Learn how effective employee onboarding can boost new hire productivity by over 60% and reduce turnover by nearly 50%. Get expert insights and implement four actionable strategies that include preboarding, manager involvement, buddy systems, and success measurement.
Watch the video recording of this Keynote here on YouTube.
Check out JR Keller's Onboarding and Employee Success Cornell Course
Onboarding has a significant impact on the employee experience, with research showing it can boost new hire productivity by over 60% and decrease turnover likelihood by nearly 50%.
In this Cornell Keynote, JR Keller, Associate Professor of Human Resource Studies at Cornell ILR School, and Beth Flynn-Ferry, Executive Director of the Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies, share insights into how effective onboarding enhances job satisfaction, confidence, organizational commitment, and employee well-being.
Drawing on decades of academic research and real-world expertise, they will present four actionable tips to improve onboarding programs, equipping leaders to drive engagement, retention, and overall team success.
What You'll Learn
Effective Interviewing Cornell Course https://tinyurl.com/2brlxtfx
The Center for Advanced HR Studies (CAHRS) https://www.ilr.cornell.edu/cahrs
Chris Wofford: [00:00:00] On today's episode of Cornell Keynotes, we are exploring onboarding as a critical talent strategy, and we learn that it's not just about orientation checklists, but it's also about setting up new hires for long-term success and engagement. Now these days, competition for talent is super intense and retention is forever a challenge.
So now the opportunity for organization lies in transforming onboarding from an HR administrative function into a manager-owned process that drives actual business results.
Our guest host Beth Flynn Ferry, who is executive director of Cornell's Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies interviews associate professor and friend of the show, Jr Keller from Cornell's ILR School, where his research focuses on talent management and also organizational behavior.
JR is a faculty contributor to multiple programs on onboarding, which are [00:01:00] available through eCornell. And he brings compelling research back to insights to how to do onboarding the right way. JR's research reveals the surprising gaps between what most organizations do and what actually works. Did you know that strategic onboarding can boost new hire productivity by over 60% and decreased turnover likelihood by nearly 50%?
JR and Beth tackle the following onboarding challenges. How can simple pre-boarding investments prevent new hire ghosting? What specific first day elements signal to employees whether an organization will actually invest in their success, and how do we shift ownership from hr? To hiring managers while maintaining consistency.
There's something here for any HR leader, a manager, or an executive who's looking to turn onboarding into a competitive advantage that actually drives retention and accelerates productivity. So if you're interested in learning more about jr's online courses on onboarding, which are available through [00:02:00] eCornell, be sure to check the episode notes for more details.
And now here's Beth Flynn Ferry's conversation with JR Keller.
Elizabeth Mannix: So, JR, it struck me when we were preparing for this today that you mentioned that many organizations miss the mark on onboarding. They think it's an HR function and that HR should own it when the real impact comes from hiring managers who should maybe take ownership of that. I'm excited to hear more about your research and explore some of the actionable strategies that our participants can take action on later. So welcome to the show, JR.
JR Keller: Thanks for having me.
Elizabeth Mannix: Great. Well let's start with a few questions. You know, we mentioned research and the research on onboarding reveals some pretty startling statistics. If what I've read is accurate, effective onboarding process can boost productivity by 60% and reduce turnover by 50%. Are those numbers real?
JR Keller: Yeah, those are real accurate. A hundred percent accurate numbers. I'll give you another one. There was a recent Gallup [00:03:00] study that found that 70% of employees who said they had an exceptional onboarding experience said they were in the best possible job for them.
Beth Flynn-Ferry: Wow.
JR Keller: Which is kind of crazy.
And then there's also the 50 to 75 years of academic research on onboarding, which sometimes we refer to as employee socialization. Which shows that a positive onboarding experience leads workers to feel more confident about their ability to do the job, have higher levels of job satisfaction. Higher levels of organizational commitment, are more likely to engage in what we call organizational citizenship behaviors.
More likely to go sort of outta their way to help their colleagues. And believe it or not, positive onboarding experiences lead to increases in physical and mental health.
