How can organizations deal with the strain presented by the current economic situation? First and foremost, they need to ensure that the organization remains financially viable during the economic downturn. Unfortunately, this will most likely mean staffing related changes because such costs represent about 70 percent of an average nonprofit’s budget. Throughout the process of reducing costs and downsizing, however, nonprofits need to ensure that the team remains strong and healthy, which means focusing on people and continuing to cultivate cultural elients. The following article will explore several of these strategies and best practices.

Staff-Related Cost Reductions

Before turning to actual layoffs, many organizations work to trim costs around staff-related expenses such as compensation, benefits and administrative costs. All of the following measures represent regrettable and difficult choices that will virtually ensure employee dissatisfaction. Such options should ideally be communicated carefully and impliented seamlessly while helping employees to understand that sacrifices on behalf of all must be made to ensure that the organization can continue its work.

In rolling back budgeted compensation, new raises should be withheld first and that policy should be applied equally across all employees of the organization. The next consideration is to withhold any performance-related bonuses, which is most likely to impact the management and development teams, as these are the two groups with which bonus systems are most commonly used. Some consideration should be made of the potential inequity of such a decision and the risk of disappointing and de-motivating the two groups that are essential to navigating tough economic times. In general, however, these are also the two most highly compensated groups, so there may be more room to cut costs without directly impacting people’s ability to cover their core living expenses.

You may also consider an unpaid furlough, which means shutting down the entire organization with a forced unpaid leave for a period of days or weeks. Furloughs can be most easily impliented during periods of traditional organizational down-time such as holidays or summers slow-downs. Another way to accomplish a similar goal through a more drastic step is to institute an across the board salary reduction such as a five or ten percent decrease for all employees, which can be either time-limited or indefinite in scope.

Beyond direct compensation, many managers will review their benefit plans to ensure that they are only paying for essentials and getting the best benefits for their buck. Some groups will choose to phase out benefits that may be less important to their staff such as life insurance, long term disability, vision or dental. Others may downgrade their health insurance or consider switching to a different provider. Ultimately, the fastest and easiest way to cut benefit costs is to reduce the percentage that the company covers. By making a ten percent reduction in the employer contribution to health care, for example, you may only increase the burden for each employee slightly, while at the same time cutting aggregate organizational costs dramatically.

Talk with your employees to ensure that you have the best and most current information about which forms of compensation and benefits matter most to them and which ones are expendable. It may even be possible to convene a relatively large staff group and give them the challenge of cutting a certain amount of money from the benefits budget, making whatever allocations and trade-offs the group sees as most fitting. If employees feel engaged in the decision-making process, they may not be as upset with the realities of the decisions.

It is important to note than some plan restrictions and state and federal laws may impact which options are available to you and when. Minimum health care coverage legislation and plan open enrollment periods may be worthy of particular consideration. Speak with your HR experts and benefit managers to learn more about the available options.

Alternatives to Direct Layoffs

Before moving to layoffs, consider using a hiring freeze. Is your organization able to manage for the next six months, for example, with only the staff you have on board now? Can you commit to not making any additional hires, even if you experience resignations and turnover? This will require you to reallocate the work loads of departing employees, but may be a slow and easy means of reducing your staff size.

Another option to consider is part-time and flexible work arrangements. Are there staff members who would prefer to work part-time, either on a temporary or permanent basis? Or is there anyone on staff who is interested in taking an unpaid leave of several weeks or several months for vacation, travel, family time, consulting, or any other reason? If so, you may be able to work out deals under which people reduce their hours or have their jobs waiting for them when they return from leave. You may also consider officially terminating a full-time employee and hiring them back as an independent contractor if they are going to be working on a part-time and project-oriented basis. This will save on benefits expenses as well as payroll taxes, but make this move with caution as the IRS has strict guidelines regarding independent contractors.

It will also help with your budgeting efforts if you can find out sooner rather than later if people are planning to leave for any reason such as graduate school or relocation. This can be a difficult conversation to have, as you don’t want to give the impression that you are pushing people out the door or panic people who were not intending to leave. Nonetheless, the information gained through such conversations may be vital to you in considering whether or not more difficult staffing decisions need to be made.

Downsizing

Often as a last resort, you may need to engage in layoffs, which will require a series of important decisions about how many individuals must go, from what departments, over what time period, and ultimately, which specific individuals will be leaving. Often, such considerations involve a mix of financial necessities, strategic implications and performance-related evaluations.

