Still Massive Confusion Between Onboarding and Orientation—According to the ASAE Message Board

October 28th, 2015
Written by: Dana Papke

We have said it before…and need to keep saying it: “Onboarding is not orientation.”   Just over two years ago we published a series of blog posts on this topic—here’s one in particular—where we distinguish between these two functions:

(An executive says,) “Oh, we do onboarding. We have a full half day of briefings for new hires where we introduce them into our culture, explain our vision and provide them with all the tools they need to succeed during their career with us!”

What that executive is referring to is Orientation, not Onboarding. They are basically saying to new hires, “Welcome aboard—now go make it happen.” Orientation is important, but it is just a small and very brief subset of Onboarding.

Why am I bringing this up again? Because in a recent series of exchanges on the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) member message boards, we noticed several exchanges that were very similar to the fictitious one in our blog post above:

(NOTE: These have been paraphrased to protect the writers’ identities.)

From: Member “X”

Subject: Onboarding Program for New Hires

We have not implemented a formal onboarding process. Does anyone have a template that can get me started? It is time sensitive as we have several new hires beginning next week!

————-

Response From: Member “Y”

Subject: Re: Onboarding Program for New Hires

To give you an idea, I’ve attached what we use to track various required employment forms and notices.

————-

Response From: Member “Z”

Subject: Re: Onboarding Program for New Hires

During days 1 – 3:

• Paperwork/benefits (HR)
• Computer and phone training (IT)
• Lunch with the person’s supervisor— and depending on the position with 2 or 3 others joining

Weeks 1 – 4:

• Provide an overview of all departments (Department Heads)
• Position-specific training based on their department.

Notice how tactical the responses are? There’s no mention of any ongoing communications, expectation-setting or measuring new employees’ productivity over time—certainly not in any quantifiable way.

These tactics serve the goal of orientation, which is to provide a new employee with information and get him or her situated. By contrast, the goal of onboarding is more strategic: To make sure employees become productive as quickly as possible and measure whether their productivity is on track.

For reference, here are comments on the subject of TPO’s Onboarding Process from John Ryan, President and CEO of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS), on TPO’s Onboarding Process:

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, the onus was on me to figure everything out.

TPO…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.

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves!