leadership. I feel like people indicate that a lot as like a resume builder almost. But I will tell you, and I hear it from people that I'm recruiting all the time because they ask about it, we've all experienced it as well, that the onboarding process is a huge reason why people stay and why they stay engaged. And it it actually ties in a lot to that golden retention rate. So if we're talking about how we can make those things go hand in hand, okay, let me like give a paint a picture for you, okay? You are building a dashboard for onboarding effectiveness, okay? It's yours, Dr. Rob. What three metrics have to be on it for you to say A plus? You nailed it.

SPEAKER_02 34:52

All right. I'm going to go with retention checkpoints, but probably at the three, six, 12 month, 12-month mark. Okay. Oh man, only three. I'm going to say ramp up time, their time it takes to get them from new hire to like their first contribution to the team. And so the hiring manager would have to identify that answer. I know that new hire is officially acclimated when. And then it's whenever that new hire can reach that pinnacle. And then I'm torn between the third thing being either manager satisfaction with the new hire and or the new hire experience in some sort of survey. So what do they say about their the about their own onboarding journey? Was it too much? They didn't learn enough. If they knowing what they know now, what would they do differently? And so looking for some ideal remarks there. But those would be my top three.

SPEAKER_01 35:48

I like that. And not to give anything away, but we started doing something like that pretty recently too, where we the last thing you said where you would pick either or we kind of blended it together. So each like the manager and the the person that you're I don't want to say evaluating, but I'll say that quickly just as a for lack of a better word. Both received the same survey. But the manager is answering it on behalf like uh on behalf of the relationship with the employee. And then the employee is answering it on behalf of their own experience. So they are saying things, here's what I really enjoyed, here's what I've learned, here's what I need next. And then the manager is saying, here's what this person did really well, here's what I think they've learned, here's what I think they should do next, right? And then pairing it all together. And we did we've done it once because it's is it on a nine-month rotation, I think, Maria? Some something like that. So we've done it once so far, but I even gave feedback. I was like, this was really cool to see. It seems something very simple. It probably took us a half an hour to do, but the parallels and then also the disconnects between the answers, it's like, okay, we're on the same page. And then I also saw, wow, I think this person is so much better at something that they still think they need a lot of help with. And here's something that they want to do that I had no idea that they were interested in. It was very, very cool to say. Very cool to say. I love that.

SPEAKER_02 37:15

That's so good. And you're right, you can do both. I don't know why I chose it as a toss-up leader or new person. I want both. I a step for uh a step ahead of that would be the peer feedback. Oh, so maybe like a baby 360. That that one's a little dicey because the peers would have to be equipped enough, mature enough, objective enough to give some feedback. And this is not whether do you like Jocelyn or not? Is she contributing in a way that adds value to your department? And and I would put some kind of ownership on them. And how have you helped her get up to speed? Because they are part of the onboarding journey as well. So everybody listening that's a coworker, and you sometimes they'll hear episodes like this and they'll go, I'm gonna send this to my manager. No, I'm talking to you too. You are part of a new hire's onboarding journey because guess what? They can tank it for the entire for that new hire's entire experience. What if my boss is great, but the team sucks? My boss is really nice, but no one invites me to lunch. People kind of they're hazing me a little, cold shoulder, they're barely training me. Some of them are a bit jaded themselves. They could tank it for the new hire. So I would want to capture something from them too.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

Very good information. So if you are advising a company that's ready to completely rethink their whole onboarding program, what bold change would you recommend for them to actually incorporate and not shy away from?

