Episode #101 - Onboarding Tips To Retain Employees

Transcription: 

Sean Riley:

So with all the fancy introductions out of the way, welcome to the podcast, Cheryl.

Cheryl Cran:

Thank you. Glad to be here.

Sean Riley:

So you just spoke at PMMI's Annual Meeting. Your topic was onboarding, but your background is you are Future of Work Influencer? [inaudible 00:00:18]

Cheryl Cran:

Expert. Founder of NextMapping.

Sean Riley:

Yeah. Tons of books.

Cheryl Cran:

Yeah. 10 books.

Sean Riley:

10 books. Yeah. And just extremely accomplished in speaking on not only work but the future of work. So I guess we'll start on some of the things that you touched on out there. And I'm sure some things will pop up in my head, but I was ... I see Onboarding. It's on my screen, and I'm seeing Onboarding as the name of the session, and I'm just remembering onboarding from when I got a job. It's a bunch of how many kids you're claiming on your W2 and things and paperwork all day. It doesn't even feel like a day that's part of working yet. It just feels like busywork and paper. Please tell me that's not how it still is.

Cheryl Cran:

No. Because technology has completely changed that game. There's new apps, new ways of doing it that is much more, specifically for the Gen X and millennial, [inaudible 00:01:17] less of a fill out this form and more like a question-answer, moving along in a [inaudible 00:01:22] type process. Now, if organizations don't have that technology, I would say [inaudible 00:01:27] do that all in one day.

Sean Riley:

Okay.

Cheryl Cran:

Yeah, you feel like a number. You feel like you're just being bombarded with all these logistics versus-

Sean Riley:

Absolutely.

Cheryl Cran:

So what I would say is that first week and maybe every day of that week you're going over some form of documentation but not in one go because it's overwhelming. It also feels desensitized. It doesn't feel human to human.

Sean Riley:

Absolutely.

Cheryl Cran:

Yeah, if I look back at some of my onboardings, it's like ... You just feel like you're being integrated with this great big void of corporate.

Sean Riley:

Right, exactly.

Cheryl Cran:

Yeah.

Sean Riley:

And it doesn't feel like you're joining anything. Like you said, you're just being ... kind of sucked into this vacuum.

Cheryl Cran:

[inaudible 00:02:07]

Sean Riley:

Yeah, exactly.

Cheryl Cran:

... into the matrix.

Sean Riley:

Yeah. Right. You note that there's these various things available now, which is fantastic to hear, but from your travels and your speaking and your ... Are a lot enough people taking advantage of these? Or a lot of people-

Cheryl Cran:

Yeah.

Sean Riley:

Okay.

Cheryl Cran:

Oh yeah, yeah. The tech firms like the Amazons and the Twitters and such, that's all they're using because most of their teams are virtual and remote. So even to have an HR person direct that process is not happening. You get a link and you go in and you fill it all in, and it's done over a series of days. Yeah, so that is [inaudible 00:02:41] organizations right now.

Sean Riley:

Okay.

Cheryl Cran:

But I think to your point, I know for me my very first job was McDonald's Restaurant. I was 15 years old. And I'm 59 now, so we're talking 45 years ago. And it was an exquisite onboarding [inaudible 00:02:56]. I went back and they [inaudible 00:02:57] down.

Sean Riley:

Really?

Cheryl Cran:

They had the what to expect, how to prepare before your first day of work. It was very organized and very set up for success. I'll always remember it because I remember feeling ... I felt part of the brand and the team because of the way they did that. Like I said, they were ahead of themselves.

Sean Riley:

Especially like you said, you're remembering it, it was a memorable thing, and that would not be what I would picture from a quote/unquote "fast food restaurant." I would picture more what I described. But they instantly integrated you into their culture.

Cheryl Cran:

Well, and I think it's happening now, too. But in those days all they did was hire teenagers. It was a young workplace.

Sean Riley:

Sure.

Cheryl Cran:

So they had it in a system. And their training, they were so perfectionist about their training. The McDonald's bag had to be facing all this-

Sean Riley:

Right.

Cheryl Cran:

You know, all these things that they had all the details figured out. But it also made you feel like you were progressing. Even now, how many years later, [inaudible 00:03:50] you had it down as far as integrating people into how to be success [inaudible 00:03:55].