Elizabeth Mannix: Well, those are all good statistics for organizations to think about. You know, why is it that effective onboarding can really drive those dramatic improvements?
JR Keller: Yeah, it's really great. Kind of think about how it [00:04:00] works, and I would think thAT&There's, there's kinda like three underlying mechanisms, if you will. And, so first is that onboarding can drive all these outcomes by providing role clarity. What do I mean by that? It's really understanding whAT&The job is and sort of whAT&The bounds and expectations of the job that you have are.
So if you think about starting a new job, whether it's a new job in your company or a new job at another organization, you have like a vague idea of what you're actually gonna do in that role, until you actually start. And, and getting real clarity around that early on can be super helpful. the other thing is right, all jobs require a certain set of tasks and knowledge, skills, and abilities.
And sort of being able to get up to speed. So getting some task mastery early on in that job so that you feel confident and build some early wins is really important. So task mastery is the second and the third and often underappreciated part of onboarding is building social [00:05:00] connections, right? So part of that is so that you have, you know, the people to go to, to be able to do your job and ask job related questions.
But also so that you can build a network for social and emotional support. So who to go to if you're struggling or wondering sort of how you should handle a particular situation. So role clarity, task mastery, social support. Those are the three sort of underlying mechanisms that. That make onboarding so important.
Elizabeth Mannix: Yeah. Most people think of onboarding as the process that starts on someone's first day on the job. But I know I've talked to a lot of cars, companies and they've been talking more about pre-boarding. What is that?
JR Keller: Um, it's a super clever term. Um, that's sort of entered into the HR jargon.
And what it refers to is the time between when a candidate accepts an offer and then when they actually start that job. And, you know, that can vary a ton. So for any alums we have out there who have gone through the Cornell recruiting experience, know that, that's for a lot of our students that's happening right now.
So we'll have a lot of students [00:06:00] graduating seniors who will get job offers that they will accept in late September or early October and won't start right until almost a year later. More often, right? Somebody you might, somebody might accept a job and then they'll start a month later or two weeks later, right?
So it's generally not as extreme. And that might not seem like a big window that really matters. But it's plenty from an organizational perspective, it's plenty of time. For an employee to have second thoughts about accepting that job to maybe have gotten an interview or even an offer from another employer, or just to change their minds and essentially ghost you even though they've accepted a job.
Elizabeth Mannix: Yeah, and I think we hear about that more and more so. And how much of an investment does a company have to make to do pre-boarding right?
JR Keller: Well, that's the really nice thing is that it doesn't require a huge investment. And it's worth thinking about, like why, why pre-boarding matters. Or what you want to accomplish when you're pre-boarding.
And I think of it as like [00:07:00] these activities falling into two buckets. So one is just showing some love, right? So reminding candidates that you're really excited that they accepted the offer. You're excited for them to start, and that you really wanna welcome them into the team and the organization.
And so that doesn't take a lot. So that's maybe a phone call, an email, a check-in from the hiring manager, maybe a future colleague. It's sending maybe a swag box with some branded socks or a t-shirt or a water bottle. You know, I'm a big fan of sending like a really nice hoodie or a sweatshirt where they wear around.
And so their friends are always asking them about when they're gonna start, why they're wearing that. So they already feel like they're an ambassador for the company, even if they haven't gotten a paycheck yet. But I think the other piece is it's more informational. if you think about all the first day jitters that you might have before you start things about like, where do I actually, where do I park?
Like assuming you're going to the office, where do I park? What time do I get there? What do I actually wear? Right? [00:08:00] What is that first week, first day and first week gonna look like? And so anything information that you can send to help reduce that sort of pre-first day anxiety, which again, phone call, email, super quick check-in.
Not expensive. Really easy to do.
Elizabeth Mannix: Yeah. And shows you care, uh, about that person starting and haven't kind of written 'em off early. So.
JR Keller: Yes, exactly.
