Orientation is not onboarding but an aspect of the onboarding experience. Often, when organizations provide an onboarding experience for new employees, what they engage in is orientation. Onboarding is a series of intentional efforts to provide a welcoming, informative, and guided experience that allows an employee to engage and provide value (Hewapathirana, 2012). I believe not enough emphasis and value is placed on the employee organizational socialization of which the onboarding process is an essential component. Employees are often given an orientation to handle routine HR forms, basic access such as badges, required policies, some background about the organization they are joining, and a laptop or other digital device.
Next, they are met by their hiring manager in person if they are lucky. By now, the employee has experienced a welcome to the company from HR and by a manager who they will most likely depend on for everything they need. If those orientation materials were intentionally planned the employee may feel guided and informed about the organization. The manager may fill in the details about the team and their specific job and possibly a high-level expectation. However, once the manager leaves the employee alone in the work environment, they realize they have many questions and uncertainty about how to get the answers.
Onboarding and Workplace Culture
The ease of obtaining those answers can depend on the organizational culture. Culture plays a key role in onboarding and is evident when differentiating between public- and private-sector employment. When an employee leaves the private sector for the public sector, they may feel the difference immediately (Collins, 2008). Things such as comprehending the budget process, encountering the guardrails of policies and regulations, finding the latest documentation, and understanding the processes and procedures to do their job may be frustrating initially.
Depending on the workplace, it takes time to grasp workplace culture even in a welcoming environment. The appearance of a slow-moving decision process or understanding what approvals are required and who is responsible for what can also be a challenge due to the many siloes. And that can impact an employee’s perception and retention.
Therefore, it is necessary to learn from the employee’s organizational socialization and more specifically their onboarding experience to improve the employee experience. Surveying new employees can help improve onboarding (Roberts & Levine, 2013). In addition, establishing and maintaining metrics tracked over the first year of employment will also provide valuable information.
Data-driven decisions are only as good as the action that goes along with those decisions. Those actions must be intentional and focused on improvements that ensure the employee feels welcomed by each engagement during the onboarding. Organizations must provide new employees the help that enables them to be effectively and efficiently embedded into the organization.
It is worth the investment to establish a robust onboarding program to embed new employees into the organization. Not only will you realize value from your employees sooner, but they will most likely stay longer (Stylianou, 2016). Remember you are part of the process, modeling and verbalizing your why as it relates to the greater good. Doing so inspires government employees to focus on their why and have the essential needs that Maslow speaks to in his hierarchy of needs met, to not only self-actualize but to reach transcendence in the workplace.
References:
Collins B. K., (2008) What’s the problem in Public Sector Workforce Recruitment? A Multi-Sector Comparative Analysis of Managerial Perceptions, International Journal of Public Administration 31(14), 1592 – 1608
Hewapathirana, G.I. (2012) Review of Organizational Socialization: Joining and leaving organizations. Work, Employment and Society, 26(2), 366-367
Hur,H., & Hawley, J. (020). Turnover behavior among U.S> government employees. International Review of Administration Sciences, 86(4), 642-656
Roberts, D.R., & Levine, E. (2013) Employee Surveys: A 0powerful Driver for Positive Organizational Change, Employee Relations Today (Wiley), 40(4), 39-45
Stylianou, C., & Andreou, A.S., (2016) Investigating the impact of developer productivity, task interdependence type, and communication overhead n a multi-objective optimization approach for software project planning. Advances in Engineering Software, 98, 79-96
Dr. Ursula White-Oliver has worked for the government for over 29 years within IT, which includes data integrations, technical lead, application development, system support/development, project management, systems analysis, ESJ, management, employee/leadership development, as well as creating, improving and assessing needs for practices, processes, procedures, and methodologies. Currently, she works in Data Services collaborating with other organizational leadership on AI governance, planning, and operationalization. Recently, she completed consulting to improve the onboarding and organizational socialization for government IT employees in partnership with her doctoral Professional Administrative Study. She volunteers on several nonprofit boards and is an active member of social, faith-based, professional, and community organizations. More importantly, she volunteers at her workplace, which includes such efforts as volunteering on boards, committees, and improvement projects, and support women through activities like leading the celebration of Women’s History Month.
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