Many of the employees who leave do so within the first year. If we want to impact first year turnover, it’s important to examine the processes, programs, and activities that are a part of the new hire experience. Probably, the biggest being onboarding.

According to Wikipedia, onboarding is defined as the socialization process where employees acquire the knowledge, skills and behaviors to become effective inside the organization. Using this definition, onboarding includes administrative processing, training, development, and productivity.

So, it’s important to understand the components and goals of your onboarding program so you measure the right outcomes. Let’s use this definition to discuss several options for measuring the results of your onboarding program.

Make the onboarding process more cost-effective

Orientation is a specific process within onboarding and, as such, we can calculate a specific cost. Orientation programs traditionally contain administration and training that applies to every employee like ethics, civility, and general organizational communications.

A common metric is orientation cost per employee. In the book “How to Measure Human Resource Management” by Dr. Jac Fitz-enz, the calculation is presented as:

OC/E = [(T x (R/h x E)) + DC] / E

OC/E      Average cost to orient an employee

T              Time spent in orientation

R/h         Average hourly rate of attending employees

DC          HR department cost per employee

E              Total number of employees oriented

It is possible that organizations are unable or unwilling to reduce the investment made in employee onboarding. And that’s completely understandable. Another way to evaluate cost-effectiveness of orientation is by monitoring the cost for staff to conduct the program.

So you might not be able to change the cost per employee, but you can change the cost to deliver the program. Fitz-enz also identifies the calculation for HR department orientation expense in the same book:

HROE = (T x R/h) / E

HROE    HR department orientation expense

T              Time spent by HR in orientation

R/h         Average hourly rate of HR staff, including benefits

E              Total number of employees oriented

Understanding the costs associated with orientation can help HR departments evaluate onboarding technology solutions. It can also provide guidance on logistical decisions like the length of orientation and what topics should be covered.

Improve the impact and value of the program

It can be tempting to focus completely on cost-related metrics to evaluate onboarding. While numbers are important, sometimes the value of a program is more qualitative.

Employees can provide significant feedback and insights that will improve the process. For example, asking new hires to complete a Kirkpatrick Level 1 evaluation (Reaction) can provide an initial read that helps HR to understand the level of enthusiasm that new hires have immediately following milestones in the process.

Organizations can conduct new hire surveys at regular intervals to allow organizations to take a pulse on the program. Employees can rate statements about the following topics:

• Perceptions about feeling welcomed as a new employee (i.e. “I felt welcomed on my first day.”, “My manager greeted me on my first day of employment.”, “My co-workers made me feel a part of the team.”)
• Value and timing of information received (i.e. “I immediately used the information I received during orientation.”, “What information would have been helpful to receive during orientation that you did not receive?”, or “What information did you receive during orientation that could have been provided later?”)

• Alignment between pre-hire conversations and post-hire realities (i.e. “Is there anything you learned after hire that would have been helpful to know prior to accepting the offer?”, “Is there anything we told you during the recruiting process that was incorrect?”, or “Now that you’ve been doing the job for a few weeks, is the job what you thought it would be?”)

• New hire training (i.e. “Do you feel you’ve been adequately trained for your position?”, “Do you know what it takes to get promoted in the company?”, and “Is there something you expected to receive training on that you have not?”)

Include indirect outcomes

While there are ways to measure the results of your onboarding program, it’s possible that HR doesn’t have the resources. This doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to gauge program results. Even if you don’t measure the onboarding process, onboarding results impact other HR metrics. Ultimately, an effective onboarding program should:

• Increased employee engagement which can be measured through employee surveys and productivity scores. Surveys can have benchmark questions, which remain constant year over year that allow for a comparison of scores.
• Improved products and services measured with quality and customer service scores. Quality programs such as LEAN and Six Sigma can provide a quantitative process to monitor outcomes and a highly defined process for repairing flaws.
• Reduced turnover, so turnover rate and cost of turnover are relevant measures. Monthly turnover rate is calculated by taking the number of separations during a month divided by the average number of employees on the payroll (multiplied by 100.)