Elizabeth Mannix: That's good. So even if you've done a really good job, um, staying in contact with the new hire before they start, feels like that first date is still really, really important.
Is that the case?
JR Keller: Oh yeah, the first day pre-boarding matters. First day matters even more, right? First day is
Elizabeth Mannix: you got some numbers?
JR Keller: Maybe the most of I, of course I have some numbers, so check these out. So, 60% of employees report that their impression of their organization. Has not changed from their first day.
Right, so that first day is sort of setting the tone for how they feel about the company. 44% of employees report having some second thoughts or [00:09:00] regrets about accepting a job during that first week.
Elizabeth Mannix: That's high.
JR Keller: You wanna hear one more? 23% of employees report having cried at some point during their first week on a new job.
That's terrible.
Elizabeth Mannix: That is awful.
JR Keller: And it's really, that's not all about the onboarding process, right? But what it does say is that what happens on that first week, during that first week, but especially on that first day, is really sticky and in part because it sends a real clear signal about how much you've thought about planned and care about that employee.
And so if you can send a lot of love and, and positive vibes that first day, it suggests they really care about me as an employee. And if you don't, then that sends the opposite signal, right? So it's really easy to screw that up.
Elizabeth Mannix: Right. So list out for us what is important to get right that first day.
JR Keller: Okay, so I put together a little checklist, mark these down three things that you gotta get right on the first day. So the first is that you have to meet [00:10:00] that person first thing on that first day. And that it really should be the hiring manager or the, like the manager that they're gonna report to. If not, it could be the onboarding buddy. So that's number one is meeting, first thing on the first day.
Number two is making sure they have all the stuff right. And that's gonna vary from company to company and job to job. But you know, if you need a badge that that badge is ready. If you need a computer, obviously most people need some sort of technology to do their job, that that's ready and that's also loaded up with all the software that they need and all the permissions and all the logins and all that sort of stuff.
So the basic stuff needs to get ready. Um, right. 'cause you can imagine like, what's the signal if they can't even get my computer ready for that first day? You know,
Elizabeth Mannix: how important am I?
JR Keller: How much, how important am I? Right? And then the last is the, a meeting at the very end of the day with the hiring manager to debrief and then set up what the rest of that week is gonna look like.
Okay.
Elizabeth Mannix: And is [00:11:00] there a company case study on this?
JR Keller: Oh yeah. So there's a great example. So Google actually did a big study where they wanted to understand how to improve the onboarding experience.
They ran a bunch of experiments, they did all this fancy stuff, and it turns out the major insight from this months long study was it really, manager uh, really matters that managers meet their new hires on the first day. So the one hand you might be like. Some managers weren't. And yeah, the answer is yes, a huge percentage of managers were.
And you know, people might travel like various reasons that that happened. But the impact of this was wild, right? So, for those employees whose managers met with them on the first day. Sat down with them, talked about their expectations for the role, and then set up a series of regular check-ins.
Over their first 90 days, those employees got up to speed a month faster.
Elizabeth Mannix: Wow.
JR Keller: In that role.
Elizabeth Mannix: Wow.
JR Keller: That's a really dramatic improvement.
Elizabeth Mannix: Yeah. And that's real money to companies too.
JR Keller: Yeah.
Elizabeth Mannix: So, I've [00:12:00] heard this term, onboarding buddy. Talk a little bit about that.
JR Keller: Yeah, so this, I love this term.
It was popularized by Microsoft several years ago. But the basic idea is that every new hire needs somebody to show them the ropes and that they can go to with questions. Right, and so that's ideally sort of a colleague, somebody on their team, somebody that has some experience with the role that this person's being hired into, and that's somebody to take them on an office tour, show them where the cafeteria is, show them where the bathrooms are.
Introduce them to really important people that they should know. But also, so they, they have like a dedicated person to ask questions. So who's my first point of contact and who I, who can I ask the, like, dumb questions? 'Cause you're always thinking about managing your impressions, right?
