Author: jo-anngarbutt

My mind is insatiably curious and I have read and collected several good articles, advice, tools, templates, and lessons along the way. These have helped me at work, with projects, and at home. This is my attempt to share some of that back to others trying to learn more and with the world.

Boost Your Onboarding Game: Survey Your New Hires

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Uncovering the Onboarding Experience: The Power of Feedback

Your onboarding process sets the tone for an employee’s entire tenure. To ensure you’re creating a positive and productive experience, gather insights directly from the source: your new hires. By surveying employees during their initial months, you can identify areas of strength and opportunities for improvement, ultimately enhancing employee satisfaction and retention.

Measuring Onboarding Success Over Time

To gauge the effectiveness of your onboarding process, ongoing feedback is essential. By tracking survey results over time, you can identify trends, measure improvement, and pinpoint areas for further enhancement. Comparing responses across different locations can also highlight regional variations and inform targeted interventions.

new-hire-survey-templateDownload

Leveraging Technology for Effective Feedback

Gathering feedback from new hires is essential for refining your onboarding process. Fortunately, numerous online survey platforms, many offering free plans, can streamline this process. From Google Forms and Microsoft Forms to dedicated HR software, you can easily create and distribute surveys to collect valuable insights. If technology isn’t readily available, a traditional paper survey can also be effective. The key is to capture data that will inform improvements to your onboarding journey.

Tips:

  • Don’t make the survey very long or you will risk lower response rates, questions skipped, or repeated answers.
  • Watch out for questions that seem similar which frustrates survey respondents.
  • Make sure you are asking questions that would generate actionable answers. For example, I advise against asking “Did you feel good on your 1st day at the office?” If the survey respondent answered “no” you would have limited ability to avoid getting that response from future new employees.
  • Do take the time at least once per quarter (or shorter time periods if you are hiring several people) to review, analyze, and summarize the results obtained from the New Employee Surveys. That way you will be able to spot trends and identify specific focus areas for you and your HR/Learning and Development teams to address and improve upon going forward.

Onboarding Checklist: Set New Hires Up for Success

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First impressions matter, especially when it comes to new hires. A well-structured onboarding process is crucial for setting employees up for success. By providing clarity, support, and a warm welcome, you can accelerate their productivity and boost job satisfaction. This process can be more successful when you create a plan and share it with the hiring manager and the new hire..

Onboarding: Your New Hire’s First Impression

A strong onboarding process is essential for employee satisfaction and retention. It’s not just about paperwork and introductions; it’s about setting new hires up for success from day one. By providing clear expectations, necessary tools, and a supportive environment, you can accelerate their productivity and foster a sense of belonging. Let’s explore how a well-structured onboarding checklist can make a difference.

People centered HR Processes MODEL

Laying the Groundwork for New Hire Success

A successful onboarding experience starts before a new employee even walks through the door. By planning and coordinating tasks in advance, you can create a seamless transition. This involves everything from communicating expectations to the new hire to aligning key stakeholders. The key players in setting up the plan and ensuring that everyone is ready to support the necessary meetings and onboarding discussions are usually the HR business partner and the Hiring manager. Effective onboarding isn’t just about paperwork; it’s about setting the stage for long-term employee satisfaction and productivity.

onboarding-checklist-templateDownload

This template is a basic version and you should add your own additional items to help new employees understand your industry and company plus know how to navigate the office building, and business better. If the new employee will be in a customer-facing role you may need to include introductions to customers too.

A well-structured onboarding process is your secret weapon for talent retention and productivity. By providing a clear roadmap for new hires, you not only accelerate their ramp-up time but also create a positive and lasting first impression. Remember, a smooth onboarding experience sets the tone for an employee’s entire tenure.

Presentation Feedback Template

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Conducting presentations at the end of developmental assignments is a common way for employees to share knowledge and demonstrate the value of his/her contribution to solving a situation or creating a new solution.

Presentations is also a great way to evaluate how much an employee has learned from an assignment, if you are the manager, mentor or L&D Partner supporting that function or project. Just telling someone that he or she did a “good job” at the end is not a substitute for specific and actionable feedback which a structured template can offer those attending the end-of-assignment presentation.

