Part 1: Memo
It has come to our attention that Wilson Homes Consultancy Group is largely losing its competitive advantage due to poor consultancy services to its customers. The main cause of the loss is unsatisfactory consultancy services to address our client’s needs accordingly. Over the last four years, the quality of services has deteriorated, and the company has lost significant business and will continue experiencing the problem if the problem remains unresolved.
After conducting a comprehensive analysis, the HR department found that there is no training for new consultants to integrate them into their roles effectively. If Wilson Homes Consultancy was to remain relevant to customers in the market, it has to adopt an effective onboarding program immediately. The program will welcome, train, and integrate the new consultants into the group to make them feel appreciated for accepting the employment offer. It will also lay a foundation for a friendly and supportive working environment to foster productivity, increase performance, and encourage collaboration among the team of consultants (Bauer, 2015). Most significantly, the program will help the consultants to align their professional goals with the company’s mission and vision.
I believe that the program will assist the company in overcoming the increasing turnover rates, mitigate the cost of new hires, and address customers’ needs satisfactorily. The company will enjoy expertise from top talent consultants who will assist in reclaiming the lost markets.
Part 2:A Proposal for an Onboarding Program for New Consultants
Overview of the Program
Organizations are moving beyond the traditional hiring orientation to creating effective onboarding processes to integrate new hires effectively. According to Bauer (n.d.), turnover rates for the first 18 months after hiring can be over 50%, making onboarding a critical approach to improve new hires’ retention rates. If an onboarding program is implemented effectively, employees will likely stay longer in an organization. Pike (2014) argued that effective onboarding programs integrate new hires into the organizational culture by providing a platform to understand the culture and the company’s structure and operations. Wilson Homes Consultancy Group has been experiencing a high turnover rate for its consultants since they lack support for the first months of their job, which causes mistakes, missed deadlines, and report rewriting. As a result, the consultants lack satisfaction since they cannot achieve their responsibilities effectively, driving them to look for more supportive and friendly environments to work in.
After conducting a needs assessment through focus group meetings with previous consultants in the company, the training and recruitment managers decided on the following elements of an onboarding program to resolve the current challenges: compliance, clarification, culture, and connection. The program will take place in the conference room, which is accessible to all consultants. It will be an ongoing process that will take place for the first year of recruitment to ensure the effective integration of new hires into the company.
Elements of the Program
The onboarding program must take a proactive approach to ensure that it achieves the desired objectives. A proactive approach ensures that all four building blocks are formally addressed from a human resource management perspective (Bauer, n.d.). The approach will ensure that nothing is left by chance to empower employees to understand their responsibilities, company policies and guidelines, and organizational culture and create interpersonal relationships.
Compliance
Compliance entails company policies guiding the job and job basics that facilitate new employees in working effectively. They include their official and functional workstations, required paperwork, security when using computer systems and work emails, and a code of ethics guiding behavior (Bauer, 2015). Wilson Homes Consultancy Group has guidelines and policies in place but hardly uses them to guide employees’ conduct. New consultants hardly understand the policies since no one conducts an orientation after hiring. For example, the new consultants spend a lot of time trying to learn policies and procedures to guide their conduct. However, they end up failing to conform to the company’s guidelines. The lack of clarity prevents the consultants from reaching desirable productivity levels.
Wilson Homes Consultancy Group must provide a written document to new employees showing the policies and procedures guiding their operations in the company. The training manager will conduct basic training on these procedures by going through them with the new hires in their first week. Such policies will include an equal opportunity policy, workplace health and safety, a code of conduct, disciplinary action, complaint policy, and attendance, vacation, and time-off policies. Such policies will provide a foundation for consultants’ rights and responsibilities to know where they stand in the company. In addition, the policies will help employees understand the organization’s expectations based on performance, values, as well as behavior. Thus, the consultants will avoid making mistakes by failing to conform to the company’s guidelines in their activities.
Training on the company’s policies and procedures will utilize roundtable discussions where the trainer and the new consultants go through the policies together. Each will have a copy, but the trainer will have a summarized copy to highlight what each policy and guideline entails. The training will take one week after the consultant reports to their new positions. After the training, the consultant will have an opportunity to ask questions or seek clarification on any policy or guideline to improve understanding and clarity. The training sessions will be brief and will cover only the basics that will introduce them to the company to avoid boring the consultants. Once the consultants understand their legal position, they will participate effectively in all activities to foster performance.
Clarification
If Wilson Homes Consultancy Group wants to drive commitment to reclaim its competitive advantage against competitors, it must ensure the consultants understand the details and context of their job. Consultants must understand their roles and responsibilities, procedures to accomplish specific tasks, and internal controls influencing their responsibilities. According to Pike (2014), knowing what to expect and what is expected from individuals improves their comfort and motivation toward productivity. It is a form of organizational socialization that drives more commitment as individuals will feel that they fit into the organization. Currently, the new consultants are struggling to understand the corporate culture, consulting techniques, and performance expectations from the company. Thus, they seek to learn through trial and error and observation, considering that even the manager lacks adequate understanding of the company’s processes and systems.