Developing clear rationales and communication strategies for these decisions will be essential to protecting you from discrimination charges as well as internal and external push-back regarding your decisions. Expect that people will question every decision and expect clear and immediate answers from you. Determine how much you are willing and able to share about each decision in advance, and make sure that all leaders are sharing a consistent message.

It is important to think through the effects of every termination decision – on the organization as a whole, on the work flow of the affected departments, on external constituents, and on staff morale. Ensure that all of the details of the severance package and separation logistics are worked out in advance so that negotiation and awkward conversations are minimized. Remember that any former staff member becomes an ambassador for your organization and no matter how challenging the situation, trying to ensure loyalty even among those who are terminated can have a tremendous impact on your organization’s reputation.

People Matter: Strengthening the Organization

Although current financial realities may call for some tough decisions, do not forget that this is also the time to improve your organization and work to ensure its continued success. You want to come out of this difficult period as strong as possible, which among other things means keeping your top performers on board.

Key strategies in this regard include communicating clearly to instill confidence, providing leadership opportunities, and looking to your employees for innovative ways to streamline work and maximize impact. Keep employees informed about the ongoing situation and how the organization is faring. You want to be realistic but positive so that employees do not fear that they will be next on the chopping block, but so that they also are not shocked when cuts are announced. It is also vitally important that your key employees know how much you value their contributions and that you will do everything possible to keep them. You want to prevent your top performers from even considering looking for other opportunities.

There are two ways that remaining employees can view downsizing: either as a burden that means they have to do more work, or as an opportunity to take on more responsibility and have a greater impact. It is management’s role to ensure that top performers take the latter approach and view this as an opportunity to develop their skills. Giving people the chance to learn, grow, and lead in a new area can increase their commitment to your organization.

Difficult times are when organizations and leaders are tested most rigorously, but you can emerge successfully from these times by considering a wide range of options, being strategic in choices and priorities, making decisions when they need to be made, managing change carefully and maintaining carefully controlled messaging and open lines of communication. Not all organizations will be able to weather this storm and continue to serve their missions in the years to come. Those that do, however, have the opportunity to use this time to become more efficient and effective and to position themselves for continued growth and success when the economy rebounds.

Despite the economic downturn that began in 2008, many nonprofits across the country continue to expand programs, secure additional funding and hire for new positions. Indeed, during these difficult times, most socially-focused organizations note that the need for their services has never been greater and that they have a responsibility to do whatever it takes to meet those demands.

As organizations expand, however, they must also adapt carefully in order to remain stable and sustainable ventures. Throughout a period of significant growth, every aspect of an organization is tested and strained, but perhaps none more so than its organizational culture.

Being Intentional with an Evolving Culture

Culture is particularly sensitive to growth-related changes because it represents a delicate social balance that is impacted by many different factors. As new employees are added to the team, along with new processes, structures, expectations and demands, this balance is forced to shift and evolve. Maintaining the status quo is not an option with continuing growth, but it is up to the members of the team to decide whether that change is intentionally driven in a specific direction or whether it happens in an uncontrolled manner.

Perhaps the most valuable lesson for organizations experiencing growth is to be deliberate about cultural evolution. Nonprofits place a high value on their unique organizational cultures, but most groups passively allow it to remain outside of anyone’s control or influence. This does not have to be the case, and in fact, the most successful organizations go to great lengths to define their culture and control it throughout periods of growth. Managers at these organizations have learned that it is much easier to proactively build a positive culture than to fix a team than has already been allowed to change in negative ways.

The first step in managing an evolving culture is to identify the current and recent cultural elients that have had the greatest positive impact on the organization. Over the past few years, what things brought the staff together and made them more effective? What drove team performance and increased dedication to the mission? What made growth possible in the first place and what internal elients might slow it down or speed it up? And most importantly, which cultural elients should be maintained because they mirror the core nature of the organization, and which ones should be phased out because they are distracting or diminishing capacity? The answers to these questions will be different for each organization, but the keys to success in this process come from deliberately embracing the insights such discussions will make available.