Structure

  • The structure of the end-of-assignment presentation typically would include these topics:
  • About the presenter – brief bio including background experience up to the assignment, role during the assignment and career ambitions and goals.
  • An executive summary of the solution provided or improvement implemented.
  • Brief overview of the Situation that had to be addressed, specific objectives identified and met and the team that were involved in addressing the situation.
  • Outcome achieved including metrics and recognition for support from other people and groups.
  • Summary of key learning points that the employee takes away from the assignment and will use in future
  • Questions and Answers session

The templates I am sharing include the Presentation Feedback Form which can help those attending the presentation to structure their feedback to the presenter (the assignee) in a consistent way. An HR or Training/Learning/ Development representative can collect all the feedback forms afterwards and collate those into one feedback document for the benefit of the assignee.

feedback-form-for-presentations-templateDownload

The second template is for the HR or L&D person who will combine all of the feedback received onto one Summary sheet which can be shared with the presenter. The feedback can offer helpful developmental suggestions and also recognize the successes and achievements that the presenter was able to demonstrate during the presenttion.

combined-feedback-form-for-presentations-templateDownload

Tips:

  • Customize the first column to include specific details around developmental objectives that were set as a part of the assignment. That way the presenter gets very specific feedback on how well he or she met those expectations through the presentation and handling questions during the session.
  • Be sure to prepare those who would provide feedback so they understand how feedback is to be captured on the form – sometimes they are confused about the columns and you may even prefer to just have one column with a score. Specifically ask them to add comments to help enrich the feedback and make it easier for the presenter to understand how to improve on his or her performance in future.
  • Deliver the feedback in person (vs by email) once the combined Feedback form is completed. Presenters may have further questions on how to interpret the feedback or how to improve on their own performance and should have the opportunity to get guidance and coaching on that during the feedback meeting to optimize the learning opportunity.

Salary Review Simplified: A Practical Template

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Fair compensation is essential for attracting, retaining, and motivating top talent. By conducting regular salary reviews, organizations can maintain internal equity and external competitiveness. This template helps to have a practical approach to evaluating employee compensation and making data-driven adjustments.

While large corporations often rely on sophisticated HR software for compensation management, smaller businesses can achieve similar results with a well-structured spreadsheet. This editable template allows for flexibility and customization, making it a practical choice for many organizations managing a smaller pool of employees.

The basic principles for using this tool:

  •  You need to make sure to retain employees and avoid employee turnover by reviewing his or her salary on a regular basis. Typically once per year.
  • Employees need feedback regarding job performance expectations and also their own performance delivered against the expectations. The compensation they receive should reflect not only the market value of the work they do for you but also their own level of delivery against expectations for that role. Performance that exceeded your expectations deserves to be rewarded. You could do it as a discretionary bonus or you could review the person’s annual salary and consider an increase.
  • Some employees bring increase requests to their bosses on a regular basis while others may just be waiting for their bosses to realize how much effort they put in and how many good results they are achieving. Without a solid salary review process which is run uniformly on an annual basis (at least), you could run the risk of not treating all of your employees in the same fair manner when it comes to salary reviews. It could happen that only those employees requesting regular increases are receiving them while those who do not ask, do not.
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How to record Job Applicant Interview results

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Hiring the right person is crucial for your team’s success. Without a structured approach to evaluating candidates, unconscious biases can creep in, leading to suboptimal hiring decisions. By capturing detailed impressions during the interview process, you can make data-driven choices that benefit your organization.

For instance, the “like me” bias can influence hiring decisions. We all have gut feelings about people, and it’s natural to connect with some candidates more than others. However, relying solely on intuition can lead to hiring mistakes. A structured interview process helps you balance your gut instinct with objective data. By capturing detailed notes and using consistent and defined evaluation criteria, you can make more informed and unbiased hiring decisions.

The downloadable template (below) helps you gather precise feedback from candidates, ensuring their qualifications, experience, and job approach align perfectly with the job’s needs. Avoid making decisions about whether or not to hire a person during the interview. Instead, focus on gathering the relevant data needed to make those decisions. Using a structured interview record can go a long way toward helping you do just that.