There are many cost of turnover calculators available via the internet. In the article “How to Really Calculate the Cost of Employee Turnover”, Dr. Greg Willard includes pre-departure and vacancy costs.

Align your onboarding evaluation process with program goals

The key to successfully evaluating your onboarding program is having a clear understanding of the program’s goals. This allows you to collect the right information.

Before starting any type of metrics dashboard, take the time to get senior management buy-in for reporting. Just like you want to align metrics with program goals for maximum impact, you want to align the dashboard with those metrics that senior leadership wants to see. No sense in spending valuable resources collecting data and reporting it if no one wants to read or make decisions using the information.

Measure what you can control. Find out which metrics the organization wants to see, what report format will be the most appealing, and how often to distribute the report. Once senior management is accustomed to the information. They will ask for more. Trust me.

Metrics and information are an important piece of the employee experience. They can prove trend data that helps us keep programs fresh and employees engaged. Gathering the information and data doesn’t have to be difficult. It does need to be focused on measuring the right things.

About the author:

Sharlyn Lauby is an author, writer, speaker and consultant. She has been named a Top HR Digital Influencer and is best-known for her work on HR Bartender, a friendly place to talk about workplace issues. HR Bartender has been recognized as one of the Top 5 Blogs read by HR professionals by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM.)

Sharlyn is the author of “Manager Onboarding: 5 Steps for Setting New Leaders Up For Success”and  “Essential Meeting Blueprints for Managers,” both are available at the SHRM Store.

Any business owner wants engaged employees—employees who are happy with the work they do and who feel they are making a difference perform at a higher level than those that just see work as part of the daily grind. While it’s important that all employees are engaged, your main focus should be on that small group of high-potential employees (HPEs).

What is a high potential employee?

Harvard Business Review defined a high potential employee as follows:

“High potentials consistently and significantly outperform their peer groups in a variety of settings and circumstances. While achieving these superior levels of performance, they exhibit behaviors that reflect their companies’ culture and values in an exemplary manner. Moreover, they show a strong capacity to grow and succeed throughout their careers within an organization—more quickly and more effectively than their peer groups do.”

Note that these are people who have succeed at a higher rate than their peers. This means that you can have a high-potential VP and a high-potential junior analyst who has only been out of school for three months.

Sometimes, people think of the term “high-potential” in the terms that their school teachers used it. “John sure has a lot of potential!” they said, but what they meant was, “John should really be doing better than he is”. A high potential person in the office is succeeding. Granted, they still need support, but you can see the success.

How are high potential employees different?

Well, the obvious answer to that is that they are better and faster than their peers, but they also have different goals. Someone who masters a job in six months is going to become bored with that job in a year, as compared to someone who still needs significant support six months into the job.

High potential employees will need more of a challenge if you want them to stay engaged. Here’s how to keep your high potential employees engaged and benefiting your business.

Provide a challenge

Remember, high potential is different than just a high-performer. Some high performers want to stay at the top of their current game, and are happy to stay where they are. That doesn’t make them bad employees, nor does it suggest they aren’t engaged. But, a high potential person wants to move onward and upward. They need challenges.

These challenges can, and often do, come in the form of promotions, but that’s not the only kind of challenge a high potential person can take on. You can offer special projects, difficult clients (internal or external), or just ask them to take on a bit more.

You have to be careful with challenges. Sometimes bosses see high potential employees as the people who can solve all their problems—and as such, they don’t want this person to be promoted and move on. That is a critical mistake.

While your HPE can do many of the things the rest of your staff finds difficult, remember that the challenge needs to have a purpose. If you keep giving your HPE all the tough clients, watch her succeed with them, and then reward her with a new batch of rotten clients, she’ll leave.

Change up the challenge. If you HPE tackles the difficult clients successfully, ask her to develop a training protocol for her co-workers so they can learn to accomplish the things she needed.

Make sure to promote

Promotions don’t have to come all the time, but they do need to come. An HPE needs to know she’s moving up in the world, or she’ll move out.

