THE NALP EXPERIENCE
First Impressions: Implementing Effective Onboarding Practices
By Jill Odom
YOU PUT A LOT OF EFFORT INTO RECRUITING AND HIRING NEW employees for your team, but the hard work shouldn’t stop there once they’ve signed on. Onboarding is a crucial step that sets new hires up for success. Proper onboarding can also help reduce high turnover rates.
Production managers at LandCare guide new em- ployees in safe practices
and technical training. Photos (below): LandCare
For instance, when LandCare restruc- tured several years ago, they also as- sessed and redesigned their onboarding practices to ensure everyone receives a consistent and thorough experience. “High turnover rates signify disen- gaged team members, so we knew we had to improve our entire employee experience,” says Jennifer Burnett, VP of organizational development for LandCare. “We recognized that the on- boarding process is an important step in making sure our new team members feel welcome and appreciated. It also serves as an opportunity to instill the culture of LandCare.”
Lindgren Landscape, based in Fort Collins, Colorado, also recently imple- mented new onboarding practices when they hired HR director, Jesus Meza, in January 2020.
MAIN ONBOARDING STEPS At Lindgren, management members are notified of new hires at least a week in advance. The new employee’s workstation is made ready to go and a personnel file is created with all the pending information to be filled out. The new employee is given a tour of the company and meets management members and co-workers. They are given PPE and access to the necessary training programs/software. Meza says the administrative portion of onboarding can take half a day to a full day, while the hands-on portion can take up to two weeks depending on the experience of the new hire. “Safety is our top priority, so our first order of business after completing new hire paperwork is to make sure our crew members and supervisors understand what to do and how to do it safely,” Burnett says. “Our production managers guide new team members through a series of activities, including the new hire orientation video, safety demonstrations, issuing of PPE & uniforms, driver training (if applicable) and seasonally appropriate technical training. Introducing and rein- forcing new processes and operations during the first few weeks of employ- ment keeps our new team members engaged and on track.” Jason New, principal of McFarlin Stanford, advises having a pre-start
checklist of things to have taken care of before the new team member’s first day. Some of the items to have taken care of include having business cards and shirts ready and having all the necessary technology set up. New says providing a company roster with contact information and pictures also sets new employees up for success. “When they sign the offer agreement
and say, ‘Yes, I’m coming to work for you’ the work really starts onboarding there,” New says. “Two weeks is pretty profes- sional and standard, but lot of times they are coming to work for you sooner than the two-week period.”
New encourages companies to have employees come in before their first day to fill out HR-related paperwork and take a quick tour of the office so they’re not so overwhelmed on their first day. Tony Nasrallah, president and founder of Ground Works Land Design, based in Cleveland, Ohio, has his new hires com- plete their onboarding paperwork digitally ahead of time. Nasrallah says the key to onboarding is to make the new hire feel comfortable. It can be as simple as letting them know where the restrooms are located. “Another one that I always like to do is making sure that they have an oppor- tunity to meet the other managers that they’re going to work with on a regular basis so that there’s no mystery of who the new person is, what do they do and things like that,” says Chris Psencik, vice president of McFarlin Stanford. Psencik also suggests outlining a 90- day plan for the new employee so they know what they’ll be doing for at least the first 90 days.
“I think it’s good, regardless if some-
body is experienced, to talk about the expectations of what a day looks like and the expectations for a month looks like,” Psencik says. “Because everybody even though they may all be account managers managing maintenance portfolios, they all come from very diverse backgrounds. The methodology that we may have and teach may be the polar opposite from what they’ve experienced.”
18 The Landscape Professional //March/April 2021
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40
