The future of onboarding - from checklist to data driven insights
“The future of onboarding is more than just digital”, says Leapeo’s CEO, Kasper Ulf Nielsen. Combining knowledge about employee psychology and onboarding data with the employee journey is the next evolutionary step of onboarding according to Kasper.
✓ Automate your process and save time
✓ Onboard new hires effectively and reach productivity faster
✓ Improve employee retention
✓ Increase collaboration across teams
Change the way you onboard employees today. Just leave your contact details to schedule a free demo.
✓ Automate your process and save time
✓ Onboard new hires effectively and reach productivity faster
✓ Improve employee retention
✓ Increase collaboration across teams
Change the way you onboard employees today. Just leave your contact details to schedule a free demo.
The future of onboarding - from checklist to data driven insights
Kasper Ulf Nielsen, CEO at Leapeo, views onboarding as the next frontier for an effective HR strategy. Kasper is truly passionate about leveraging onboarding to the same status as recruitment and talent attrition.
Together with psychologist Christian Harpelund, Kasper co-wrote the book “Onboarding - Off to a flying start”, which was based on the world’s largest academic study of onboarding.
We sat down and talked with Kasper about his views on the future of onboarding.
Q: Everyone is talking about onboarding with many companies having implemented communication platforms from where they can send videos and upload documents. But how do you see the next step in professional onboarding?
Kasper Ulf Nielsen: “Some HR managers believe that adding their two-week intro program into a digital platform is enough to optimise their onboarding process, but going digital is not enough to meet the demands from new employees. Today people are looking for a personal onboarding program, which is designed to help them move forward in their career. This requires the ability to customise the onboarding content and timing to meet the specific needs of each employee.
Q: What are the key drivers of a good onboarding program?
Kasper Ulf Nielsen: From our global study we identified 6 categories, which should be part of the onboarding journey. A new hire needs to be formed into the culture and rules of the organization. Then you need help building a network of people you will collaborate with both in your own team and across the organisation. And finally the company needs to help you use and develop your competencies so you can deliver high value performance.
Q: What is the main challenge HR is facing today in regards to onboarding?
Kasper Ulf Nielsen: Today HR is facing a big problem with broken processes. If you go through the full experience of a candidate you will see the gaps. First you are exposed to some professional employer brand videos and materials. Then you go through an interview process where professional personality tests and data analysis are used. Then you sign the contract - and this is where the first breakdown happens.
In too many cases you are left on your own in the “pre-boarding” phase from when you sign the contract - to when you start in the job. Then on day-one you might be welcomed by HR or your direct manager, but again the ownership is unclear, and what happens in the next 30 days, 3 month, and 6 month is a big question, which depends on who your manager is.
This leaves new employees disappointed because the onboarding experience did not live up to the promises given in the recruiting process, and it’s making the time to performance much longer.
Q: What should companies do to professionalize their onboarding?
Kasper Ulf Nielsen: First of all companies need to view onboarding as a specific discipline where there is science and models available to professionalise the experience. And as with all other professional processes they should use data to guide their decisions. What gets measured gets done is an old saying - which is also true for onboarding. If you have a systematic onboarding survey you will see improvements both in time to performance and employee engagement.
Q: What is the business case for investing in onboarding?
Kasper Ulf Nielsen: The business case for better onboarding is very strong. Ask yourself: how long it takes for your new employees to be fully up and running in their job delivering value to the company? 12 month? 9 month? 3 month?
Whatever the number is, Leapeo’s data show that you can cut this in half by professionalising your onboarding. This will add so much productivity to your company on top of the positive engagement from the new hires and their managers, that I am confident that this will offset any costs associated with the onboarding program in year one.
With the current work climate it is more important than ever to have a shorter time-to-performance and low churn of new employees. Organizations simply can’t afford to have non-effective and unhappy employees.
Q: How can the professionalisation of onboarding help HR be a more strategic partner?