SPEAKER_02 38:45

Oh man, that's good. Bold change. The first thing that came to my mind, and this is probably a broken record, artificial intelligence. David, this is where I need another doom, doom, doom, doom. Because we're so afraid of the bots. We're afraid of the bots replacing the human. But I I don't mean this in a competitive way, but figuring out ways that AI can help in onboarding and orientation efficiency. What is something that AI could possibly do to make your onboarding and orientation life easier, better? So most people are probably using AI in their applicant tracking system to scan and read resumes and job applications and then produce some sort of feedback about the applicant. That's AI integration. I also see it with micro learning. I would love to see more micro learning from your cell phone. And there's companies out there that's already doing that, where you can complete an entire module, if you will, via text message or maybe from an app from your phone as well. I think you're going to see more AI integration and software tools you already use, like Slack, like Teams. I don't use Teams professionally anymore, but when I was in an in-house role, I remember Teams having this feature where you could maybe click your mood for the day. And you can, like if you're in a channel with somebody, you can kind of send a mood. So you can let the smiley face do the talking for you instead of saying, I'm on a trip today mentally, please don't bother me. The smiley face can do the talking. So just figuring out what AI adoption tools are out there, or AI adoption processes are out there that could help make the onboarding and orientation journeys better for your employees.

SPEAKER_01 40:34

Would you say that that's the trend that's gonna be redefining onboarding like more recently, or is there something else that you think is going to kind of change the mold over the next, say, five years? I think it's gonna be more AI.

SPEAKER_02 40:48

I think we have to stop demonizing Chat GPT and demonizing AI and start learning it. Start embracing it. And I I reminded a group of people recently, we felt the same way about calculators, about computers, about insert anything different. I learned Microsoft PowerPoint in third grade. That doesn't make me smarter than my dad. That's just when the stork dropped me off around that time. And I learned Microsoft, and that's when everybody was using those clapping transitions. Anytime you have four slides, we overuse the applause. But now look at us. I'm using Canva exclusively for my slide decks. But there's Slido, there's um all sorts of different tools. That's right. So I I want the I think the trend is gonna be more AI adoption for little things Jocelyn, like maybe you can nudge your new hire on a text message automation system like Calendly. Somebody books a meeting with me 24 hours in advance. You get a text message that looks like it came from Dr. Rob. It didn't. It came from Calendly. So, man, how cool would that be? Now you don't have to worry about keeping a applicant warm in the middle of job offer and first day. Let the AI tools ping them, send them gifts, send them nice, friendly emails. Those things will save you a lot of time.

SPEAKER_00 42:07

Love that. Absolutely. We love AI.

SPEAKER_01 42:10

We do. And we're I mean, obviously specifically. Yeah. Like me and ChatGPT are bros. We talk all the time. No, see you get it. Like it is a little bit of a like, don't say please. You're wasting energy. And I was like, I will say please and thank you every time. I am not a disrespectful person. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 42:32

I'm rough on my chat GPT, but we have to. Every once in a while.

SPEAKER_00 42:37

I'll be like, no, I'm definitely not what I said. That is not what I said. Where did you get this from? Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 42:45

Not the direction I did. Or wait up. I'll say, like, what in the actual hell is this?

SPEAKER_03 42:50

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 42:51

And then and and you're not locked in yet if you have not named your chat. So I call my computer Little C or Chatty, and I'll say, Hey Chatty, what's up? But it's like, hey girl, what's going on? I'm like, the work today. So I've loved that. Keep leaning in because chat keeps upgrading as well. Now I'm using projects within ChatGPT. And those are serving me. And now I'm dipping my toe into other AI tools like email management softwares and just different things that helps my helps me to be more efficient as an entrepreneur myself. So if you're listening to this and you are a hiring manager, you are in HR, you're in talent development, get get creative, nerd out on these AI tools. Now don't pick any of them for the soup of the day for the sake of being trendy. But what can actually add value to your new hire experience? It's not about you. What helps your new hire feel welcome, like they belong, and get up to speed quicker?

SPEAKER_01 43:50

So much to learn there. Mm-hmm. And changing every day. And changing every day. It's crazy how fast things move now. Speaking of needing to be Fast and how quickly things move. I mean, I am just the queen of segues today. David, I need you because it's time for the TTA 10.

SPEAKER_05 44:11

It's the TTA 10, 10 final questions for our guest.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

I'm also the queen of, well, that was a bit of a reach, Jocelyn, but I make it work. So you know the drill, Dr. Rob. You've been here before. It's the TTA 10. I have 10 new questions, I hope, you that I'm gonna ask. And if they're not new, well, guess what? You're just gonna answer them faster this time. So I want to start by asking you if you are ready for this. I am not, but I'm here. Yes, you're ready. You are ready. Please.

SPEAKER_02 44:46

I didn't do well last time.

