This week­end is one of par­al­lels for me, every thought seems to have a twin. On Octo­ber 6,  I’m pre­sent­ing on attract­ing tal­ent, onboard­ing and reten­tion at a local con­fer­ence. I thought I would inter­view a few local HR Direc­tors at area com­pa­nies to high­light their excel­lent onboard­ing programs.

Call after call I came across medi­oc­rity where any­thing resem­bling an onboard­ing effort even exists. I asked the sim­ple ques­tion, “Can you tell me about your onboard­ing pro­gram?” I was often met with silence, stum­bling words or “Uhh”. I would have lost a lot of chips in a poker game, for I would have bet heftily that these well known local com­pa­nies would have more than “employee ori­en­ta­tion”. Even the one that received a few employer awards over the years has only the  mei­otic trap­pings of a poten­tial one.

OK, that’s here and it just goes to show I have work to do in the com­mu­nity with the HR Task Force. But, on a larger scale there are many fine exam­ples of onboard­ing pro­grams out there and that’s where the par­al­lel comes in.

Ready?

Onboard­ing pro­grams are like air­craft and the ameni­ties and ser­vice that come with their size.

Util­ity Kit Aircraft

Walk out to the tar­mac car­ry­ing your own bags, hoist them inside and watch the pilot doing the pre-flight check.  Strap your­self in and make sure you have a barf bag. There’s no room to move around and the ride is likely to often be bumpy.

Util­ity Kit type com­pa­nies have the same sys­tem for new hires. You get walked to a desk or work area, fill out paper­work and fly by the seat of your pants. You will not have a comfy seat. If you’re not lucky enough to have a good bush pilot with a com­pass you’ll soon be lost and grab­bing for that barf bag. The odds of hav­ing a devel­op­ment plan or receiv­ing for­mal feed­back on your per­for­mance is about the same as some­one pack­ing your para­chute for you. The vend­ing machine doesn’t work in the hall.

Pri­vate Jets

Improved head­room and a sep­a­rate wash­room define this cat­e­gory. Some mod­els offer a flight atten­dant, the later mod­els also have much-improved lug­gage space. There will be emer­gency cards in the seat pock­ets with instruc­tions on self ser­vice oxy­gen and how to use your seat as a flota­tion device. Still, you keep won­der­ing when you’ll arrive.

At com­pa­nies of this cal­iber, the Office Man­ager can answer ques­tions for you and help you with office sup­plies and paper­work. You’ll get intro­duced to the other staff on a walk around tour and have team meet­ings. Office gos­sip will likely be your onboard­ing and some of the guys will take you out to lunch and tell you who you can trust and about the flat 3% COLA yearly increase and lack of incen­tives and bonuses. You’ll have a lot of ques­tions and anx­i­ety about how things actu­ally work and who exactly to ask. This feel­ing can last a long time and get in the way of employee satisfaction.

VIP Jets

These air­craft have spa­cious cab­ins, offer­ing seat­ing for 8 to 16 in first-class exec­u­tive style. Full stand­ing head­room, gal­ley and in-flight ser­vice are standard. The lug­gage hold can accom­mo­date 15 to 20 assorted-sized pieces. A car will take you out to the run­way and an atten­dant will take your bags.

This is where for­mal onboard­ing pro­grams start to appear.  You’ll have an ori­en­ta­tion that will include dan­ish in the board­room and vis­its from suits. You’ll sign off on a ton of poli­cies to include con­fi­den­tial­ity, non-harassment and use of com­mu­ni­ca­tions tools. You’ll watch a video on diver­sity and  be given time to sit in your office, in your comfy chair, to “get used to it”.

VIP Air­lin­ers

The ulti­mate air­craft for pri­vate jet travel. These air­lin­ers have been con­verted to accom­mo­date smaller groups in VIP first-class exec­u­tive seating. These air­craft are pop­u­lar for heads of state, offer­ing com­fort and lux­ury with sleep­ing arrange­ments for the principal. They are the per­fect air­craft for world­wide tours.

Com­pa­nies who have arrived at this level of orga­ni­za­tional devel­op­ment pro­vide a reserved seat at every table for Human Resources and allow it to be highly effec­tive. You’ll be mailed a cor­po­rate hand­book, insur­ance forms,  and be sched­uled for the next ori­en­ta­tion at HQ, in per­son, by con­fer­ence call or webi­nar. There will be a greet­ing from the LMS in your inbox with the link to log on to your onboard­ing agenda. It will include sched­uled mod­ules to be com­pleted on the per­for­mance man­age­ment sys­tem, poli­cies, cul­ture, cor­po­rate cit­i­zen­ship, ben­e­fits and oth­ers. You’ll com­plete your pro­file on the cor­po­rate web por­tal, be assigned a spon­sor and attend a team pre­sen­ta­tion and inte­gra­tion ses­sion. You’ll enjoy the ride.

Notes:

• The size of a com­pany may or may not reflect the amount of tech­nol­ogy and resources it employs, to include some­one in the HR seat.
  • It doesn’t have to reflect how it onboards new employees.
  • Where tech­nol­ogy is absent, man­ual processes can be employed to per­form iden­ti­cal func­tions in the onboard­ing process.
• Show­ing employ­ees you care about them to the extent you have devel­oped a pro­gram to set them up for suc­cess, instead of leav­ing them to cling to their seat to save them­selves, is a huge way to lead by exam­ple, pro­mote a healthy com­pany cul­ture, gain loy­alty, ensure rapid pro­duc­tiv­ity and increase longevity.