Sean Riley:

Which it kind of explains a lot of their success as they're obviously such a big name that everybody recognizes. Very fascinating, especially now I'm just thinking of other fast food places that you go to that might not have that attention to detail.

Cheryl Cran:

No, with customer service nowadays, we notice these things. You can see right away who's been onboarded properly and who hasn't, who's been left to just ... They've got a warm body so deal with it. Right?

Sean Riley:

Exactly. Go stand at a register, please. So a thing that I notice about the onboarding thing that you mentioned was, and you kind of touched on it already, is it shouldn't be a day. And should it even be a week? I think you even mentioned it maybe ... How long should that ... Or is it an ongoing thing?

Cheryl Cran:

Yeah, so in my presentation I talked about 30, 60, 90. And some organizations are actually doing pre-onboarding, which means as soon as that person's accepted the offer, a lot of that paper is all done before they even start their start date. It's already been done [inaudible 00:04:53] and now we can right to integration of the [inaudible 00:04:55] goals, success.

But my point was [inaudible 00:04:58] onboarding is [inaudible 00:04:59] we think, "Oh they're good." And what I'm saying is we have to be much more intentional as leaders, and we have to be more focused on helping people be successful. So if I've hired you, I want to make sure we've got [inaudible 00:05:09] measurement of our successes, at 60 day, at 90 day. I want to make sure I'm talking to you weekly in those cycles about what you need, how you [inaudible 00:05:16]. I want to be giving you candid feedback from those cycles. If you've done all those things, that person's got it. They're now ready to run. They're making decisions. They're skilled. But the 90 day [inaudible 00:05:27] takes the pressure off the person being hired because they've got a 90-day cycle for success. But it also gives the leader this plan of sustainability and consistency that helps that person succeed as well. Yeah.

Sean Riley:

As you're saying, I'm just thinking, you do, you get thrown in there and it's a month in, you're like, "Well, this person's been working here for a month [inaudible 00:05:50]-

Cheryl Cran:

They should have it now.

Sean Riley:

Yeah. It doesn't seem like they know what they're doing. And as you're explaining, I mean it's a lot. It's not-

Cheryl Cran:

And I'm guilty as charged because I have a millennial who works for me, and it's been a year now. And last week a few things happened. In my mind, I did exactly that. I'm like, "It's been a year." I was so frustrated. It's been a year. I practice what I teach, and I had to go back and go, "You know what? To be fair, this situation hasn't come up for at least six months."

So you know how real time learning is. If you haven't done something, and then you've got to be reminded how to do it. So I realized that I needed to have a ... I had sort of eased up on my one-on-ones over the summer, so it was time to have another. And so I did. And it's like, "Okay, let's recalibrate. Let's get refocused here. And I realize it's been six months. What do you remember about doing this when you did it six months ago? What don't you remember?"

As a leader, not just washing our hands of it and going, "Okay, we've done our bid." And seeing it as an ongoing commitment to their learning and growing. But also for us to not sort of get to that place of, well, they should know. Should is another word [inaudible 00:06:54] in my opinion. They should know. Well, hang on a second. No, [inaudible 00:06:59] incumbent on me to ensure that they know.

Sean Riley:

Yeah. It's probably something I had down to get to, but it's another thing that I noticed in what you were saying where when you say they should know, that there's this assumption. You even said, I guess, you used to be hired on skills versus being hired to train. And when you were hired on skills, it was like, "Well, this person went to school for journalism-

Cheryl Cran:

Yes, that's exactly right.

Sean Riley:

... so they should know that what a dateline looks like. Or they went to school as an engineer so they should know how to use such and such program. Or they said they knew how to use ..."

Cheryl Cran:

My point when I said never assume. Never assume. So if somebody says to me, "Yeah, I know how to use Excel spreadsheet," rather than assume that they know, I say, "Could you show me what you know? Here's some factors, let's do one together." So that sort of situational interview or that real skill assessment so that we really know what we're dealing with. Right?

Sean Riley:

Yeah.

Cheryl Cran:

It also identifies the training gaps, and it identifies how we can support that person to be successful as well.

Sean Riley:

And that does play into what I was going to ask you because there's a lot of things ... There's a couple things you said in a good way that kind of turned the perceived either negative or the perceived ... just the perception in general, I think on a lot of the people in the audience's head and in my head, whether they were positives in the negatives or things that might have been viewed as negatives in the positives, et cetera. And one of those was that you were even describing, "Don't necessarily hire based off of skills. Hire based off of the ability to be trained."