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Succession Plan Template

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succession

Every leader wants to build a high-performing team capable of taking the reins. That’s where succession planning comes in. It’s not just about preparing for the day you move on; it’s about developing a pipeline of talent ready to step up when opportunities arise. By investing in your team’s growth, you’re not only ensuring business continuity but also fostering a culture of development and advancement. People retire, people leave their roles and, new roles are created during reorganizations and restructuring efforts. All of these scenarios may create the need for someone else to take over in a leadership role and the question becomes… do you have anyone available internally who is promotion-ready?

Knowing who can step into a key role when needed is crucial. It’s like having a bench full of star players ready to take the field. By keeping a close eye on your team’s strengths and potential, you can ensure a smooth transition and minimize disruptions when leadership changes occur.

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Boost Teamwork with an Indoor Scavenger Hunt

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Looking to inject some fun and creativity into your workday? A scavenger hunt is a fantastic way to boost team morale, encourage collaboration, and foster a sense of camaraderie. Whether you’re in a bustling office or a quiet workspace, an indoor scavenger hunt can be a refreshing break from the routine, offering a unique opportunity for employees to connect and engage in a fun, competitive activity.

Crafting the Perfect Scavenger Hunt

To maximize engagement and fun, tailor the hunt to your team’s size and time constraints. Smaller teams (3-4 people) might require more time to complete challenges than larger groups (5-6 people). Consider dividing larger teams into sub-groups to foster collaboration and friendly competition. The template shown before took around 2 – 2.5 hours for 10 teams of 4 people to complete.

Design a worksheet that includes a mix of questions, physical challenges, and creative tasks. Setting a time limit adds excitement and encourages teamwork. The team that successfully completes the most challenges within the allotted timeframe emerges victorious.

Remember, the goal is to create a fun and engaging experience that brings your team closer together.

When the group is ready, you would first share the instructions with them. Be sure to include areas that they are not to visit or boundaries for the exercise. Include the maximum time they should take to work on the assignment and where everyone should meet at the end of that period – whether they were able to complete the task or not.

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Crafting a Communication Plan: Your Roadmap to Change Success

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Whether it’s a new process, a revamped strategy, or a technological overhaul, effective communication is essential for a smooth transition. A well-crafted communication plan outlines the who, what, when, where, and how of sharing information, ensuring everyone is on the same page and aligned with the change journey. Let’s dive into the key components of creating a powerful communication plan.

Tailoring Your Message to Your Audience

Effective communication means understanding who you’re talking to. Different groups will need different information. Start by identifying everyone who’s affected by the change. This could include employees or different groups of employees, customers, partners, and even the wider community. By mapping out your audience, you can tailor your messages to their specific needs and interests. Think about different functions, think about geographic locations, think about management levels, and think about people outside your company who may be affected.

Communication messages could be intended to explain why things have to change, what is going to change, when and how it is going to change, how the change is going (progress update) and what (if anything) people need to start doing, stop doing or what should change in the way they have acted in the past.

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Post-survey Action Plan

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You’ve got the employee survey results. Great! But don’t just let them gather dust. Find the biggest pain points, make an action plan, and get moving. It’s about turning those numbers into real improvements. Remember, less is often more. Focus on a few key areas instead of trying to fix everything at once. Let your team know you’re listening and planning to make needed changes.

The first template helps you pinpoint exactly what worked and what didn’t. Don’t just list random stuff – get specific. Once you know what to improve, create clear action steps. Make sure you can measure your progress and know when an action is complete by defining what done looks like.

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Track and Develop: A Guide to Portfolio Assignments

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Dev plan (3)

A powerful way to develop employees is to give them a portfolio assignment. This would be something they are asked to do while they remain responsible for their normal daily duties. Motivated employees with the ambition to learn new skills and take advantage of new opportunities to achieve developmental goals typically welcome such assignments. Portfolio assignments are less popular among employees who are less driven to succeed and develop their careers.

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