The training will take place for the first two weeks of orientation. It will involve one-on-one training in different contexts. First, the training manager will review the roles and responsibilities of the new consultants. He will provide the job description copy and explain each responsibility effectively. They will review the functions, competencies, as well as expectations when working in the department. The consultants will seek clarity on any unclear role to ensure they understand their scope of operation. Second, the new hires will receive significant department information, such as department structure, department operations, mission, and strategic plan. In addition, they will participate in a tour to know the building and its amenities that will facilitate their performance and stay. Third, the new hires will learn about communication and phone contacts relevant to their work. They include a list of key contacts in the department and company, meeting up with the department head and other employees, introducing them to the department, demonstrating how to use the telephones and telephone etiquette, using an online directory, and introducing them to key resource people like the IT technician, human resource, and company CEO.
Culture
Integrating the new consultants into the company’s culture is critical to give them a feel of the environment and its supportive role in their performance. The training and recruitment managers will train the new hires on the company’s norms through participatory meetings for the consultants to have a direct engagement with relevant leaders and ask questions that relate to the company’s culture. The training will provide an opportunity for the new consultants to determine whether they are proud of the culture and working environment. If the culture informs their career goals, the consultants will work effectively. If not, they will learn to adjust and use the positive aspects while seeking to participate in the change process to improve the work environment. For example, Joseph and Sridevi (2015) explained that the organizational culture should be welcoming to get the new hires acclimatized to the environment to encourage commitment and engagement in the future. Thus, the hiring manager will be required to be welcoming the new hires on their reporting date, debrief them on the meetings, training, and assignments for the day, and introduce them to their work environment. The approach will ensure that employees feel welcome in a supportive environment.
Connection
The connection phase will start from the first day the new consultants report to work for up to six months. It will be an ongoing process to ensure that they integrate into the company and work in teams successfully. Bell (2021) argued that improving employer-employee relationships is significant in preventing organizational failure by fostering performance, productivity, and engagement. Socializing with other employees will help the newly hired consultants network and achieve a sense of group identity and well as belonging. The new consultants will have networking opportunities to meet new people who will be relevant to their professional development and performance. The hiring manager and department manager will be coordinating welcoming activities for the new consultants, such as getting them a cup of coffee, giving them a tour of the company, scheduling meetings with colleagues, and having lunch plans for the first day. To foster connection effectively, the department manager will provide a buddy to help the new consultants reduce uncertainty by answering immediate and routine questions.
The department manager will foster relationships with new consultants by playing specific roles. First, he will clarify why, when, and how the consultant should deliver results using examples to foster understanding. Second, he should explain the first assignment to the consultant, providing an example of a successful assignment and a template to act as a guide. The manager will also share communication preferences to clarify the best way to communicate effectively. In addition, the manager must seek to know the best communication method the consultant would prefer to find a neutral ground in case their preferences differ.
Fostering relationship building is also critical through different activities. The department will allow for tea, and lunchtime breaks to provide opportunities for informal talks between the old and new consultants. In addition, most activities will require teamwork to ensure a collaborative approach to achieving the department’s goals. Finally, supervisory functions will occur regularly, where the manager routinely evaluates the consultants to determine their performance. These activities will build a relationship between the new consultants and the department to provide a supportive environment, foster satisfaction, and, consequently, desirable performance (Bauer & Erdogan, n.d.).
Specific Methods and Persons Responsible
Persons Responsible
The onboarding process will be successful if the new consultants, hiring and training managers, existing employees, and department managers collaborate. Their responsibilities will cut across the four elements until the new consultants have the ability to work independently. The hiring and training managers will engage the new consultants to ensure their successful integration during the first year. The manager will establish regular communication, provide supporting tools and resources, provide training on tasks, norms, and proficiency, and connect the consultant with information, resources, and other consultants in the company. The two managers are the main persons responsible for the program and should ensure its effective implementation.
The new consultant will also play a responsibility by showing up and participating in the onboarding initiatives effectively. During the onboarding process, the consultant will ensure that all the items provided in the onboarding checklist have been addressed (University of South Florida, n.d.). They will attend all training activities to foster successful integration. Existing employees will also play a role in social integration to help the new consultants in building connections.
Specific Methods
The hiring and training managers will use round table discussions, face-to-face training, powerpoint presentations, touring the company, and department engagement activities to integrate the new consultants. Roundtable discussions will provide a forum for a two-way discussion. Training and presentations will provide learning resources for the new hires. Touring the company, especially on the first day, will familiarize the new consultants with their new working environment. Collective activities in the department will create social connections the new consultants require to learn processes and functions effectively.