Cheryl Cran:

Yeah. Well, I think what you're speaking to is when I was mentioning multi-industry experience. Right?

Sean Riley:

With millennials, that they jump around the jobs and there's nothing ... In the old days, you had to stay at a job for 20 years, and that looked great on a resume. What could possibly look good when someone hands you a resume and says they worked at a place for a year and then another place for a year and another place in a year? And your counter to that was great.

Cheryl Cran:

Yeah. My counter to that was I want to interview that person because I want to know what perspective do they have on this business that they've learned from three different companies. It's a huge advantage. And so I think that shifting that attitude from that ... The multi-industry experience is really more about millennials have been changing jobs more quickly. There was a gentleman in the audience that said, "Well, isn't the pendulum swinging back to people wanting a job or needing a job? Or aren't we going to go there?" No, no. Because what's happened is the trends that I shared, the social trends, people, human behavior has fundamentally shift.

If you look at Maslow's hierarchy, people are coming from self actualization. They're not making decisions based on security [inaudible 00:09:32]. More and more people are self-actualizing to go, "Would I sell my soul to work in this organization just to make money? I don't think so." And that's what people are doing on a daily basis. They are asking themselves, "Why do I work where I work? How much money am I making? Is it enough money? What are they asking me to do? Am I being compensated for what they're asking to do?" So the worker is holding a lot of power.

Sean Riley:

Yeah, I remember another speaker and they didn't ... It was somebody else's quote, but it was something like it's "The war for talent is over and the talent won," kind of.

Cheryl Cran:

Pretty much that sums it up. It's a good one.

Sean Riley:

Yeah. And I guess the counter of that is you want to interview this person that's worked for these different companies. How do you know they're going to stay at yours?

Cheryl Cran:

You don't. But you have control over how you lead them to want to stay. And that's my whole point in today's presentation, is be the leader they want to stay for. So that's being inspiring, sharing what you know, having those regular candid conversations, invested in their career growth, helping them achieve, helping ... That means for me, as a leader, if somebody says, "I want your job one day," rather than be threatened by that, "Okay, let's make that happen. But here's what has to happen before you get there." They're going to stay longer.

I wrote my generations book in 2010, did the research then. And a lot of what I said then is happening now, and really that they want leaders who are not threatened by them. They want leaders who want to help them succeed beyond them. So if you can be that egoless leader, if you will, or that servant that sees it not as a threat but as a reality, it gets to be little dynamic. I like being held to that standard. I like being kind like, "Oh, you want my job? Okay, well, let me tell you the story about my job and what that means and what's required. And do you have that commitment?" [inaudible 00:11:15]-

Sean Riley:

That's interesting just from a historical, I don't know, American capitalist [inaudible 00:11:22]-

Cheryl Cran:

I know. I know.

Sean Riley:

It seems like that's-

Cheryl Cran:

That's counterintuitive. Yeah.

Sean Riley:

Yeah. It's flipping it kind of on its upside down of, historically, that would be terrifying that this young and up-and-comer is coming for my chair.

Cheryl Cran:

Right. But look at all the other social change that we're going through. And so what I would say to you is ... I'm a driver, so I believe in profit. I believe in growth. I believe that there's no limit to those two things, but not at the expense of people. People first. We can all share in the success. It doesn't mean one person gets to win. I know that kind of rocks the boat for some.

Sean Riley:

Yeah. I'm good with it, but I know that [inaudible 00:12:02] for some people. Another thing you said, and controversial is not the word to use for this, but I just piqued in my mind the second you said it, where it's not necessarily good to have a family-like work environment. [inaudible 00:12:16].

Cheryl Cran:

Yeah. And I did see a few eyebrows raised when I said it. I could see a few people looking at each other. Here's the thing, the family business was an output of the baby boomer generation. And even from a succession planning standpoint, a lot of families are struggling with getting their kids to want to take over the business. And that's within a real family. And the reason for that is, again, is we had previous generations, baby boomers and the traditionalists before them, that a lot of the work they did was out of obligation. My husband was a fourth-generation banker. He went into banking at the age of 18, not because he wanted to, but because his dad said, "You're going to be the fourth-generation banker."

Sean Riley:

Sure.