Sometimes small businesses worry that there aren’t any places for an HPE to go. After all, if you’ve only got 10 people, there aren’t exactly layers of middle management for her to work her way through. Remember, though, that all promotions don’t have to be into new positions. You can focus on Promotions in Place, or Growth Promotions.

What are these promotions? Well, this is the promotion from Junior Analyst, to Analyst, to Senior Analyst. The underlying work—analysis—hasn’t changed, but how the employee approaches it, the level of responsibility and the pay all increase as the title increases.

Consider a rotational assignment

If your organization can allow for it, a rotational program can keep an HPE engaged. In such a program, employees are given assignments for 12-24 months and then are moved to the next assignment—sometimes completely different assignments.

You may start the person in marketing, and after 18 months move her to supply chain. It will be a huge challenge for her, but will keep her engaged. And best of all, the business will benefit from her strengths and the knowledge she gains as she learns the whole organization.

Don’t forget the low-level HPEs

We often see HPEs as the super shiny new MBA we just hired. Those people can be HPEs, but so can that grocery store cashier you just hired.

If you just hired Jane to run a cash register and you notice that she’s learning quickly and has better rapport with the customers than most cashiers, don’t lose her. You may think cashiers are a dime a dozen, but cashiers like Jane are not. Talk to her. Say, “Jane, I noticed how quickly you learned your job. We’d be interested in helping you to achieve your goals in our store. Can we talk about your plans?”.

She may say that her plans are to work this summer and then go to college and become an accountant. Since you’ve identified her as a high potential employee and every business needs accountants, make sure that you help her achieve her goals. Offer her a chance to work with the accounting office. Let her help with the drawer auditing at the end of the day. Challenge her.

It will benefit your business and her career. When she’s done with school, she just might stay with your grocery store, and you’ll benefit from her talent for years to come. If you just treat her like a cashier, she’ll do a good job for a summer and then go on her way.

Keeping your HPEs engaged and helping your business is a key responsibility of any HR department or management team. Keep them engaged and they’ll stay with you. Let them get bored or feel unappreciated, and your competitor will benefit.

About the author:

Suzanne Lucas spent 10 years in corporate human resources, where she hired, fired, managed the numbers, and double-checked with the lawyers. Now she writes about how to managers can manage their employees and employees can manage their managers, along with tips for making your career great. You can reach her at [email protected] or follow her blog, Evil HR Lady.

Learning a foreign language can be time-consuming and soul crushing. You never seem to have enough time to read grammar books or enough space in your head to remember various forms of a verb.

When you have a 9-to-5 job, both spare time and brainpower tend to shrink down to nothing. It seems impossible to find time for anything else on top of work, social time and, in some cases, parent responsibility. However, that does not have to be the case.

5 strategies to learn a foreign language while working full time

1. Dump the excuses

This is the single most important step. You need to get into the mindset that you can do it. It is challenging to juggle a demanding career and mastering a new language, but not impossible.

Your chance of mastery is high providing a structural plan,  good teachers, learning companions, and smart time management tactics. I will give you the strategies for those later, but this first thing you need to do yourself.

Get some paper and write the excuses that have been stopping you in your quest. They could be anything along these lines:

• Your job is mentally demanding so, by the end of the day, your brain is too tired to take in any new words or grammar rules.
• You have a busy social life, which takes up most evenings —the time you could have used for language learning.
• Between work and family, you don’t have time to go to language classes.
• Your job is stressful and you don’t need more stress from trying to learn new things.

The underlining obstacles either come from misunderstandings of the learning process or the lack of a good guidance.

You need to know that learning a language is exciting and should involve no stress. When you do it right, you can fit it into your normal working day elegantly and deftly. It doesn’t have to take you away from your social life, it adds colors to that life! You will find out why in strategies number 3 and 4.

2. Have a goal, and a plan

Let me say it again, it is possible to learn a foreign language while working.  Still, your time is limited so you want to prioritize.  Start with the reasons you study this second, or third, language.