Effectively managing organizational culture begins with a senior management team that embraces the:

• Importance of having a well-defined culture

• Ways in which growth will impact that culture

• Shared vision around the elients of an ideal culture

• Willingness to be hands-on in shaping the culture

• Belief that culture is driven primarily from the bottom-up, necessitating an internal grassroots approach

Once the management team is fully bought-in to this basic framework, it is time to engage the staff in the discussion. As many employees as possible, and ideally the entire staff, should be involved in the process of defining and promoting organizational culture. Staff meetings, town halls, working groups, culture committees, suggestion boxes, surveys and retreats can all be effective vehicles for engaging a grassroots approach to that process.

Ultimately, the management team and staff should collaborate to define and ensure intentional consistency around various cultural elients such as:

• How to identify and reward high-performance

• How to recognize and improve under-performance

• What management styles and behaviors are valued

• How feedback is solicited and receive

• How decisions are made

• How challenges are approached

• What “diversity” truly means, why it is important and how it is being actively promoted

• How respect is demonstrated between team members

• What makes your organization different from others

• What makes this a special place in which to work

• What accomplishments, anniversaries, birthdays and milestones will be celebrated

• How to conduct those celebrations, who leads them, when they occur and what the budget might be

• What dress code would best promote the culture

• Which elients of the physical office space should be kept and which should be improved

Hiring for Cultural Fit

Adding new people to a team has a dramatic impact on organizational culture. As new hires come on board with innovative ideas, original perspectives, fresh energy and totally different sets of expectations, the balance of the team shifts immediately. As such, hiring presents one of the greatest opportunities to be intentional with culture because managers can carefully select the ingredients that are being added to the mix and work to project how those additions will impact the result.

BELL is a national afterschool and summer tutoring program for low-income urban children that recently grew from 30 to 200 full-time employees in just a few short years. Chief Executive Officer Tiffany Cooper said recently in an interview with Commongood Careers that, “It is definitely a challenge to maintain culture as an organization grows, but we try to manage our growth by ensuring cultural fit in all of our hires. We make culture fit a key part of interviewing.”

BELL recognizes cultural factors such as preferred leadership styles, interpersonal dynamics, and organizational traditions, and incorporates this information into the hiring process. Of course, all of these factors can be affected by growth, so it is important to periodically re-examine cultural elients, identify those that are truly essential to the organization, and hire candidates who embrace and embody those core factors and are also aligned with the new realities of growth.
“Solid hiring is critical to an organization’s growth and is hugely important in managing culture change,” said Cooper. “Hiring people motivated by our culture and our mission is essential to our organizational growth. We are very slow to hire and we will turn down many great candidates in order to make sure we get those that are both great and compatible with our organizational culture.”

Additionally, BELL focuses on supporting new hires through the on-boarding process by being explicit about various cultural elients and making sure that those who are familiar with the culture are involved. “Once we’ve made the hire we ensure that the people with the most history here are involved in the on-boarding process,” Cooper said.

The Risk – and Opportunity – of Subcultures

Adding new employees can also lead to challenges. The subcultures that develop with grows can stem from many different factors. Geographically-based subcultures between regional offices result from differences in environment, standards in dress, styles of language, nature of regional management and the local community being served. Subcultures also develop within functional areas and highlight the transition from relying on employees to be “jacks-of-all-trades” toward creating more specialized functional responsibilities. As diversity in experience and background grows, subcultures often evolve based on these factors as well. It is important to recognize and value these subcultures while also maintaining a unified vision and identity for the organization as a whole.

It is also important that everyone on staff remains committed to and connected with the organization’s mission and feels like a valued part of a singular large team. Reminding employees that they are all working to solve common problems and to reach common goals, despite location or function, can build unity and an important shared identity. When the overall organizational culture is one of healthy, positive respect, subcultures that become part of the unique diversity of the team do not present a threat to the intentional management of organization-wide culture.

Communication is Key

Perhaps the most important factor in building and maintaining organizational culture is communication. “Communication is essential to managing cultural growth. We have various systems to do so including cross-functional meetings, a monthly internal newsletter and a quarterly external newsletter,” Cooper said. BELL also uses a unique quarterly “town meeting” to share organizational developments and encourage employees at all levels to contribute feedback on the strategic direction of the organization.

Employees need to feel included in organizational developments and decisions, even if they can’t be involved directly. Sharing information through various formats sends a message that employees are respected and valued, no matter how large the organization or its rate of growth.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

Benefits are a key factor when jobseekers evaluate potential opportunities. Even though budget constraints often dictate a ceiling on nonprofit salaries, a competitive and robust benefits package can be an effective way to attract talent and retain employees. This article highlights a few ways that organizations can rethink the benefits they extend to their employees, especially during difficult economic times.

