By Ann-Katrin Hardenberg

Welcome on Board!

Welcome on Board!

Project Insights: Conception and implementation of an international onboarding program for new employees

Many people still know the good old induction plan from their own start in a company – and this was probably especially the case in a company, that had already reached a certain size as a medium-sized company.

This induction plan is now an important part of a new employee’s onboarding process. Onboarding is the period of hiring and taking on a new employee into the company. To this end, various measures are used to achieve a rapid and smooth integration in the new working environment. Onboarding already begins with the signing of the contract and it ends at the earliest after the trial period – if you do it seriously and sustainably, it ends after the firm integration in a defined position. The goal of onboarding is to familiarize new employees quickly and specifically with the organization, its processes, structures and products as well as the respective work area with its working methods and specifics. The faster an employee is well trained, the faster he can become productive and efficient in an organization and contribute to the company’s goals.

It is not only important in the onboarding process to provide the employee with the necessary information and skills for his workplace. It is far more important to inspire him from the very first minute for the company, his tasks and his environment and thus to strengthen commitment, motivation and trust. A clear structure in the onboarding phases, the support and feedback of the manager and colleagues are regarded as success factors and give the new employee orientation.

THE MAK’ED TEAM divides the onboarding process into three stages:

1. Onboarding phase for preparation
2. Onboarding phase for orientation
3. Onboarding phase for integration

The scope of the individual phases in terms of time and content depends on the company, its size and complexity as well as the position to be filled. The onboarding structure is the same for all employees in the company.

Successful onboarding can be attributed to the following factors:

1. Anchoring in the personnel strategy and in personnel development.
2. Clear responsibilities for implementation in the unit and in the human resources management.
3. Automation of the onboarding process through digital tools: The training takes place faster and the employee retention is measurably higher than with conventional methods.
4. Standardization of the onboarding process and permanent further development of the content and procedures within the process.
5. Positive feedback culture towards the company and controlling of the measures.

THE MAK’ED TEAM designed and subsequently implemented a cross-divisional and cross-location onboarding program for a medium-sized international production company.

The clear requirement for the project was a smooth onboarding of new employees, which had to be standardized, fast and target-oriented compared to the previous approach.

Special attention was paid to the motivation and the immediate and interdepartmental networking of the new employees with their new colleagues. This required a clear definition of the onboarding process, roles and responsibilities.

Contents of the project were thus:

• Setting up a stringent process for onboarding.
• Definition of the responsibilities and tasks, that the various actors in the process take on.
• Conception of a 2-day cross-departmental presence program as part of the orientation phase in the company: this involved the conceptual implementation with various methods and actors in the company. The regular implementation of the program should be supported by the main areas of the company. The content of the program was a mixture of topics related to the company with its values, strategy, working methods, structures and products.
• Introduction of an accompanying digital onboarding tool: this tool accompanied the employees throughout the entire onboarding process on the one hand to network with each other, to share information and to maintain motivation.
• Development of a competence matrix, which had to be fulfilled for each role in the induction phase.

The onboarding program was a success for the company. Inside, the clear and motivating concept radiated to the employees, who wanted to become more and more part of this event. Externally, it was used as part of the employer branding activities, for attracting skilled workers and in all measures to increase the company’s attractiveness.

The clearly structured process relieves management and colleagues and creates measurable added value. The responsible HR department and in particular the personnel development has gained clear visibility and recognition through its establishment – and makes a noticeable contribution to the success of the company.

THE MAK’ED TEAM for solution development and implementation for challenges in Management & Development & Learning in medium-sized businesses and institutions. THE MAK’ED TEAM works in corporate, organizational, personnel and business development with a strong focus on finance, HR and sales and marketing. Among other things THE MAK’ED TEAM develops strategies and concepts for a target-oriented, efficient induction of new employees and onboarding programs in medium-sized companies and accompanies them through to implementation.

By Ann-Katrin Hardenberg

Are you already learning or still waiting?

Are you already learning or still waiting?

Processes, structures, competencies, knowledge – everything in a company is currently in a continuous process of change – everything is put to the test. Influences of digitization and internationalization are fueling these changes to an undreamt-of degree. Change means for each individual employee above all changing oneself.

Just a few years ago, employees waited as a matter of course for their company to develop them further. As an employee, you came to the company with your skills from training, studies or professional experience. Further developments were the responsibility of employers and managers. Over the decades, further development was carried out by watering can: all employees get everything or “too much rather than too little”. Knowledge and competences have been accumulated long before, regardless of whether they were actually needed or not. Problem- and solution-related learning was virtually non-existent. The training was mainly conducted in class, in modern organizations at best by assigned eLearning.

But the requirements of each individual for further development and for learning as a whole have changed: individual, solution-oriented and accessible for employees. Anyone who nowadays as an employee does not take his learning into his own hands and learns continuously depends on himself. The responsibility for further development and continuous learning no longer lies solely with the company and its managers, but above all with each individual employee. Development measures and learning topics are selected or assigned individually for each employee and role on the basis of competencies. “Learning on demand”, the problem- or solution-related learning, is in the foreground.

If an employee has to solve a task and lacks knowledge about it, then he wants to find a solution quickly and easily and the required knowledge about it, no matter when and where! Therefore knowledge must be available virtually everywhere, i. e. accessible via the Internet or mobile phones. Short training courses, often via video or webinar, are the focus. In the case of larger development themes, learning paths over a certain period of time are at the forefront. On this learning path the developer is assigned several online and offline methods (e. g. literature, classroom seminar, webinar, elearning, video). He must work these out. The individual learning units must be short, attractive and motivating.