If you are learning a language so you can read materials that are useful for your profession but not translated well or enough into your mother tongue, focus on reading skill. That means building up a wide vocabulary and learning the grammar. Conversely, listening to the news on current affairs is irrelevant, for now, and could be disheartening. Don’t spread yourself too thin by trying to improve every skill.

Let’s look at another scenario: You are learning Japanese because there is an opening in Japan for a position that you want. In this case, basic conversational Japanese will help you quickly settle in at the new office and new city. Forget about the spelling and grammatical varieties, concentrate on learning to speak and listen to the everyday conversations. Don’t waste your valuable hours on the formal forms of Japanese, for example. Learn the basics and let yourself be understood.

Once you know your priorities, make a plan. If you have a personal mYngle tutor, discuss it with him or her. Tell your tutor the specific skills you want to improve, how much time you have solidly for classes or training. It is important to tell them about your habits, routines, and interests to find the best approaches together.

For example, if you commute 30 minutes by train and you love sports, a sports podcast in the language you are learning would be a great add-on. You will more examples in following strategies.

3. Build language learning into your daily routine

With a full-time work schedule, you might find it difficult to set out a straight 1 hour every evening to learn. However, you can accumulate that hour throughout your day.

Think about your time outside of work. Activities performed routinely, such as washing the dishes and ironing your clothes, aren’t mentally demanding. You can absorb a new language at the same time.

Try having the radio on when you cook. While stirring a sauce, for example, you can direct your attention to voice and try to understand the conversation. Otherwise, soak in the sound and familiarize yourself with the native speech.

You can also combine language learning with hobbies. When you are doing something you like, your brain is stimulated and the combination helps to keep your enthusiasm for the language high.

Let’s say you like to read and you are learning French. Start with a hilarious children book like Le Petit Nicolas. By the same token, if you like cooking and are learning Spanish, a foray into making tortilla de patata might be fun. I did that with my Dutch, which was tough at first as I would miss out an ingredient or two. The food got better gradually and I really enjoyed the experience.

4. Be creative in finding language partners

I’ve heard a lot of people complained about not having anyone to practice with outside the classroom,  even if they live in the country whose language they are learning. It might sound absurd but there are elements of truth.

While our online network is getting bigger and bigger – like 700 Facebook friends and 400 Instagram followers, our real life cycle is getting smaller. It is  down to your partner, family and a handful of childhood friends who understand you before you even say anything. They are a no-go for language partners. And online, you use emojis.

So what do you do?

This is the time to get creative, or to download some apps. They are the interactive alternatives to language exchange forums, the vestige of early globalisation era. Some forums are still around but most people were on there for the wrong reasons, so I would not recommend them. Try apps such as Tandem, HelloTalk or WeSpeke, instead. You register an account, add your native language and the language you want to practise, the apps would suggest matches for you.

Don’t just stay online, though. Step out of your comfort zone and find people in the neighbourhood. If you live in a big city with a university, it’s likely that they would have language clubs you can join. Learning Chinese? Go to a new Chinese restaurant and see if you can practice speaking with the waiting staff. Alternatively, find a Meetup group and go to the meetings.

5. Learning while at work

The time you are at work takes up to a third of your day and sometimes more if you have to commute. It seems like a waste to ignore that chunk of time totally and not learn anything at all.

Here are a few things you can do to improve your language skills while at work:

• Listen to language podcasts while commuting to work
• Refresh your new word lists during coffee breaks
• Go to a language exchange lunch
• Give your personal folders or files second names in the second language
• If you like listening to music while working, why not listen to foreign songs instead?

These are the five strategies that would help you learn a foreign language while succeeding in your career. With mYngle you can get personal support from private tutors, so that you can enjoy the flexibility of learning and balance it with your professional life.

About the author:

Quynh Nguyen writes about productivity for individuals and teams while travelling the world. She loves learning languages, riding a bike and having many nice cups of tea. Connect with her @QuynhThuNguyen or visit her at www.quynh.nl

This year, we celebrate the holiday season by putting together a collection of season greetings in 20 different languages!