So you kind of want the sounding board that you can have. And also, you know, there are instances where people get hired into a new team and there's like a little bit of resistance to the newcomer. [00:13:00] And so an onboarding buddy can be a really important sort of like a fullback, right? And sort of blocking through that resistance and kind of creating acceptance.
Elizabeth Mannix: Good. Well, how do you select the right buddy?
JR Keller: So ideally it's somebody who wants to do that. So somebody who volunteers. So you're not assigning somebody
Elizabeth Mannix: Voluntold.
JR Keller: Yeah, because you don't wanna be voluntold. Ideally you want somebody who has either done this similar role or understands it really well.
Ideally somebody who's a pretty good performer, right? Because you don't want your worst performer to be telling 'em to do all the things that they did, right? Because that's not likely, it's likely to set 'em up for success. So top performer. And then you really want to make sure that that is more than just, this is your onboarding buddy, but that the onboarding buddy sort of sets up regular check-ins.
So the same, you know, you know, Microsoft popularized this and they publish this in a HBR article called Why Everybody Should Have an Onboarding Buddy. So I'd encourage everybody to read that. But there's some really great statistics [00:14:00] from this, which is that over half the people who met with their onboarding buddy during that first week said that they got up to speed more quickly in their job.
So that's just meeting once.
Elizabeth Mannix: Once
JR Keller: with an onboarding buddy. Right When they met two to three times 73%. People got up to speed quickly and when they met eight or more times. Seems like a lot, but think about over 90 days. Right. 97% of people said that up to speed more quickly.
Elizabeth Mannix: Wow. That's amazing.
JR Keller: That's super impactful. And that's what, four hours of time?
Elizabeth Mannix: Yep. Good things to think about. So, um, we mentioned this earlier, but about who owns the onboarding process. A lot of people think HR own the process, but could it be the hiring manager or some other entity in the company?
JR Keller: So this is a, it's a great question about who owns this, and it's probably the question that I get the most from companies when I'm talking about this. So I think there's, there's two answers to this. I'll try to be clear, but there's kind of two answers. So there's one which is like, [00:15:00] who owns the design of the onboarding process?
Like who should think about what needs to be done? Right. And that really is hr. So that is where ideally you have experts in this area who really understand the research and the best practices and are talking to other companies about what they're doing. And so understanding. The pre-boarding matters, the first day matters, and thinking about sort of what that looks like from a process point of view.
Collecting data on the effectiveness that needs to be owned sort of more centrally in the organization by hr. But then if you think about actually who does the onboarding, right. Who's interfacing with the new hire? It's the, it's the manager. It's their manager. And so they are ultimately accountable and responsible for making onboarding work.
So we talked about finding an onboarding buddy. So it should be the manager who is figuring out and sort of talking about who should that onboarding buddy be. They should be the one following up with that onboarding buddy to make sure that they're setting up regular [00:16:00] check-ins, right. And so really like I cannot understate how important it is for managers to buy in and really they're the ones who are delivering and ultimately responsible for the process,
Elizabeth Mannix: right?
So HR owns the process and the design, but the hiring manager who is gonna be the benefiting from this the most really owns driving that through to completion. Okay. How long should a, a comprehensive onboarding program last? Like, how does that scale out over time?
JR Keller: Okay. Want some more numbers?
Elizabeth Mannix: Yeah.
JR Keller: Love the numbers.
Elizabeth Mannix: Love your numbers.
JR Keller: Okay, so before I tell you, I think what it should be, lemme tell you what it is, at lots of organizations, so there is no great clearing house of onboarding best p of onboarding practices, right? Because organizations don't all publicize this stuff in one central warehouse. But there are sort of scattershot surveys of this around. There's one survey that I found where 60% of employees said their onboarding lasted one day or less. Right. About 40% of employees, or sorry, about 60% of employees in a [00:17:00] different survey said that their process ended within the first week,
Elizabeth Mannix: week,
JR Keller: right. And, and those two numbers, right?
Probably count for the fact by only 33% of people say that their onboarding really set them up for success in their job and feel really good right after their first three months of their role. So what does that mean in terms of what you should do? So there should be a couple of touch points. So I'll kind of list through these.
