I've been working on an overhaul of Sun's new hire onboarding process since I came to work here. Along with getting myself up to speed on how Sun works, I also have had an opportunity to meet and greet many people that work here. That process has been invaluable for me as a new employee, and as someone who sees a need to change how we do what we do.
There is a vision for innovation being broadcasted from almost every corner of the company. I see a real "startup" mentality here, and it is quite refreshing. Still there seem to be barriers to innovation that exist, and it takes a concerted effort to try and break those barriers down.
The only way to succeed in that respect is to not be afraid to challenge others, challenge yourself, and question everything. Coming from over 10 years as an independent consultant, I personally find it easy to question the status quo at every level. The only way Sun will survive as a technology company that matters is to empower its people to question everything.
Being on the New Hire project, I have been able to take a look at what other companies are doing to make their workplace attractive to potential new employees, as well as how companies are keeping their existing employees happy.
Last week I attended a webinar about Harley-Davidson's recent onboarding process overhaul. There were some interesting perspectives from a company such as Harley (I must disclose that I own a Harley--and it's loud!).
A few of the things that the Harley execs talked about are also concerns at Sun:
- Employees need to learn more in less time.
- We live in a technology-enabled world, and need to rapidly adapt our learning products to appropriately serve those audiences that expect technology-based learning interventions.
- We need to recognize mobile audiences, and deliver appropriate interventions based on the mobility of our workforce.
These ideas from the Harley crowd made me think of various ways we need to adapt our learning products to fit the needs of our audiences:
- More interactive self-paced learning (eLearning).
- Classroom learning designed for more collaboration and participation (this includes re-designing how classrooms are designed).
- Coaching.
- Learning games (real games -- Harley demonstrated what they called a learning game... news to Harley: it was not a learning game).
- Authentic Activities and Storytelling.
- Mobile learning (mGbl=mobile game-based learning, and mLearning=mobile learning).
- IM (instant message). I've conducted many "informal" learning sessions via IM.
- On the job. This includes performance support systems, live mentoring, and peer review.
- Video. In my opinion this does not include boring talking heads. This means leveraging video technology to build real and immersive targeted learning.
- Experiential. Basically people learn by doing. We need to find ways to harness how our colleagues are learning through action and capture that for re-use.
Harley-Davidson asked their employees through exit interviews how important onboarding is to them. The majority of respondents said that the first 90 days are the most important time for effective on-boarding.
Harley provided their employees with a printed manual (they call it a service guide - a tongue-in-cheek reference to a motorcycle's technical manual) that complemented a series of online activities and exercises that they had to achieve within 90 days. This process was directly managed by the individual's supervisor.
Harley got buy-in for their onboarding program by:
- Directly involving SMEs across the company
- Convincing executives to serve as stakeholders
- Conducting an active design process for receiving feedback and brainstorming
- Applying the appropriate innovation and technology for the audience
- Incorporating storytelling
- Making the program culturally specific
One observation the Harley people shared was interesting. They discovered that incoming new hires expect to receive information in mechanisms that apply to their generation. For example, Net Geners expect to see eLearning, downloadable job aids, and conversation-enriched websites. Others expected classroom learning and manuals.
In the first 30 days Harley expected the new hire to learn:
- Primary business information
- Information about the company culture
- HR Strategy
- HR Functions
- Tools and Systems
As a debrief, the Harley people created a list of what they would do again if they were starting the onboarding overhaul knowing what they knew at the end:
- Understand the number of required learning interactions (factoids, audio, interviews, elearning) necessary.
- Don't ask new hires to do too many activities.
- Seek stronger support from sponsors.
- Spend more up front time on the content.
- Know your technology capability.
What I've found is that many companies are working hard to make their companies attractive to the best and the brightest out there. Sun is competing vigorously for the best minds to come onboard. We compete with Google, Apple, Cisco, Oracle, Network Appliance, etc. and it's incumbent upon us all to recognize the need to transform how we operate, stress what's unique about our culture, and communicate why someone should want to work here.