Kasper Ulf Nielsen: Like marketing can create personal omnichannel journeys for their customers based on segmentation, data and digital platforms so can HR create individual onboarding journeys for their employees. This means the right information, to the right person and the right time.
Ensuring a continuous flow of data from onboarders will allow HR to join the management table with hard credible data, just like finance and marketing.
“The future of onboarding is more than just digital”, says Leapeo’s CEO, Kasper Ulf Nielsen. Combining knowledge about employee psychology and onboarding data with the employee journey is the next evolutionary step of onboarding according to Kasper.
Kasper Ulf Nielsen, CEO at Leapeo, views onboarding as the next frontier for an effective HR strategy. Kasper is truly passionate about leveraging onboarding to the same status as recruitment and talent attrition.
Together with psychologist Christian Harpelund, Kasper co-wrote the book “Onboarding - Off to a flying start”, which was based on the world’s largest academic study of onboarding.
HRTechX sat down and talked with Kasper about his views on the future of onboarding.
Q: Everyone is talking about onboarding with many companies having implemented communication platforms from where they can send videos and upload documents. But how do you see the next step in professional onboarding?
Kasper Ulf Nielsen: “Some HR managers believe that adding their two-week intro program into a digital platform is enough to optimise their onboarding process, but going digital is not enough to meet the demands from new employees. Today people are looking for a personal onboarding program, which is designed to help them move forward in their career. This requires the ability to customise the onboarding content and timing to meet the specific needs of each employee.
Q: What are the key drivers of a good onboarding program?
Kasper Ulf Nielsen: From our global study we identified 6 categories, which should be part of the onboarding journey. A new hire needs to be formed into the culture and rules of the organization. Then you need help building a network of people you will collaborate with both in your own team and across the organisation. And finally the company needs to help you use and develop your competencies so you can deliver high value performance.
Q: What is the main challenge HR is facing today in regards to onboarding?
Kasper Ulf Nielsen: Today HR is facing a big problem with broken processes. If you go through the full experience of a candidate you will see the gaps. First you are exposed to some professional employer brand videos and materials. Then you go through an interview process where professional personality tests and data analysis are used. Then you sign the contract - and this is where the first breakdown happens.
In too many cases you are left on your own in the “pre-boarding” phase from when you sign the contract - to when you start in the job. Then on day-one you might be welcomed by HR or your direct manager, but again the ownership is unclear, and what happens in the next 30 days, 3 month, and 6 month is a big question, which depends on who your manager is.
This leaves new employees disappointed because the onboarding experience did not live up to the promises given in the recruiting process, and it’s making the time to performance much longer.
Q: What should companies do to professionalize their onboarding?
Kasper Ulf Nielsen: First of all companies need to view onboarding as a specific discipline where there is science and models available to professionalise the experience. And as with all other professional processes they should use data to guide their decisions. What gets measured gets done is an old saying - which is also true for onboarding. If you have a systematic onboarding survey you will see improvements both in time to performance and employee engagement.
Q: What is the business case for investing in onboarding?
Kasper Ulf Nielsen: The business case for better onboarding is very strong. Ask yourself: how long it takes for your new employees to be fully up and running in their job delivering value to the company? 12 month? 9 month? 3 month?
Whatever the number is, Leapeo’s data show that you can cut this in half by professionalising your onboarding. This will add so much productivity to your company on top of the positive engagement from the new hires and their managers, that I am confident that this will offset any costs associated with the onboarding program in year one.
With the current work climate it is more important than ever to have a shorter time-to-performance and low churn of new employees. Organizations simply can’t afford to have non-effective and unhappy employees.
Q: How can the professionalisation of onboarding help HR be a more strategic partner?
Kasper Ulf Nielsen: Like marketing can create personal omnichannel journeys for their customers based on segmentation, data and digital platforms so can HR create individual onboarding journeys for their employees. This means the right information, to the right person and the right time.
Ensuring a continuous flow of data from onboarders will allow HR to join the management table with hard credible data, just like finance and marketing.
The Six Categories Built Into The Survey
The Six Categories Built Into The Survey