SPEAKER_01 44:47

I but we'll see. Yes, you did. I like, you know what, to be totally honest with you, when people don't do well, they're more fun. So ride that wave, okay? David, 90 seconds, please.

SPEAKER_04 45:00

Put 90 seconds on the TTA 10 clock if you stay close to the microphone, Jocelyn. Please. Got it? Yes, sir. Got it? Yes. Okay. Yes, Dad. TTA 10, 90 seconds on the clock. Starting. Now.

SPEAKER_01 45:14

Alright, Dr. Rob, are you more of a morning person or a night owl? Both, actually. Okay. What's your favorite pizza topping? Italian sausage. What is your favorite season out of all four seasons? The fall. The fall. Are you a sneakers or a sandals person? Sneakers. Okay. If there was a fourth little pig, what would he have made his house out of? Oh gosh. Out of stone. Stone. What's your favorite color? Pink. Comedy or drama movies? Drama. Okay, and still on the movie train. And a movie night at home or cozy in bed with a book? Oh, movie night at home. Okay. What's your favorite holiday? Thanksgiving hands down. What was the strangest thing that you believed was real as a kid? Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_02 46:09

Oh my goodness. I hope kids don't listen to this. Maybe the tooth fairy. The tooth fairy.

SPEAKER_01 46:14

Are you an early bird or more of a procrastinator? Procrastinator. Procrastinator. Alright, that was 10. It didn't really sound very procrastinatey. That's a word. So, David, can we get a verdict? Let's make sure all the L and D kids aren't listening, though.

SPEAKER_04 46:35

With a time of 81 seconds, Dr. Robb once again is a winner.

SPEAKER_00 46:43

Fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 46:49

I would like to thank the Academy.

SPEAKER_04 46:52

Extremely precise. Well, it's it's appropriate that you're thanking the Academy, Dr. Robb, because you may not know, but you're about to star in a major motion picture. We have a little bit of the trailer here for you to listen.

SPEAKER_06 47:11

In a world where companies are lost in the fog of dysfunction, one woman had the clarity to bring the order. She's a certified force of nature. With over 500 courses taught, 50 stages rocked, and countless minds transformed, she doesn't just inspire change, she implements it. For the strategist, the starring Dr. Michelle Robert on. From confusion to clarity, one or chart at a time. It's coming soon to a border.

SPEAKER_04 47:52

There you go.

SPEAKER_02 47:54

Coming soon to a border. This is gonna sound counterproductive. Artificial intelligence must be stopped. It's wild. That was awesome.

SPEAKER_04 48:10

Glad you like it.

SPEAKER_02 48:12

David, I still sing my other song in my head. Oh, cool. Dr. Bill called Dr. Robin. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 48:26

Oh my god, I was all coming back to me.

SPEAKER_01 48:29

The Dr. Phil, Dr.

SPEAKER_00 48:30

Robin. That was so and then it says call a butter because she's on a roll. She's on a butter. She's on a roll. Fantastic. We're actually gonna put those on our YouTube channel. So that's one thing. Our new marketing person, we're gonna we're just gonna cut to like the 10, the top 10 with the outro tribute and do that. Yeah. So we'll have that there, yes.

SPEAKER_02 48:54

These 10 questions were really great. I feel like last time they were more of a if you mix two colors together, what do you get? And I'm like, ha.

SPEAKER_00 49:03

I never passed this lesson ever. I know. Well, the best when she tells our guests that it's gonna be math questions every single time. The expression on people's faces are always like, I would be two. And they're usually two plus two or something. Easy. Right.

SPEAKER_01 49:18

I usually go simple math, and then I'll be like, Marie, can you give an example? She's like, Yeah, 47 divided by eight plus two is squared by you're like solve.

SPEAKER_00 49:28

Yeah, exactly. Solve for C. Exactly. Well, thank you so much once again. Absolutely wonderful information on such an important topic.

SPEAKER_02 49:40

Thank you so much. Thank you all so much for having me. It always feels very natural and relaxed to chat with all of you. So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 49:50

For more information on onboarding and orientation strategies and working with Dr. Robb, visit us at the Training Associates.com. We'll see you later.