John Ryan, President & CEO of CSBS, on TPO’s Onboarding Process

June 4th, 2014
Written by: TPO

TPO has been providing outsourced HR services to the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) since 2002. Recently TPO helped CSBS identify a challenge in the way the organization was bringing on new employees. Here is what CSBS President and CEO John Ryan had to say about TPO’s employee Onboarding Program—and the outcomes for CSBS.

TPO got me thinking about our whole hiring and onboarding process in a different way. Frankly, the way we brought on new employees was without a lot of thought. There was very little communication and expectation setting. I experienced this first hand: when I started at CSBS years ago, the onus was on me to figure everything out. There was no orientation or standardization across the organization.

More recently, we were growing quickly and had two different cultures coming together–we were a cross between a 110-year-old organization and a tech startup. We needed to make sure people clearly understood their jobs so new hires could be up and running quickly as we were growing.

TPO saw this need and worked with us to develop an onboarding program for new hires. The program has specific metrics that can be communicated and discussed at each step during the employees’ first 90 days. This enables us to understand how the onboarding process is going from the perspective of the organization and the new hire. We now have a framework that helps facilitate those conversations expeditiously.

So now we’re very deliberate about the hiring process, what we communicate, and who has what information. The expectations are quite clear on both sides–the organization’s and the employees’–regarding what we owe each other. The issues that arise don’t linger–they come up early on so they can be resolved.

The results have been great. The employees who’ve experienced the onboarding program are very positive about the impact it’s had. And from a management perspective, we can help new hires become more productive more quickly and can identify bad hires sooner.

I think our onboarding program says a lot about the organization. As a new hire, you get all this information in advance which helps align your expectations with ours. It’s a very welcoming, deliberate, and professional approach. Overall, I’d say that TPO’s onboarding program has been one of the best things we’ve done in my three years as CEO.