Discover how to say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year in 20 languages with mYngle!
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I once had this amazing manager when I worked in the hospitality industry. Despite being the General Manager of a luxurious 5-star hotel, he stayed close to all the staff, being a rich source of inspiration to us. He didn’t attend any reputable Swiss hotel school or such. He just joined the industry at the bottom of the ladder. Throughout a few decades and a lot of training, he became the admirable leader that I had the chance to work with.

During my time in the hospitality industry I underwent many trainings. And in most of them the focus on peer coaching, on-the-job learning, and interactive workshops was impressive. That’s why, based on my own experience, I would like to propose the following three rules for effective corporate training.

Rule #1: Customize the corporate training

People have different ways of acquiring knowledge and learning new skills. Some find it more comfortable reading the materials themselves and they only come to a trainer when they have questions. Others prefer new things being presented to them in an interactive way, be it in a classroom or via video tutorials.

You should ask the trainees for their preferences before planning any staff training. Make inquiries about the preferred method (self-study vs. coaching), their favourable environment (online, classroom, or on-the-job) and the pace they are comfortable with (an intensive short course, a long course with a fixed schedule or self-pacing).

If you don’t have the access to their references or can’t accommodate all the differences, refer to the effectiveness of previous training. What type of training brings the best results regarding a specific skill? A high ROI often signifies effective training. You will find more on measuring training results on the second part.

Examples of the various training you can provide to your employees:

• Online self-learning: share tutorial documents and videos on the company’s Google Drive.
• Online one-on-one courses, such as mYngle for learning a new language.
• Classrooms with a professional trainer.
• Intensive workshops.
• On-the-job training by a peer.
• Working in a different department to learn new skills.

When it comes to employee satisfaction, companies that offer more customized courses and opportunities for personal development often win. Don’t stop at skills that are essentials for an employee’s job, offer to broaden their horizon and career opportunities.

It is true that some people love their job and only want to excel at one thing. However, many others appreciate the chance to learn transferable skills, such as “how to manage a team” or “how to persuade others”. By asking your employees about what they want to learn, you show them that you care about their personal development as much as their contribution to the success of the company.

Rule #2: Evaluate the training

Once you decide the type of training to be given to certain employees, you need to find out how to measure the results. Never start training without setting specific goals. Write down the expectation for outcomes and estimate the return on investment.

Measurable Goals

The outcomes of training could be anything that has a positive impact on the business bottom line: a higher level of customer satisfaction, reduced operation costs, a better retention rate, etc. You need to decide which outcomes you want and how you measure them.

Evaluation during training

Donald Kirkpatrick, the author of many organisation training books, advised the four levels of evaluation. He proposed companies to do evaluation in each stage of the learning.

• Reaction: how trainees react to the materials or response during sessions
• Learning: what knowledge they acquire
• Behavior: what workplace behavior they have afterwards
• Results: the impact on performance

Evaluation tools include observation, feedback, surveys, and tests. These tools can be used in combination before, during and after any given training session.

Through observation, you can see, for example, if a training session is engaging and if there’s a change in behavior.

Feedback is the great way to get trainees to share more about their progress. Ask them immediately a session if they feel that the training is engaging and beneficial. Go deeper for improvement suggestions from the attendees. Let them know that you are open for feedback in the future while they start to apply what they have learned to do a better job.

While face-to-face feedback is the best way to build employee relationships, tools like 7 Geese, Small Improvement, or Impraise help to collect feedback online, instantly and/or anonymously. Some of those tools also enable you to create surveys and analyse the results faster. They reduce the administration cost of evaluation, compared with the traditional paper surveys and tests.

Return on Investment

Many organizations use ROI analysis to measure the success of training programs because of its straightforwardness and transferability. Basically, ROI analysis tells you how much money you get back on each dollar or euro you invest on training.

The concrete number validates any training program as a business tool. Besides, you can use it to justify the cost of training programs that you propose to the C-suite. As mentioned above, it can also help when you need to make a difficult choice between training methods. Hint: Go with the one with a higher ROI.