I think it's six. We'll see if I get to that right number. So we talked about pre-boarding, right? So that pre-boarding process matters. So from the time somebody accepts a job to when they start , one window. First day we talked about how much that matters.
Elizabeth Mannix: Super important.
JR Keller: So that first day is super important and has to be emphasized.
The really, the whole first week should be thought of as an entity as well. And then you can sort of, you walk out a little bit farther, but there should be a plan for like at 30 days. What do you wanna have accomplished and what needs to be done during the first 30 days, then 60 days, and then 90 days.
[00:18:00] And really kind of that 90 days is the sweet spot where , if you've done this well, people should be transitioning from an outsider to an insider, and then you can kind of let them go on their own a little bit.
Elizabeth Mannix: Okay. Okay. Good. Um, we do have an audience question and Maya asks, is an onboarding buddy the same as a mentor?
And maybe you could just talk about mentorship in this onboarding context too.
JR Keller: Yeah, Maya, it's a, it's a terrific question. I think of them as different. A mentor is different from an onboarding buddy. So an onboarding buddy, it's really about onboarding, right?
So it's really about easing that transition into a new role. So again, that's making these strategic connections. It's giving them the information they need to really do their job well. So it's really about easing you into this particular job.
You know, when I think of a mentor. Or what organizations wanna do with mentors, right.
It's a much longer sort of career development piece. It's somebody to go to advice about the next job and how to think about the future. So that could be the same [00:19:00] person, but I'd really encourage an onboarding buddy. And then assigning a mentor is thinking more longer term. That's somebody different,
Elizabeth Mannix: well, I think a buddy is more peer-like. Probably doing a similar role in the organization so they can help you with that ins and outs and a mentors tend to be a little bit higher up in that organization who can kind of coach and or advise.
I think as well,
JR Keller: that's actually just, that's the much better answer.
Elizabeth Mannix: So back to the onboarding though. What metrics should organizations track to determine if their programs are working? And then are there any leading indicators that can predict long-term success?
JR Keller: This is where I see organizations who really care about onboarding now, spending a lot of their time, right. Really thinking about, okay, we have a process in place. Is it working? Is it driving tangible results? Ones that have like a clear ROI for the organization? And sort of the metrics fall into two big buckets. So there's one [00:20:00] bucket, which is really, for better or for worse, it's just like, are we doing what we're supposed to be doing?
Right? So before you can measure the effectiveness of this really cool onboarding program you developed, you have to know if, if managers are actually following it. Right? So are first day meetings happening? Do people have technology? Are they getting introductions to who they need to? And so way to measure that is through really quick pulse surveys.
So you can think about a survey that happens at the end of the first day, end of the first week, end of the 30 days. Right. Kind of all those touch points we talked about. And you could imagine, you know, quick two or three question survey that goes out to the employee, also to the hiring manager if you do have onboarding buddies to those onboarding buddies.
So it's basically like, are we following, are we doing what we wanna do in the organization? So that's kind of easy. But if you're really thinking about what you really asked about was the effectiveness. And that's where we want to think about really like the employee experience. And so that's really asking the new hires how they're feeling the first day, first week, but really, really [00:21:00] mostly at that sort of 90 day mark.
Are they, are they equipped to do their job really well? And I think one way to think about it you asked, there was a really nice way to put this, thinking about the leading indicators. 'cause when we think about long-term effectiveness, we want to measure retention, job performance. Are people getting promoted, all those kind of things.
But those are like, they take a long time to collect that data. And so what the research suggests is, as we talked about way at the very beginning, is if people are clear about their roles, if they feel like they have some mastery over the skills they need to do their job and they have a social support system, then they're gonna be really effective.
And so asking, you know, two or three questions about role clarity, do you understand your role? Do you understand where you have decision making authority? Do you feel you have the information you need to do your job? And have you met the people you need to do your job well? Do you have a social support system?
