Sep 5, 2007

So Much For 'Employee Experience'!

Guest Post by R Karthik

I started working in the IT industry only as late as the last quarter of 2006 and it was only after having come here that i got familiar with the phrasology 'Onboarding'-both concept and connotation. I heard of 'employee experience' during the 'onboarding phase' and figured out from the my organizational processes around new employee joining and orientation that this thing called 'onboarding experience' does go a long way in shaping or leading to 'cognitive consonance' or 'dissonance' in the minds of the buyer (the new employee who has chosen to join the organization). But then what i thought i knew now (that is then) was only the tip of the iceberg and an year later i would come to realise there is much more to onboarding than 'joining & orientation'.
I recently read a couple of white papers and articles around the subject, "who's onboarding whom?, comprehensive onboarding, measures of efficiency of your onboarding programme" and i learnt what it is about and what it is not about.
Several myths got shattered and it dawned on me that onboarding is aimed at connecting the new hires to 3 things within the organization.
-purpose
-people
-resources
In essence, the connect is to be established between people to people (other important touchpoints from across different departments for coordination and lateral decision-making), people to purpose (the mission and core objectives of the job for which the new employee has been hired), people to resources (important sources of information, decisions and power centres within).
Having said that, the Human Capital Institute (HCI), the publishing organization also adds in all of these articles that a survey conducted by them points that 60% of new hires form their opinions on whether to stick to the organization or otherwise within first 6 months.
Quite like us, companies too don't get a second chance to make a first impression.
So much for employee experience!

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