Engage Staff as Stakeholders

Start by engaging your employees in the decision-making process. A great way to arrive at a benefits package that will be most valued by your employees is to bring them into the discussion about benefits. Involving them in these conversations makes it clear that you are serious about providing the best possible benefits while also balancing the organization’s available resources. If benefits that employees want are too far out of reach, be honest about it and work through alternatives. Being open about goals and concerns can be a benefit in itself.

Get Creative

If your organization is unable to offer robust financial benefits for your employees, thinking “outside the box” can often yield some benefits that your employees will appreciate.

Start by reflecting on your culture. How do you reward hard work or success? Would you allow an employee to work from home for a day as a reward for an accomplishment? Do you throw parties to celebrate organizational milestones? Do you recognize birthdays? These may sound like trivial questions, but all forms of compensation (including benefits) are often as much about showing respect as they are about providing dollars and cents. Finding non-cash means of showing that you pay attention to employees and reward hard work can demonstrate to your team that you really appreciate their contributions.

A common trait among many nonprofit professionals is that they are motivated by “doing good.” However, they might not get the chance to exercise their unique brand of social justice during the traditional work day or they might be too burnt out to volunteer as much as they would like. Why not add on a few days off for volunteering into your vacation package? This might allow an employee to play the role of a scout leader for an extended weekend camping trip or encourage a former political activist to drive seniors to the polls on Election Day without producing a direct cost to the organization or having those employees utilize their other vacation days.

If you are a nonprofit in a city, you are literally surrounded by opportunities for your staff members to spend their hard earned salary. Hit the streets and talk to the management of local gyms, restaurants, movie theaters, parking garages and coffee shops and see if you can work out discount prices for your employees. Kiva, a nonprofit in San Francisco that promotes micro-finance investments in developing countries, touts 50 percent off at the local sushi restaurant in its benefits package. As another example, the EF Foundation in Boston offers discounted Celtics and Bruins tickets to its employees due to its close proximity to the teams’ arena.

Revisit Time-Off and Work Arrangement Policies

In a recent study conducted by Commongood Careers, The Voice of Nonprofit Talent in 2008, nonprofit jobseekers ranked benefits such as “vacation policies” and “flexible work plans such as 4-day work weeks and working from home” as the most important non-salary benefits available. These factors ranked above traditional benefits such as dental, vision, performance bonuses, student debt repayment and family care. There are a variety of factors driving these trends, but test these kinds of ideas with your own employees to see what they value.

There are a number of low-to-no-cost ways to implient alternative time-off benefits. For example, choose two or three organizationally significant, non-holiday Fridays and declare them “our holidays” (in addition to federal holidays). Offer unpaid summer vacations to those who want it and who you can afford to have out for a few months. Encourage employees to utilize flex-time, work part-time from home, or work less than 40-hour weeks for less than full-time pay. If you are going to pursue such strategies, however, invest in your management’s capacity to maintain performance levels within an increasingly flexible office environment.

Skip Matching to Make Retirement Planning Possible

Offering a retirement plan like a 403(b) can be expensive for some nonprofits, although they may not be as cost prohibitive as one might imagine. In general, retirement plans become expensive when employers agree to match contributions made by employees. If an employer agrees to match up to five percent of every employee’s base salary, annual costs even for a small organization could sail high into five or six digits annually for an average sized organization.

There is, however, generally no requirement to match contributed funds in order to set-up a retirement savings plan for your employees. If your organization does not currently have a 403(b) or 401(k), it may be surprising to learn that you can establish and maintain such a plan for just a few hundred dollars a month in administrative fees paid to a benefits management company.

The important thing is to help your employees start saving in the immediate term. Matching funds can always be added at a later date. As an alternative to matching contributions an organization can plan to distribute year-end bonuses to employees in their retirement accounts dependent on whether or not the organization is in the black at the end of the year.

Get Flexible

A Flexible Spending Account (FSA) allows employees to set aside a portion of their paycheck on a pre-tax basis for qualified expenses. Qualified expenses are associated with medical care and dependent care, and generally include items such as over-the-counter drugs, prescription co-pays, contact solution, doctor’s office co-pays, daycare fees, diapers, and gym fees.