You know, asking a short survey on those? If you get really high results on those, you can be pretty confident that employees are gonna [00:22:00] perform well at their job.
Elizabeth Mannix: And we do have a few more questions from the audience. So Mark asks, would you advise a new hire working on an onboarding document like 30, 60, 90 milestone checklist with their manager. Think so, right?
JR Keller: Yes. Yeah. And ideally what really should happen is that at least a very, good template of that document should be the manager should have been working on that ahead of time, and have that ready to review with the new hire, really on day one.
And then revisiting that over the course of those 90, 90 days so that it's part of that setting the expectations.
Elizabeth Mannix: Yeah. And here's one from Jamie asking how can we make the required pre-boarding activities more of a priority for new hires? So the I -9, the signing the policies and acknowledgements, providing personal information.
Any thoughts there?
JR Keller: Okay. So this is a little bit of a tricky question to answer. And it's a, it's a great question. [00:23:00] So here's why I say that it's tricky. , All the paperwork stuff you can actually have people do in advance . You have to be really thoughtful about asking people to actually do work before you're paying them for work.
So there is this like sort of legal gray area, which I don't think I understand quite enough to give you super concrete advice on. But generally, you're allowed to ask people to fill out paperwork ahead of time to get them up, up and running. And if you can't do that and you need to do that on the first day, build in time, but let them know that that gonna be a big part of that first day.
Elizabeth Mannix: Mm-hmm. Okay. Kelly asked, have you seen companies evaluate the effectiveness of their onboarding process?
JR Keller: Yeah. And so this is where it's been great to be here at Cornell, where we have all of our corporate partners through CAHRS.
So, HP is a company with a great example of this. They're probably the case study I use the most when I, I teach about in class. You know, there are two ways that i've seen companies do this. And so [00:24:00] one is where you sort of look at what are the outcomes that you care about.
So employee performance, retention. Ratings and retention are pretty easy ones that most companies have data on. So if you don't have any onboarding program in place, you look at what that's been for the past year. You start a program, you look at those for the next year and you compare the two.
And that can be a clear indicator. For other organizations who might have something in place but want to sort of test different things. Kind of like Microsoft and Google have done. It's when you have like a big organization, you can do a similar thing where you tweak one piece of the process and see how that changed.
Either employee survey, new hire survey scores. Or these similar outcomes. And then you get at, that's really helpful to think about, like this particular change really matters. Rather than sort of doing a whole new piece. That makes sense.
Elizabeth Mannix: Yep. Okay. A few more questions here coming in.
Thank you audience. Um, Kate asks, do you suggest any systems for best tracking and progress of [00:25:00] pre-boarding to ensure the new hire is set up and prepared for the first day? I gotta imagine Workday has modules like this.
JR Keller: Yeah. So often if you, especially in a larger company or have sort of an human resource information system like Workday and others. Ideally I think there's experimenting with those or other third party vendors who will have plugins. I mean, this is where, if we want to think about sort of where technology is going, right? How technology can help with onboarding in general. It's a great question 'cause it's really around, like a lot of it is once you get it set up, it's the logistics, right?
So it's pinging the manager to remind them a week before the start date that have they submitted the request to IT to have all the stuff done. You know, sending out these surveys So that somebody doesn't have to sort of sit and remember to do this. So kind of programming all this in the back end so that all the reminders go out, the data gets collected.
So Workday, other systems like that.
Elizabeth Mannix: Yeah, I think, I know, I've heard IBM has some nudging they do through [00:26:00] their, their online things too. So I think there are definitely things out there. Paul asks, is the Michael Watkins book, the First 90 Days still a top resource for best Practices in Onboarding?
It's interesting in my last company, I was responsible for, you know, the sales area there, and we put a whole program in focused on that first 90 days, which had a lot, it's very intense, and has a lot of individual coaching. But it was, it was pretty effective. I don't know what you're hearing now.