Cheryl Cran:

He lasted, I think, about 10 years something, and then he went on and did something else. But what I'm saying is the obligatory work was a function of a post-war, had to pay the bills, had to feed our families reality. And then when the baby boomers had their kids, and they were the millennials and the Gen Xers, they didn't want their kids to suffer the hardship they did, so we made our kids' lives easier. We made it easier. We said, "You can stay home as long as you want to. If you don't like your degree, go get a different degree." But we've literally given them the freedom of choice to say, "Hey."

So yes, so my point in saying that is because of the consulting work I do, I've seen the dysfunction of a family culture. And as a coach and a consultant, when I come into a culture and they say, "We're family," I can tell you when I have one-on-one conversations with the leaders, I hear things like, "But we're a family so we ... I've been to his house for dinner so he would never fire me." And that's real. That's true. Right?

Well, in the post-digital transformation that we're all in, in cloud migration, getting rid of legacy systems, we can't afford to have non-performers. We can't afford to have people going, "Well, as a part of the family, I'll just be a hanger on." So that's where I'm coming from, from that, is that if we're a friendly performance-based culture, then there's accountability. And even in family businesses that I've worked with, I've changed it from, "We're a family business," to, "We're a friendly performance-based culture," and they like it because now you can hold each other accountable. Now you can run a business, not [inaudible 00:14:24] by these psychological subterfuges of saying that. Because as you and I know, all families have dysfunction.

Sean Riley:

Yeah, I was going to say I have teenagers, and I think I would absolutely fire them if it was possible.

Cheryl Cran:

Yeah, I hear you. I hear you.

Sean Riley:

Yeah. Okay. But yes, I understand the way it is. It's painted as a family is [inaudible 00:14:46].

Cheryl Cran:

It's a good culture. Yeah, and I get that. I do get that. But we have to recognize the dark side of that as well. That's what I'm saying. And if you do ... I've had family businesses, once they got that piece and they had the meeting with all employees and said, "Look, we're a friendly performance-based culture. Even though you're related to me, we're having the tough performance conversations."

Sean Riley:

Again, and we can get along, we can be friendly, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to tell you if you're doing something wrong and vice versa. Very interesting.

Cheryl Cran:

Right.

Sean Riley:

So you also talked about hybrid, which a lot of people are trying to do. A lot of people are resisting. We come from a very traditional industry, manufacturing, where some people obviously have to be in there. They're working on the floor on equipment and things like that. But other people that might not be more resistant to a hybrid model. Is there a definition on a way to make it work? Is there instances where it just can't work? What have you experienced as we sort of come out of ... We had a shutdown with the pandemic in the beginning where everyone had to, and we've sort of evolved since. And a lot of people don't want to go back. Where do you stand on what works for your company?

Cheryl Cran:

Well, first of all, hybrid's here to stay, which I reiterated a few times, because I do know that that's how people feel. There's a lot of polarity around it right now. But even pre-pandemic, as we saw the move towards manufacturing automation, robotics, systemization, there was a lot of remote work being able to be ... In the agricultural industry right now, there are tractors that are remote controlled. Organizations that normally would fly, they are flying drones remotely. There's a lot of examples of things that we didn't think could be done remote are going to be based on technology.

The reason I say hybrid is here to stay, is goes back to what I said earlier around human behavior trends, is the genie's out of the bottle. Prior to the pandemic, people are like, "I want remote," and organizations said, "We can't do that. We don't have the infrastructure." Pandemic happens, we make it work. In fact, some companies were more profitable than ever before, depending on what that business was.

Right now, there is no right way to do hybrid. I can't give you a formula. I can't even point to a company that's doing it right because every organization is unique to its parameters. One of the questions from the audience is, "How does it apply to blue collar?" I hate to break it to you guys, but blue collar [inaudible 00:17:04] no collar in the future of work. It's technology, and it's people. Honestly. So when I get [inaudible 00:17:10] I see eyebrows raising, [inaudible 00:17:11]-

Sean Riley:

Exactly.

Cheryl Cran:

It's not going to be defined by blue collar, white collar, tech collar. We're all, in fact [inaudible 00:17:17]. We're all going to be technology companies in the future. And that is what's happening. So as that continues to happen, then hybrid's going to adapt.

And so what we do at NextMapping is when I go into an organization, we look at their dynamics, and we look at their structure. We go, "Okay, let's see how hybrid [inaudible 00:17:33] best for you." I will say, is what we're finding is the three days in office, two days home is what most companies are doing right now. The other thing we've noticed is the days that people are in office are Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And the days at home is Monday, Friday. And there was a comic in the New Yorker that showed somebody showing up in the office on a Friday and she said, "I love coming into the office on a Friday. Nobody's here."

