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 Hiii y’all, It’s Monday and I haven’t felt the urge to scream yet so I think it’s gonna be a good week??? Anyone else measure their week in screams? 525,600 screams, how do you measure a week in the life of HR? Anyways, if you got that reference you can tell I’m happily embracing my inner theatre kid. Fun story: the #1 question I get after people meet me for the first time is, “did you do theatre?” I… did not. Well, actually!!!! I acted in TWO plays Hello Dolly and A Christmas Carol. I was a rando character with zero lines. Does that even count? Now though!!! I have a pod and a virtual event series. See, anything is possible!!!! Manifesting my Netflix doc next. Okay I'll stop now. But here are some places you might catch your fave leading lady: 🎧 The cackle queens are back!!!! Jess Winder joined me to kick off this season and of course there was laughter, stories and hot advice dropped about HR’s evolution. This season you might as well call us Pokemon because we’re on the evolution train… what will HR of the future look like? That’s the whole season's theme!! If you know people with opinions on this, share their names and I’ll try to book ‘em! And if you love me (a bold ask) pls rate the show when you listen to it! 📺 This month’s HR Therapy!! What is AI going to do to your workforce? Is this something we ACTUALLY need to plan for?? Yes, I think so. In fact, it’s a convo me and my CEO are having constantlyyyy. So this month’s HR Therapy is going to actually dig into what the data says, what companies are doing to meet this moment and what you need to know vs what is hype. Now, onto today! We’re in builder mode, so grab that hard hat and let’s go. Sponsored by Aon The era of pay transparency is already here, and your employees have questions you might not be ready to answer! Builder Mode An ode to onboarding: A quick story: my first day at a job once involved a laptop that wasn’t there, a manager who was "in back-to-backs all week" (translation: I didn't talk to her until day four), and an account snafu because my nickname not my full name was on every account and IT had to be called to fix it. Yeahhh wouldn’t say that was an A+ experience… TBH: Onboarding is one of the biggest failure points in the entire employee lifecycle, and shockingly it's one of the things that some companies treat like an afterthought. Recruiting talent right now is HARD. Like HARD, HARD. There’s millions of resumes to sort through, candidates with perfect resumes but somehow not the experience, hiring managers that are overwhelmed and have little time to think about what their teams need, and candidates in desperate need of jobs. So, why would you go through all of that just to fumble the first 90 days once a candidate finally says yes??? 📣 Onboarding is the single most critical moment in an employee’s lifecycle. I said what I said!!! It's the moment you:
Done right, it could be the difference between someone understanding the org on day 10 versus figuring it out by osmosis over six confusing months. And bad onboarding doesn't just feel bad in the moment, it almost always ends the same way. Someone who could have been great quietly checks out before they ever really got going, or they're gone within six months and you're back in that brutal recruiting market you just fought your way out of. Every HR person already knows exactly how this story ends, because we’ve watched it happen time and time again! Now, I know you're sick of me talking about AI. I get it and I hear you!! I PROMISE. But the reality is there are some very real implications to work thanks to AI. And yes, I’ve been reading all the articles about companies stating that AI isn’t creating the gains they once promised it would! One of the very real implications I think teams are feeling is that things are moving faster. Decisions get made quicker and some output happens at a pace that didn't exist two years ago. It has people looking sideways at onboarding like, "wait, shouldn't ramp time be faster too?" UGH. It’s a fair question… But a faster ramp doesn't mean skipping steps, it actually means the first 90 days matter MORE, not less. Last week I told you every issue this quarter. I'm walking into a different room in the HR house and handing down one verdict: improve, rebuild, or tear down. Onboarding is def an improve. So, here’s how you can improve your onboarding tomorrow. What fixing onboarding looks like: Every onboarding program should enable new hires to understand four core pillars:
Think about your current onboarding process. After going through it, could a new hire actually answer these questions on their own?
Where the work is needed: it's not enough to say, yes of course our new hires can answer those questions. Someone has to sit down and map each pillar to something concrete in those first 90 days, and decide the best way to actually deliver that content. Either via live conversation, async doc, shadowing someone, or a Slack channel. There are a ton of options out there for how to deliver content, but the key is making sure it's not just one and done that the manager is doubling down on everything in live convos. Now the next layer. Cadence. Some onboarding programs skip mapping out a cadence entirely and just throw everything at a new hire in week one because it's easier than deciding what's actually essential. Nothing makes me more annoyed than a novel that is paced incorrectly (cough Iron Flame cough) and the same goes for onboarding! Here's a light framework for what's actually essential at each stage for new hires:
Okay we got pillars, cadence and now you’re ready to go improve onboarding right?? RIGHT??? ♟️ Let me give you 3 moves that could make the biggest difference:
Okay if you’re reading this and thinking “Hebba, this is a lot…” I got you... ✍🏽This guide breaks down: what HR’s role is and what the manager’s role is. You can even copy the manager portion and use it directly with your managers! What's next: I told you at the beginning but onboarding falls into the improve category. Here's my reasoning, and it's non-negotiable: there should always be onboarding. Under no circumstances whatsoever should there not be one. That's exactly why this can never be a Tear Down, you don't get to gut the thing that's supposed to exist in every single company, full stop. The floor in a house is non-negotiable. Everything on top of that floor is what needs work. Onboarding is your floor. Next week, we're staying in the house, but the mood's about to shift. Engagement surveys are up, and this one is not getting the gentle treatment. 🧨 Is this house metaphor getting old yet??? I may have to come up with a new one due to knowing very little about how houses get made. Sponsored by EasyLlama Unfortunately, compliance training requirements are a moving target, so it's easy to get lost in the requirements! 😵💫 (HUMAN) RESOURCES
*This one is brought to you by one of my amazing brand partners WORK-LIFE BALANCE
SONG OF THE WEEK 🎧 Hellbent, Naomi Scott This scratched an itch in my head immediately!!! I heard about this song on Tiktok and ran to look it up. It’s funny how I’m discovering music these days but Tiktok has served me some good bops. I recognized the actress immediately from Power Rangers and Aladdin and didn’t know she was releasing original music. I binged her entire album and was enamored. I hope you enjoyed this, please let me know what you think and what other topics you'd love for me to cover. I'm allll ears. Reminder: Take care of yourself and know that I support you. | |||||||||||
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