JR Keller: So that is still kind of the bible of onboarding. But I will note that that book, as awesome as it is, is really focused on executives. It's primarily on leaders because it's asking you to do a lot in terms of sort of individual one-on-ones and strategic meetings. And so while I think that is kind of like, if you could do that for everybody, then go for it.
So the ideas behind that playbook, kind of informs onboarding in general. It's often not scalable across an entire organization.
Elizabeth Mannix: Yeah. I do [00:27:00] think it's very time intensive too, so, yeah. And then, um, Jessica asks do you have any tips on empowering managers to actually drive that onboarding process?
JR Keller: Well, I think one I mentioned a little bit ago, which is it makes it easier for ma, the easier you can make it for managers, the better. Right? So whether it's you have a repository or sending them these nudges, it means that you're like, you're doing as close to automating it for them so they don't wonder what they have to do. You know, another thing some companies have experimented with are sort of rewarding managers for having really great scores or going through this. So whether that's, you have like an internal system where you can send points or gift cards or little things like that. So to acknowledge, part of that's just acknowledging managers so that it often feels like managers who in general sort of develop people are the kind of managers you want to have in the company, but we don't have systematic ways to reward it. And so just showing them that you recognize that they're doing this can be really [00:28:00] helpful.
Elizabeth Mannix: How has the shift to remote and hybrid work practices really changed onboarding, and what additional considerations do leaders need to keep in mind as a result of that?
JR Keller: Well, in a lot of ways onboarding's the same, right? You have the same kind of goals.
The same leading indicators of success. But I think the actual execution of the onboarding requires maybe a little more thought or a little finesse in a couple different ways. You know, one is kind of the basic, like we talked about, having the technology ready. So somebody's remote and they need technology, like you have to get them that stuff ahead of time with really clear instructions on how to set it up. It matters even more that they have the right logins and permissions and all of that stuff, so that communication in advance. So kinda that pre-boarding in some ways matters even more. You know, I think about employees who are working remote or are hybrid on their first day, and they're getting up at seven in the morning and they're nervous but excited, and so they're riding the [00:29:00] Peloton or they're doing something to get the nerves out, but they're also drinking nine cups of coffee, and so they're all amped up and then you sit in front of your computer and what the hell do you do?
And you don't want that, you don't want them to have that experience and so having that very first meeting set up on that first day, so there's someone there to greet them and sort of have that zoom or teams call, whatever it might be. Then the other thing is like if you're in an office and somebody new stops in, people just stop by right, to say hi. And that's harder to do. And so encouraging colleagues to pre-set up time on the new hire's calendar. So also they, they don't feel like they have to do that 'cause they don't know the norms about setting up times becomes really important. So I think really kind of thinking about that social aspect and those connections, that's really the biggest thing.
Elizabeth Mannix: Okay. For managers or HR folks who need to kind of justify the investment in onboarding, what's the clearest way to talk about the business case and the ROI.
JR Keller: Well, you send 'em a link to this keynote or the podcast we're gonna make out of it, [00:30:00] and that's, then you're good. But, but more seriously.
If you really want to calculate an ROI on what you want to do in your organization, it does require time, right? Because you're looking at things like retention and performance ratings. And promotions that often happen at the earliest six months a year, even farther down the road.
And so part of it, I think, is to point to what other organizations have shown. Right. We talked about if you can show the other or you know, data from other organizations, it shows that people get up to speed 50 to 60% faster, that turnover I don't know if it's always gonna reduce it by half at all organizations, but just that it's likely to reduce, especially early turnover, which is super problematic in organizations.
That's gonna be enough because the investments are not that substantial. Right. And part of what you're asking your leaders to do is probably to I think is to drive accountability down the organization. We had a couple questions about how to get managers to buy in. You get managers to buy in when the executive team says, this is really freaking important, [00:31:00] so make sure that you're doing it.
Chris Wofford: Thank you for listening to Cornell Keynotes again. If you are interested in learning more about jr's Onboarding and Employee Success course from Ecor, be sure to check the episode notes for details. I want to thank you for listening and please subscribe to stay connected with Cornell Keynotes.