And On the 120th Day the Company Said, “Let’s Give Our New Employee a Huge Shock”

July 15th, 2015
Written by: Elizabeth Richards

As we’ve pointed out before, studies show that the first 120 days of the employee lifecycle hold tremendous risk and opportunity–for both the employer and new hire—including:

• Lost productivity resulting from the learning curve for new hires and transfers is between 1% – 2.5% of total company revenues.¹
• New employees are 69% more likely to stay after three years if they’ve experienced a well-structured onboarding program.²

Here’s what typically happens: Employers tend to shower new hires with attention (“We’re having a meet and greet! You’ll get a company mug!”) and information (“Someone will be stopping by at 11:30 to answer questions about your benefits packet.”) during the first few days or weeks. But in TPO’s experience, there’s a rapid drop off in employee engagement after that first week. Which means there isn’t nearly enough focus on:

• Setting expectations for the first 90 – 120 days
• Regular employee-supervisor check-ins relative to expectations

Time flies by and suddenly it’s been 120 days since the new employee started, and you owe him or her some substantive feedback on how things are going. You set up time to meet and spend a few minutes beforehand making hasty notes based on your recollections. Or you skip the notes and just wing it.

Whether the feedback is positive or negative or somewhere in between, chances are the employee is going to be surprised and perhaps even disappointed. Is this “non-process” really fair to the employee? Or to the organization overall? Absolutely not.

That’s why TPO’s comprehensive, data-driven Onboarding Program includes critical steps, deliverables and milestones that incorporate your organization’s data to produce useful, data-driven reports and metrics:

1. Weekly and monthly Productivity Assessments and progress captured and measured on an Individual Productivity Plan
2. Productivity indicators assessed using TPO’s Onboarding Productivity Measurement
3. Non-Productive Compensation calculations
4. “Bad Hire” Evaluation Guidelines
5. End of Onboarding Period Evaluation and reconfirmation of the hiring decision
6. End of year company Onboarding Productivity Conclusion

But don’t take our word for it. Click on the links below to read what TPO’s clients are saying:

• Interview with Erich Pica, President of Friends of the Earth US:  Leading a Highly Emotionally Intelligent Organization
• Interview with Myron Boncarosky and Mike Holmes of Virginia Tire & Auto
• John Ryan, President & CEO of CSBS, on TPO’s Onboarding Process

1 Source: Mellon Financial Corp © 2013 IHS

2 Source: Ganzel, 1998, Cited in Fast Company Magazine