Onboarding to Bring Out the Best in My New Hires

May 29, 2020 | Personnel Management

Hiring the right team member is vital to the success of your organization and your students, and how you welcome and onboard your new hire is a critical component to ensuring their success and retention. Having a solid plan in place for HOW to onboard your new hire is as important as hiring them in the first place.

What can we, as charter school leaders, do to ensure that the people we worked so hard to recruit and hire get the support they need from us? It all starts with the onboarding experience.

The Onboarding Experience

Connect early and personally. Genuinely welcome the addition to your team and invite others to join you in doing that. Implement special greeting practices, like a welcome sign or a cake. Extend introduction opportunities, perhaps at a staff meeting or open house. Nothing makes a person feel more welcome than lots of smiles and hellos from the people who have been there.
Align the messaging. As you would design any event, determine your onboarding goals first. Identify and clarify the impression you want to leave with new hires about your culture and work environment. Ensure your messaging is consistent throughout and that it is aligned with your mission, vision, and values.
Provide a clear training path. Outline for the new employee what they should expect regarding learning what they need to know. Tell them the what, who, when, and where: What will be covered? Who will be responsible for training? When and where will this occur?
Cover the bases. Identify the cold, hard rules outlined in the staff handbook and other formal, written policies that govern your employees. Also address the unspoken rules implicit in the culture of your charter school. If an employee needs to know it, you need to cover it!
Give a tour. Something as simple as knowing where to make copies and get coffee goes a long way! Give a guided tour and point out all the need-to-know areas so your new employee feels comfortable and oriented.
Teach the tech. Each charter school uses their own selection of various technology tools. Commonly, a school has an attendance and grade collection system, an emergency alert system, a class website system, an email system, and more…. Then there are Smart Boards and iPads and gadgets galore. Administrators and other non-teaching roles may require the use of even more specialized systems and equipment. Ensure that your new hire is given plenty of training on utilizing the programs and tools at their disposal, especially those they will be required to use.
Extend the opportunity for questioning. Share how and with whom to ask questions. Remember that your new employee does not know who is who and who does what yet. Provide your new hire with the contact information and the tools they need to solicit assistance. Remember that the first couple of weeks on the job especially can put your new employee in a state of brain-overload. Check back and invite them to ask questions periodically throughout their first 6 months or so of employment, at least monthly.
Use the buddy system. Consider assigning specialized buddies to your new hire. An enculturation partner, someone who has already proven they understand and exhibit your charter’s culture, will be very helpful in getting your new staff on board. Likewise, implementing a mentorship program, especially with new teachers, can prove to be highly valuable. Pair new teachers with a more experienced, seasoned teacher who can ensure that your new hire is on the right track, learning good habits, and improving skills. Social connections make the experience of onboarding more relevant and fun.
Build their buy-in. The sooner you can get your new hire to extend their reach at the school to something beyond their primary, paid role, the sooner you deepen your ties with them. Getting new hires involved in extracurricular involvement, such as clubs, sports, and fundraisers, is a great way to do this.
Support authentic strengths. Allow new employees to use their signature strengths every day from the start. It has been found that if employees have the opportunity to reflect on their strengths and find a way to apply them to their job, new hires get more satisfaction and meaning from their work, which also benefits employers.
Follow up. Check in with your new employee. Solicit their candid, honest feedback. A scheduled 1-on-1 meeting will extend the employee the opportunity to reflect as they prepare for the meeting and then offer their insight to you. Use online surveys and facilitate discussions with participants about ways to improve the onboarding program. Gather retention and job satisfaction data to see if the improvements are having an effect. Really hear what they have to say and take it constructively when applicable.