Onboarding vs. Orientation?

Onboarding vs Orientation??

That is the question. With so many buzz words floating into the HR space, I wonder how many of them will stick.

One that will get my vote is Onboarding, which is defined as the process of acquiring, accommodating, assimilating and accelerating new team members who comes from either inside or outside of the organization. Some might think that this could be a one day course of action, when in reality it should be an ongoing process. When done right, it can improve talent retention, drive productivity and build a shared culture. More importantly it drives long-term organizational success.



While serving as Vice President Human Resources/Organizational Development, my team and I gave this question a lot of thought. After thorough analysis and assessments, we designed a program called "Onboarding Day 2 and Beyond". The trust of this program was designed from Day 2 in the new employee career cycle. Each manager was trained on the importance of integrating the new employee into their team, from setting up mentors, setting goals and expectations and having that importance conversation about performance etc.

I presented this program and the outline to a group in New York called the HR Network (Five O'Clock Club) in New York. The attached link is a newsletter article based on that presentation.

My comment is that Onboarding will be and should be with us forever, at least in companies that take talent management seriously. It should be the cornerstone of any talent management model and should cover new hires, in house promotions as well as new executive talent coming into the organization. The overriding goal of this process is to get new team members up to speed so that they can begin delivering results faster.

http://www.fiveoclockclub.com/corporatehr/HRnetwork/08-06-20-Onboarding.pdf