Because money that is deducted from a participating employee’s paycheck and placed into an FSA is not subject to payroll taxes, that is extra money (often around $300 out of every $1,000 apportioned) that you are helping to place directly into an employee’s pocket that would have otherwise gone to taxes. This can be a valuable benefit because of the tax savings as well as because it helps your employees see your organization as one that cares about their health and well being. Furthermore, the plans can be managed in-house or often outsourced to payroll and benefits management companies for relatively nominal administrative costs.

Working with a Benefits Broker on Health, Dental, Vision

Many nonprofits work directly with the largest health insurance agency in their market to choose a plan that they believe is the best that they can offer based on their budgets. Working with a trained and certified benefits broker, however, is often free for the organization as these individuals are compensated by the insurance companies. A good independent broker should be able to help you compare all of the plans at one provider against many of the other competitive companies within your market. Often, simply by negotiating one company against another, you may be able to get similar benefits for lower costs. Some nonprofits are also able to work through associations, such as the National Human Services Assembly, to access lower, large-volume rates that have been negotiated on behalf of many groups together.

During difficult economic times, it is not unusual for employers to ask employees to help shoulder some of the financial burden in order to ensure the long term stability of more people’s jobs. This may mean phasing out dental and vision coverage, or shifting a larger portion of the health insurance cost to the employees. Such measures are never easy, but many employees would prefer to see their benefits reduced if it means keeping the rest of their paycheck intact.

Conclusion

There are a number of online resources available that have more tips that might help you rethink benefits for your employees. Web sites such as http://www.irs.gov and http://www.paychex.com offer good places to start. Considering these tips and offering creative and flexible benefits will communicate that you value your employees and want to keep your organization competitive to active jobseekers.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

In our conversations with nonprofit hiring managers, we constantly hear how cultural fit is one of the most important criteria for hiring. A challenge for some nonprofits, however, is to realize that such considerations are just as important to jobseekers and that organizations need to be intentional about communicating their cultural elements throughout every stage of the hiring process. If done correctly, a hiring process can genuinely and effectively reflect an organization’s distinct personality and values.

Attributes of Organizational Culture

Organizational culture is characterized by the attitudes, experiences, beliefs and values of an entire organization. In the social sector, an organization’s culture is closely tied to its mission and programs. The attributes of an organization’s culture can be tangible, such as dress code, or intangible, such as shared values. When trying to describe your organization’s culture, think about some of the following questions:

• Mission Connect: How important is it that every employee be highly committed to the mission? How do individual staff members demonstrate that commitment and contribute to advancing the mission?

• Leadership/Management Styles: How is the staff managed? Is leadership a core value of the organization? How are decisions made and problems solved? Is the process collaborative or more individually driven?

• Reporting Structure: What does your organization chart look like? Is your organization hierarchical or flat?

• Language and Communication: Is there internal language used and understood only by staff? Are there specific terms or key messages in external communication? How would you describe your group’s communication style?

• Physical Work Environment: Does your organization have offices, cubicles, or open workspaces? Are there common areas like reception, a kitchen, or a lunch room?

• Staff Diversity: Is diversity of backgrounds, experiences, or beliefs important to your organization? Why? Is it essential that staff share racial, ethnic, or economic backgrounds with the communities you serve?

• Interpersonal Dynamics: How does the staff interact? Is the mood structured, intense, impersonal, collegial, etc.?

• Titles: Are staff titles important? How do titles affect the way employees perceive their own role and others?

• Traditions and Celebrations: How does your organization acknowledge personal successes and milestones? What social events are institutionalized?

• Work Pace: Do staff work at a fast, moderate, or leisurely pace? How would you describe their work/life balance?

It is important to think through the various attributes of your organization’s culture before launching your search. To find examples of how cultural aspects are demonstrated, look to existing materials, such as annual reports, grants, and marketing collateral. Speak with staff across the organization and probe their opinions about the questions listed above. Observe the physical and interpersonal environments. Most importantly, look to how your organization’s mission and values are (and are not) translated across the overall culture.

Communicating Your Organization’s Culture

Communicating aspects of your organization’s culture begins well before you meet a candidate in person or they observe the organization firsthand. There are opportunities to share information about your organization’s culture at every stage of the hiring process. For example:

When developing a job announcement or posting:

• Include your full mission statement in the introduction or footer.

