Latest updated: 18 December 2022

This is how successful companies work with onboarding, crossboarding and offboarding.

Working actively with employee development is crucial to success in an organisation. Whether someone is a new employee or has been given a new role within the company, you want to make sure that the person feels committed right from the start – and reaches their full potential as soon as possible. But what does it really take to make a successful onboarding or a successful role change happen?

Let’s take a closer look at how to support an employee at each stage of change – and achieve both increased productivity and reduced staff turnover.

Recruitment is often an expensive and time-consuming process. It is not uncommon for a talent to take between 6 and 12 months to reach full potential in a new role, and as many as 25% of all new recruitments end with termination – initiated by either side – within a year. In many cases, this could have been avoided. Often, it is not a question of a mistake in recruiting, but of failed onboarding, where there is a great focus on introduction to the role and company but less on putting in motion the potential and driving forces of talent.

The great thing is that all this can be avoided – if you choose to take onboarding and crossboarding as seriously as the recruitment process itself.

Research cited by Harvard Business Review shows that organisations that provide new employees with the right support, with a standardised onboarding process, experience 62% higher productivity among newly hired employees, and are 50% more likely to retain the new employee in the longer term. In other words, investing time and energy in onboarding – and also crossboarding, which refers to internal recruitment for a new position – is crucial for the company’s long-term productivity and ability to retain talent and skills.

Fast and measurable change process
Regardless of whether the recruitment has taken place externally or internally, it often takes about a year for the employee to reach their potential in the new role. This is usually accepted and seen as perfectly normal, but the costs in terms of lost productivity are sky high. If you instead invest in giving the employee the right support from the beginning, our experience is that the process can be significantly shortened, so that the employee reaches their potential in about three months – that’s up to four times faster.

In order to achieve this, you may need to get outside help in the form of coaching and other measures. Zebrain offers such help in the Zebrain 4 Flow package solution, where the employee is supported by a coach and technical help to reach their full potential more quickly.

When onboarding and crossboarding, it is very important to focus on the individual’s potential, instead of just talking about the business and its structures. What are the individual’s strengths and successful behaviours? These are the key to commitment, productivity, and success in the new role. If the employee’s best qualities are given a lot of space right away, instead of the person being expected to act the same as their predecessor in the same role, then there are good opportunities to achieve a high degree of productivity early in the new role.

Another important success factor is to set clear goals for the employee at an early stage, preferably goals that are not too far ahead. You don’t have to set the bar that high, but it is still important to show what the expectations are and what counts as successful results in the new role. People need goals to develop and to be able to receive, understand, and discuss feedback, which is another crucial part of the onboarding/crossboarding process.

Strong support from start to finish

Employee development is a crucial factor when creating a productive andprosperous business. Good companies and organisations support their employees throughout the life cycle of the company, especially when the employee is newly hired or has been internally recruited for a new role, but also when it’s time to leave the company.

Offboarding is an important investment to ensure that the employee who is going to move on in life has a positive ending so that the good relationship with the company is maintained. Former employees can be invaluable as ambassadors for the company and its brand as an employer and can also be valuable contacts as they move forward in their careers. But that assumes that the offboarding process is handled correctly.

Coaching and external support, also in the form of technical help, can be a good way to succeed at employee development in connection with onboarding, crossboarding or offboarding. A coach can help the employee identify their success behaviours, set goals and measure their development. If you manage these processes correctly, the employee can not only reach their potential in a relatively short time, but also expand it significantly. Then the employee will also feel more motivated, which reduces the risk of the company missing out on valuable skills.

As an employer, you should always strive to provide extra support to employees in motion, whether they are new arrivals, changing roles in the company or are about to quit. The entire flow must be handled with care to ensure employee productivity and motivation – and the company’s good reputation as an employer. Support employees throughout the life cycle, and they will create value for the company throughout your journey together.