That doesn't mean that we've landed anywhere permanent yet. It means that everybody's finding their way. But it goes back to, from my perspective as a consultant, assess your work. Who's suited for in office? Who's suited for remote? Who's suited for both? And organize the work accordingly. And make sure you're equalizing the benefits and the attributes. If somebody chooses to work in office full time, what do they get in exchange for that? Do they get half off Friday off? Do they get extra vacation? Do four-day work [inaudible 00:18:24] human impact of hybrid.

And that's why a lot of leaders [inaudible 00:18:28], because let's face it, it was easier. But it's unrealistic to expect people to want to work that way moving forward. Especially, as I said from stage, 51% of the workforce is female, and women have benefited from the pandemic. Now, they are working more, so the demands on their time has gone up, but the freedom and flexibility of hybrid has allowed them to excel in the workplace. That's why I'm saying it's not going to go away. Over half of the workforce is saying, "This needs to be a thing."

Sean Riley:

And it also touches on something you said where the lack of people to hire is not something that's going away anytime soon.

Cheryl Cran:

No.

Sean Riley:

So being resistant to these-

Cheryl Cran:

Concepts.

Sean Riley:

... exactly, is not going ... It's just going to make it worse for you.

Cheryl Cran:

Well, you're just going to be late to the party, and then you'll be scrambling. So with my work, because I am about Future of Work, whenever I keynote or work with a client, I want you to be future ready now. I want to future proof.

Sean Riley:

Sure.

Cheryl Cran:

I want [inaudible 00:19:21] competitively agile. And so you can resist. You can push back and go, "No, not us," but I'm telling you, it will impact your ability to recruit. It will impact your ability to retain. You saw that I did polling in my session and I asked them, "How many of you losing people?" Number one was we're losing people to other remote opportunities. There's your answer. Ding ding, ding, ding, ding.

Sean Riley:

Yeah.

Cheryl Cran:

You know? So to me, the pushback is a preference pushback versus a accepting reality pushback.

Sean Riley:

And also, as you said, it's a personal preference verse what is working, like you said, to drive profits for your business. It's counterproductive for your own business, which is a fascinating to look at it, I guess. So I guess the perfect question that I know someone also asked you out there that I think would be a good wrap this up, is someone's leaving, what do you ask for an exit interview? What are you asking them? What's the most important thing [inaudible 00:20:20]?

Cheryl Cran:

Yeah. Hopefully I can remember what I said, but to me, there's three questions. Why are you leaving? The truth. Tell me the truth why you're leaving. Number two, what can we do better? And number three, would you come back?

Sean Riley:

And here's the thing that when you say that is, going back again to ... I'm in my late 40s, so go I Gen X, I guess, but going back to you don't burn bridges, so you're not going to say anything negative. You're just you found a better opportunity, quote/unquote.

Cheryl Cran:

Politically correct, yeah.

Sean Riley:

Exactly. So how do you rectify that in your exit interview?

Cheryl Cran:

So again, if I've been a top level leader, a master leader, and I've built rapport and I've built transparency, those questions wouldn't be a surprise to me. It's all about how I've communicated with you. But if I'm honest with myself, and let's say you don't feel comfortable telling me that, I would get somebody else to do the exit interview. So I might ask HR to do it, or I might ask somebody else on the team to do it. But I want to know, because that data helps me plan my future in my department as a leader.

So let's say you said, "Yeah, I would come back," "Okay, well, you know what? Go be successful. Take two years. Let me know how that goes for you. Let's stay in touch." Because you're constantly building your pipeline of future people to work with you. Right? And again, I've seen that happen where a person goes, he's gone for a year or two years, comes back and brings tons of value because they've gone in and done and brings that back to the organization as well. So yeah.

Sean Riley:

This was fun. I really appreciate you taking the time to extend your presentation a little bit longer to talk with us, Cheryl. This was very interesting, and your answers and the things that you see and are explaining, you do it in a way that does, it spins things, a lot of people, even I am probably predisposed to think of as negatives, are positives or could be positives or opportunities that we should be taking advantage of. So thank you again, Cheryl, for coming.

Cheryl Cran:

Thank you so much for having me.