• Offer an explicit description of the organization’s culture and/or values, such as, “We work in a collaborative, team-based environment. There are no private offices in our space and camaraderie is a value shared among all staff.”

• If being results-oriented is an important aspect of your organization’s culture, share statistics of program successes or other results.

• When listing job requirements, use language that mirrors specific values such as “Collaborate with…” or “Produce results on…”

• When listing candidate qualifications, include specific values or competencies that you are seeking, such as “entrepreneurial” or “flexible.”

• If diversity is an attribute of your organization’s culture, make sure that is communicated throughout the job posting. At the very least, include your organization’s “equal opportunity employer” statement.

• When posting the position, choose channels that reflect your organization’s culture whenever possible.

When interviewing candidates:

• Use a manner of outreach that reflects your organization’s communication style. Some groups use rigid form language while others use more a more casual and informal approach. The most important thing is consistency to your brand and culture.

• Reflect your organization’s culture in your office décor, particularly in the reception area. Display photos, annual reports, constituent artwork or other collateral material for candidates to peruse while waiting.

• Conduct the interview at the location where the new hire will work, such as in the office headquarters, field office, or program sites.

• Probe on candidates’ fit with your organization’s values in interview and follow-up questions, but be careful not to “lead” candidates. For example, to probe on the value of teamwork, inquire about their past experience working in collaborative environments, including asking about the challenges that they faced.

• Share candid information about work/life balance, work pace, and other realities of the environment.

• Give or lend videos, marketing collateral, or other materials to candidates for them to take home.

• Practice what you preach. If you pride yourself on being a friendly organization, give candidates a warm welcome and introduce them to other staff. For organizations that value metrics and results, consider sharing important organizational data, strategic plans, evaluations, etc.

When conducting interview follow-up and extending offers:

• In the period following the interview, consider inviting high-level candidates to staff meetings and/or external events such as fundraisers or gatherings, if possible.

• If they haven’t already done so, allow candidates to visit program sites or other places where your services are delivered. Even for non-program roles, it can be very helpful for candidates to see programs in action in order to get a better sense of organizational values and culture.

• If candidates are returning to the office for additional interviews or meetings, schedule some informal time for the candidate to spend with other staff. At the very least, allow the candidate to meet his/her direct reports or peers if this didn’t already occur.

• When making an offer, present the offer in a style that reflects the culture. And when communicating regrets to denied candidates, make sure you do so in a way that reflects respect for others.

Case Study: Massachusetts Public School Performance

For Massachusetts Public School Performance (MPSP), an educational nonprofit that helps school leaders use real-time data to improve instruction and increase student achievement, the ability to produce results sets the tone for its organizational culture. 
“Our culture is results-driven,” said Client Program Officer John Maycock in a recent interview with Commongood Careers. “Our school-clients place high performance demands on their students and expect to see results. We try to set the same expectations for our staff.”

To communicate these attributes of its culture during the hiring process, MPSP starts with the job description. “When we write each job description, we make sure to clearly state the results-driven nature of our organization. This is the most important aspect of our culture for applicants to understand,” said Maycock. In addition to focusing on results, he describes the organization’s culture as “growth-oriented, team-driven, and non-hierarchical.”

Each job description tries to convey the teamwork and non-hierarchical aspects of the culture by listing responsibilities such as “work on multi-functional teams across the entire organization” and “collaborate with all staff on projects.”

During the interview stage, MPSP involves the entire team in the process. “It’s important for everyone to get a sense of the candidate and vice versa,” noted Maycock.

The interview also includes direct questions posed to the candidate about their experience in results-oriented, deadline-driven environments. Candidates are asked to talk about scenarios that demonstrate their ability to handle multiple projects, meet deadlines, and deliver results. In turn, the interviewers try to be as transparent as possible about the results-oriented aspects of MPSP’s culture. Candidates are given access to growth plans, and challenges and successes are shared. “The interview process is not only about evaluating the position-specific and overall cultural fit of the candidate, but also helping the candidate understand as much about our organizational culture as possible,” explains Maycock.

In the period from extending an offer through on-boarding the new hire, MPSP makes an effort to continue to make their organizational culture transparent and accessible. Top candidates are matched up with staff and encouraged to schedule informal conversations. When a new hire comes on board, they are given an outline of workplace expectations and are also integrated into the team from day one.