For a company, a change in the learning culture within the company towards agile learning primarily means establishing the development of employees, knowledge management and continuous learning as an integral part of the corporate culture. The importance can only be transferred to the organization if all management levels including top management, which also lives the agile learning culture, are supported and actively demanded by all stakeholders to find their way there. Only an organization that changes and continuously learns will be a successful organization in the future also. And what applies to an organization naturally applies to each individual employee as well.

THE MAK’ED TEAM for solution development and implementation for challenges in Management & Development & Learning in medium-sized businesses and institutions. THE MAK’ED TEAM works in corporate, organizational, personnel and business development with a strong focus on finance, HR and sales and marketing. Among other things, THE MAK’ED TEAM develops concepts for changing the learning culture in medium-sized companies and accompanies this change from a classical to an agile learning culture. This includes blended learning concepts, learning experience platforms as well as an active design of the learning culture in connection with internal communication and employee engagement.

By Ann-Katrin Hardenberg

Sustainability in Training and Coaching – only marketing or really lived?

Sustainability in Training and Coaching – only marketing or really lived?

Sustainability is used more and more as an effective advertising slogan in marketing by trainers and coaches. We read more and more often: “I work sustainably”; “We anchor our knowledge in your company sustainably “.

But you have to check carefully whether the way it is done can actually be sustainable. Sustainability does not mean to hand out a questionnaire to the participants at the end of a training course you and to ask them, what the training was like. Sustainability begins with a clear objective. What is to be achieved with the training measure for the participants and what is to be achieved with the training measure for the organization in which the participants work. Sustainability is achieved by accompanying the participants or even the organization, where the effectiveness of the training or personnel development measure can be evaluated. The scope depends on the objective. For many objectives, but also additional supporting measures should be planned and implemented in good time. Above all, sustainability means anchoring knowledge in the organization and in the individual and enabling both to take care of themselves.

Individual training measures do not support sustainability sufficiently. There are serious studies which show that up to 80% of what has been learned has been forgotten after only 2-3 weeks. Therefore, it is all the more important to transfer learned knowledge and competences directly into everyday work.

The effectiveness of the success of a training measure can therefore not be measured directly at the  end of the training. This can take place at the earliest three months after implementation. Has the newly learnt knowledge and the newly acquired competence become anchored in everyday working life? Has this made the organization more efficient or has it been able to achieve its goals better? These are questions that an external trainer can answer rarely. He is not involved in measuring success and seldom he accompanies his clients over many years.

From the very beginning, THE MAK’ED TEAM has therefore been committed to systematically anchoring sustainability in our work for our customers. On the one hand, this means that we offer “personnel development” service for SMEs as continuous external support and thus cover the entire process chain for the sustainable achievement of the defined goals.

This also means that in countries where we see many trainers flying in and out, we have established our own local training institutions with local trainers and local employees. They accompany local companies and organizations in their development in the long term. We advise our clients comprehensively on the requirements of effective training measures and support the definition of objectives. For our company, this means not only anchoring processes and standards, but above all continuous training and coaching of local trainers and employees. Only in this way can we guarantee their competence.

And above all, it also means supporting local institutions and companies. We recommend questioning critically, whether the desired sustainability goals can be achieved with international consultants and trainers, who can neither adapt the knowledge to the country-specific context nor know the local circumstances. Many of these consultants, trainers and coaches are not even interested in accompanying their clients in the medium or long-term. A training “often out of the box”; only helps the trainer or coach, not his customers – at least not under the aspect of sustainable development of employees.

By Ann-Katrin Hardenberg

MOVERS and SHAKERS wanted!

MOVERS and SHAKERS wanted!

• You’re full of ideas and energy
• You think that everything is possible and sometimes you also like to turn things upside down
• You want to leave your fingermarks – on society, people and institutions
• You want to implement your ideas in projects
• You have an “entrepreneurial spirit”

THE MAK’ED TEAM is a globally operating network of extremely dynamic women that are full of great ideas. They work closely together in the field of education and knowledge management as well as human resources and organizational development.

Our world has changed dramatically through digitization, affecting our work and jobs, but also our needs in terms of knowledge and education. This is why we need people from different sectors who are able to critically question the establishment, to turn things upside down and come up with innovative solutions. We at THE MAK’ED TEAM drive change and shape the future through innovative and creative ideas as well as concepts, training and personnel development – digital media always included.

As MOVERS and SHAKERS we actively support private and public sector institutions in their development and change processes and accompany them throughout the implementation process. These solutions are developed together with the institutions and adapted to their culture. Based on our hands-on approach, they are then successfully implemented with the help of our talented, driven and dedicated team. In recent years, each of us has gained in-depth expertise in international projects with different institutions. At the same time, we continue to work both as individual MOVERS and SHAKERS and as a TEAM around the world.

We are MOVERS and SHAKERS who want to initiate and drive change and development – with passion and boldness. Our activities shall have a lasting effect on society, people and institutions.

What do we offer?

• Close collaboration with a dynamic and established network functioning as sparring and project partner
• A platform that allows you to implement your ideas
• Open-mindedness towards innovative and creative ideas
• Internationality, acting and thinking without being constrained by spatial limits

Interested in becoming one of our MOVERS and SHAKERS? Simply contact us by sending an e-mail to info@the-maked-team.com