When using ROI, you need the total cost and the monetary benefits.

Training costs could include:

• Material production cost
• Payment for professional trainers
• Tradeoff between training time and working time
• Cost of online classes offered to employees and paid for by the company
• Evaluation cost

Monetary benefits could come from:

• An increase in productivity
• Income generated from new leads
• Lower turnover costs

Rule #3. Regular Follow-ups

While it is necessary to evaluate right after the training, don’t forget to follow up later when the trainees have the time to apply what they learn into their work, be it after two weeks or a few months. Let your employees know that their feedback is always welcome, especially the input on any future training.

Takeaways:

• Customize training programs to the needs and preferences of your employees
• Set up specific goals for any training program beforehand
• Evaluate training at every level to measure the results
• Provide assistance as trainees transfer learned skills and behaviors into their work
• Actively seek feedback from trainees

About the author:

Quynh Nguyen writes about productivity for individuals and teams while travelling the world. She loves learning languages, riding a bike and having many nice cups of tea. Connect with her @QuynhThuNguyen or visit her at www.quynh.nl

Does investing in professional learning and development improve business outcomes?

How do attitudes to investment in staff and training vary by country across Europe?

These are some of the questions that we will answer in our next live webinar on Wednesday, December 7 at 11 AM (CET).

mYngle has partnered with the Financial Times | IE Business School Corporate Learning Alliance to analyze the results of a unique, independent survey conducted among 600 business leaders from across Europe.

Among other topics, our speakers will debate and question some of the key results emerging from this research:

• Measuring return on investment for corporate learning programmes and their alignment with the overall business strategy
• Factors involved in the decision-making process while looking for an executive education partner
• Measuring return on investment for corporate learning programmes and their alignment with overall business strategy

Click Here to Register

Webinar Speakers

Suzanne Lucas

Suzanne Lucas, veteran HR pro and now highly successful international blogger a.k.a. Evil HR Lady.

Martin Boehm

Martin Boehm is the Dean of Programmes and Professor of Marketing at IE Business School.

David Wells

The event will be presented and moderated by David Wells, Communications Director of the Financial Times | IE Corporate Learning Alliance.

Save the date!

Join our live and interactive free webinar on Wednesday, December 7 @11:00 (CET time) to find out more about these hot topics of the HR world!

All you have to do is click on the button below and introduce your details!

Click Here to Register

The future of work is virtual, according to a survey published in Fast Company. Thirty-four percent (34%) of business leaders said that over half of their workforce would be working remotely by 2020. That’s less than five years from now.

While working from home or a café does take some getting used to, the real challenge with virtual work is management.

Over the past decade, managers have been responsible for assigning, monitoring, and evaluating work based upon what they saw. In today’s work environment, that has to change because many employees are able to do their work from anywhere.

If organizations want to realize the benefits of a virtual workforce, then managers must become better at managing virtual teams. Here are five strategies for managing a virtual workforce:

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Think about your ideal job. Does it involve getting to work at the crack of dawn, barely having time to grab lunch, and getting home after dark—even in the summer? Of course not. The ideal job allows time for family and friends, as well as a good pay check and a challenging work environment.

Bosses want an ideal employee. They may think that is someone who comes early and stays late and takes no breaks, but that’s a recipe for disaster. An employee like that will burn out quickly. So, while you may think someone who does nothing but work is ideal, the reality is a well-balanced employee will be productive for a long time to come.

How do you get that well-balanced employee?

You give them a chance for balance. You set the environment that will help them gain balance in their lives.

Yes, you can develop this type of well-balanced employee through offering flexible schedules and telecommuting.
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We are happy to announce that next week, our CEO Marina Tognetti will participate in the 2016 Global WINConference that will take place between September 28^th and October 1^st at the Ergife Palace Hotel in Rome, Italy.
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Last week, we shared with you 10 tips for learning a foreign language. As promised, we are back with 10 additional tips to interact with the language that you are learning on a regular basis. From scheduling routines to playing games, these 10 tips will help you integrate a foreign language into your everyday life! Read the rest of this post »