Evaluation Plan
The onboarding team will conduct a survey after one year to determine the success or failure of the onboarding program. The survey will target the new consultants who have participated in the program to determine how it influenced their integration and performance. The results will determine how to improve the program or terminate it and adopt a better approach. Specific outcomes to be measured include personal experience on the first day on the job, employee satisfaction with the position and company’s culture, social integration, and training effectiveness in understanding their roles and company policies.
An onboarding questionnaire tool will be developed to cover questions seeking to measure the identified outcomes. Newly hired and trained consultants will fill out the questionnaire by the end of the first year of employment. The questionnaire will have four parts. The first part will focus on their experience before arrival. The second part will determine their experience on the first day of reporting to their new position. The third part will explore their experience in the first three months on the job while the last section will assess their professional experience in the company during the first six months. The consultants will be expected to answer the questions with honesty to identify possible gaps that the company may address in the future onboarding process. Evaluating the program in phases is critical to determine progressive improvement. Baker and DiPiro (2019) argued that new employees gain experience in a new position gradually, citing the first 90 days as critical in fostering efficiency, confidence, and commitment to the company. Thus, the questionnaire will focus on these critical months and extend to three more months to collect more data on the program’s effectiveness.
Cost Estimates
Determining the cost estimates for developing and implementing the onboarding program depends on multiple factors. The following are the onboarding costs and expenses. The hours spent on administrative work are approximately $400. Loss of productivity during the onboarding program is about $30,000 per month and extends until the period when the new hire meets the expected performance. Workspace setup will cost $1,000. The welcome kit will cost $100. Consultant training and support will cost $1,500. Resources will cost $1,000. In total, the program will cost the company approximately $34,000.
Will the program be worth implementing? The following section will determine the costs the company is incurring due to high turnover rates among its consultants. The annual salary for new hires is $90,000. The average number of days the company takes to fill the position is 30 days. The salary for the hiring manager is $110,000. Hours spent in screening resumes are 48, while conducting interviews takes 24 hours. The cost of advertising new positions is $10,000, background checks cost $1,000 each, and the loss of productivity is $100,000. Managers take 30 days to train new hires. Based on the cost of the turnover calculator, the cost the company is incurring is $135,243.
The company would be saving over $100,000 if it were to implement the onboarding program effectively.
Conclusion
The proposal describes the approach Wilson Homes Consultancy Group should take to design, implement, and evaluate its onboarding program. It relied heavily on the past experiences that the hiring and training managers have experienced with new consultants due to a lack of support from the organization and department. Additionally, it employed Lorraine et al. (2021) argument that onboarding facilitates on-the-job learning, which is highly effective in transitioning new employees to foster satisfaction and performance and reduce turnover rates. However, the company must ensure the following to foster success. First, it must provide adequate resources to train the new consultants effectively. Second, it must streamline its current practices through policy development to ensure all relevant support services like IT, HR, and communications are operating effectively. Third, the onboarding program must begin on the first day the newly hired consultants report to their work to integrate them from the first day. Finally, the program would continue for one year to foster follow-up and identify challenges that the new employees may continue experiencing.
References
Baker, B. & DiPiro, J. (2019). Evaluation of a structured onboarding process and tool for faculty members in a school of pharmacy. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 83(6), 7100. DOI: 10.5688/ajpe7100
Bauer, T. (n.d). Onboarding new employees: Maximizing success. SHRM Foundation. https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/trends-and-forecasting/special-reports-and-expert-views/documents/onboarding-new-employees.pdf
Bauer, T. (2015). Onboarding: The power of connection. Research. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.4980.6163
Bauer, T. & Erdogan, B. (n.d.). Organizational socialization: the effective onboarding of new employees. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Berrin-Erdogan/publication/285000696_Organizational_socialization_The_effective_onboarding_of_new_employees/links/565f2e9b08aefe619b28561a/Organizational-socialization-The-effective-onboarding-of-new-employees.pdf
Bell, T. (2021). Onboarding: Improving Employer and Employee Relations. Certified Public Manager Applied Research, 2(1). https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/cpmar/vol2/iss1/1
Joseph, D. & Sridevi, S. (2015). Effective onboarding as a talent management tool for employee retention. International Journal in Management and Social Science, 3(7). https://www.academia.edu/38654780/Effective_Onboarding_As_A_Talent_Management_Tool_For_Employee_Retention
Lorraine, A. et al. (2021). Emerging practices in onboarding programs for PAs: Strategies for onboarding. JAAPA 34(1), 32-38. DOI: 10.1097/01.JAA.0000723932.21395.74.
Pike, K. (2014). New Employee Onboarding Programs and Person-Organization Fit: An Examination of Socialization Tactics. Seminar Research Paper Series. https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/lrc_paper_series/24
The cost of turnover calculator. Minimizing the high cost of employee turnover. https://www.adeccousa.com/employers/resources/cost-of-turnover-calculator/
University of South Florida (n.d). Onboarding Guide for Managers. https://www.usf.edu/hr/documents/employment-resources/hiring/manage-onboarding.pdf
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