As we’ve welcomed a new year, many of us are bringing on new board members and hiring employees. With limited resources of staff and time, it can be tempting to expect our newest people to hit the ground running. We might offer a quick tour of our facilities and hand them a few papers to sign and consider them ready, but a great onboarding program is valuable to employees and volunteers.

Turnover has a cost and when we train and prepare people for success, there is a significantly higher rate of retention. It may seem obvious to provide on-the-job training, but it is important to help each individual understand the goals of your business and their role in achieving those goals. It is also valuable to understand their learning style and how they will be most successful in working with other team members.

We talked with members who have made this a priority and who are reporting great success.

Every new employee at Central Electric Cooperative goes through a yearlong onboarding process, in addition to their job specific training. Mitzi Evankovich, Project and Training Manager, explains that Central Electric’s program has been in place for more than five years and is continually evaluated and adapted as they identify areas to improve.

The entire program is well documented and mapped out to ensure employees have the chance to get to know the cooperative. Among the areas covered are Safety, IT, Human Resources, and company mission. Each employee meets with every department director, so they can learn how their specific job relates to the entire company.

Mitzi notes that a survey of employees indicated the training and onboarding provided by Central Electric is highly valued. She adds: “We want to set every employee up for success and we feel that this is best done by helping them understand their role and that of everyone they’ll be working with.”

Webco Industries launched their Bootcamp program in 2021. Matt Craig, Training and Development Instructor, shares that every new employee attends the five-week program, designed to help build the skills and specific knowledge they need to have a successful career in manufacturing and also build relationships with fellow new hires and the instructor.

The instructors continue acting as mentors to the employees, meeting with them periodically to see how things are going in their new position. Ryan Bell, Plant Manager of the Oil City facility, reports a significant improvement in retention of new employees.

Onboarding volunteers, especially those who will provide leadership to your organization, is equally important. We often assume that because we’ve known someone a long time and they’ve extended support, they know and understand how (and why) we do what we do.

We recently held an orientation for the six new members of the Venango Chamber board. Included was an overview of governing documents and the board’s legal responsibilities. We reviewed the strategic plan and organizational structure and left time for discussion and questions. Having a group participate in this encouraged more conversation and opportunity for catching anything that might have been unclear.

Our follow-up to orientation is a board retreat, a chance to refresh the entire team, explore group dynamics, work on teambuilding, and introduce our new board members.

Ready to start an onboarding program or looking for ideas to improve your current training and orientation? We’d be happy to share some of what is working well for us at the Chamber.

This article was published in the Venango Chamber’s March 2022 VenangoWorks! Newsletter.