Awesome Onboarding: A Preconference at ALA 2015

Why I attended the preconference, Awesome Onboarding:

• I'm working with 3 WMRL staff and the WCFL supervisors including the WMRL Associate Director and the WCFL Assistant Director to develop a standardized, consistent onboarding process for WCFL staff. We are in the early stages which means we have had 2 meetings and are currently in the process of discovering what each supervisor/department is already doing in order to identify overlap and gaps.
• I've never developed (nor experienced) a standardized/structured onboarding process before and even though I have a lot of resources to reference just within the state of MD, I wanted to hear what has worked for others including such large corporations as LinkedIn - in order to get inspiration and to be able to inspire others.

According to Steve Weitz from LinkedIn, orientation is:

• An event.
• For example, New Hire Orientation! Next Monday from 9am-12pm in the WMRL conference room!
• Information that is shared is to be downloaded by the new hire for navigation purposes.
• For example, Where's the bathroom? When is payday? How do I check email?
• Information that is shared covers Compliance and HR.
• For example, Do I get health insurance? What's covered? How much vacation/sick/personal leave do I get?
• Typically, the information is delivered in a classroom style environment, sage-on-the-stage style.

Whereas, onboarding is:

• A process that spans several months (ideally, 12 months).
• The employer/supervisor & employee discuss together: How can we partner to make both your career and our organization successful?
• This experience is customized by role.
• The process emphasizes empowering employees to connect with others.
• Promotes quick and focused productivity.

The challenge is how to separate the two, because, yes, they should be separated. One powerful way to do this is to share information with the employee before his or her first day on site. Snail mail or better yet, email them the health insurance plans, the employee handbook, their account info (email address and how to access), etc. According to me, it would be a good idea to have a self-directed (asynchronous) pre-boarding course available to new hires for them to complete on their own time before the first day on site.