A Path to Onboarding New Employees
Hiring is tough! Many years ago, before I became a manager, I used to think that management was just looking for a reason to fire people. In hindsight, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Any manager worth their salt knows that firing and having to replace an employee is painful – emotionally and financially.
According to a publication by Bersin by Deloitte, the average cost to hire someone is $4,000 and can take up to 52 days. Member feedback tells us that ESA members are struggling with the hiring process, so we are undertaking new programs that will help them find and keep their talent. We are doing this through education offered at ESX, and more in depth, with our soon-to-launch skill-based onboarding training program.
Last year, “Maximize New Employees – Why Onboarding is Critical to Their Success” was the most highly attended and rated education session at the Electronic Security Expo. We knew it would be a popular session, but we were surprised by just how popular it was. The session was taught by two mid-sized company owners who had recently revamped their new hire onboarding programs in hopes to improve employee retention rates and their company’s culture.
In the session, they outlined the steps a new hire goes through from pre-hire, to first day, to the next 90 days. The focus of the session was not to provide intel on what skills training they provide during their onboarding, but it was purely focused on ensuring the new hire was made welcome, well equipped, understood the company culture, embraced the core values of the company — and knew how the they could contribute to the success of the company.
The results of these programs were outstanding: faster ramp up times, more engaged employees, and lower employee attrition. Due to the popularity of these sessions, and the attendee feedback, we have added 4 more employee retention-based sessions into the 2019 ESX education line up.
In continuing to talk with our members, it was also learned that they needed more in-depth assistance with training their new hires the critical skills necessary to fulfill the technical roles of their positions.
Many members were struggling with what type of training path to provide their new hires, and the amount of time it was taking management to oversee these training programs – from scheduling, registering, tracking and compliance.
Using the guidance of a task force compiled of hiring managers, ESA’s National Training School has created a core-skills education program that will provide a roadmap of training for the first 18 months of a technician’s employment. The program covers topics ranging from communication basics, customer service, job safety, OSHA, wireless technologies, and installation and troubleshooting of intrusion, fire, video and access systems. The curriculum is customizable based on the company’s lines of business services, so if a company doesn’t do fire alarms then their new hires can choose from a vast array of other topics that better fit their needs.
The ESA National Training School team will support the company in selecting the appropriate training paths, plus provide guidance and direction to the employee to ensure they complete the training requirements based on their schedule. ESA will provide status reports to the employee’s manager so that they can be in tune with the progress being made and provide encouragement where necessary. The program is built to be a turn-key solution to onboarding electronic security and integration technicians. The program is scheduled to launch in the Fall.
Per a study done by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), 69% of new hires are more likely to remain at a company for up to three years if they were part of a well-structured onboarding program.
Hiring and onboarding new hires is not easy, but when it is done right the results are powerful. Stay tuned to ESA Communications like ESA Integrator, and ESA’s NTS News emails for future announcements on the onboarding training program.