As Maycock put it, “We expect our staff to be integrated into our results-driven and solution-oriented culture from the get-go. Making them feel part of the team helps to promote that organizational expectation of high performance and results, a quality which characterizes our entire culture, our clients, and the students we serve.”

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.

Imagine it’s your first day at a new job. You arrive at an office where no one seems to be expecting you. After locating your workstation, you realize that no one has shown you how to log into your computer or get an outside line on your phone. You do not have a clear idea of what you are expected to do first in your new job. Your supervisor is nowhere to be found, and you are starting to question your decision to accept this position.

As the above scenario suggests, an organization never gets a second chance to make a first impression with its new hires. Investing in employee on-boarding ensures that an organization is prepared for and committed to positioning its new hires for success in their roles.

Effective employee on-boarding serves three interrelated purposes. First, it ensures that the new hire feels welcomed, comfortable, prepared, and supported. In turn, this leads to the new hire’s ability to make an impact within the organization, both immediately and over time. Finally, employee success leads to satisfaction and retention, which allows the organization to continue to meet its mission.

In order to position a new hire for success, it is important that an organization prepares in advance and continues to support a new hire throughout the first several months (and beyond). This article explores some established best practices for employee on-boarding procedures.

Before the First Day

Preparing for a new hire’s start date is the first step in ensuring effective on-boarding. Start by completing an agenda for the first week on the job. As part of the agenda, schedule times for the new hire to meet with key staff members.

Provide staff members with the new employee’s resume and job description, and advise them to follow a meeting format that includes sharing a description of their own position, how their role interacts with that of the new hire, and how they might expect to work together in the future.

This is also a good time to assign a mentor or buddy to the new hire as an immediate resource for any questions, help them build a network, educate them on resources, and give key information about organizational culture and goals.

Next, create a comfortable workstation for the new hire. Stock his or her workstation with the tools needed to hit the ground running, such as paper, pens, computer, phone, keys, and business cards. Make sure that voicemail and email accounts are set up. Leave a copy of an organization chart, staff list and phone directory on the new hire’s desk. If your organization has an employee handbook, leave this on the desk as well, along with all administrative forms such as employment, direct deposit, and benefits so that they will be ready to be completed on day one.

To really impress new hires on their first day, add any branded collateral that you can spare such as a logo backpack, hat, pen, tee-shirt or mug to your new hire’s new desk.

Finally, make sure to communicate with your new hire before the first day to confirm logistics such as driving directions, parking, public transportation, expected arrival time, dress code, plans for lunch on the first day, person to ask for on arrival, etc.

The First Day

The first day of a new job can rattle the nerves of even the most experienced professional. The better prepared you are to welcome the new hire on his or her first day, the easier this transition will be for everyone.

Schedule a particular staff member to be available to greet the new employee and give an office tour. During the office tour, introduce the new hire to all staff members as well as pointing out the copy machine, mail room, employee mailboxes, lunch room, and restrooms. Remember that new hires are asked to absorb a lot of information in a short amount of time, so encourage them to take notes and expect that they will have questions about these things later.

Balance the first day schedule between orientation, meetings, and less formal gatherings. If possible, arrange for the new hire to be treated to lunch on the first day by a group of staff members.

Schedule a meeting with the employee’s supervisor for the first afternoon. During this meeting, the supervisor should review the responsibilities of the position and give an overview of what the first 30-90 days in the position will look like.

The First Week

While the first day entails presenting basic information to the new hire, the first week focuses on setting expectations and developing relationships with staff, particularly the supervisor of and any direct reports to the new hire.

During the first week, the supervisor and new hire should meet to discuss desired management style and information about typical processes, such as how decisions are made. This is also the time to begin the most important aspect of on-boarding, which is setting expectations about deliverables, timelines and performance metrics. It is essential that such plans and goals be clearly communicated at the outset of the relationship in order to position a new hire for success in his or her role. The two most common errors when on-boarding new employees are: (1) expecting higher performance and faster learning curves than is reasonable, and (2) leaving employees to wonder what they should be doing and what is expected of them by their new managers.

If the hire is in a supervisory role, also ensure that he or she meets with any direct reports one-on-one and as a group within the first week. These meetings will help build the new team and allow the new hire to get a sense of the work style of each team member.

It is also important for the new hire to interact with other staff members who may not be on his or her immediate team. Schedule at least one meeting per day with different staff members. This gives the new hire time to learn about the whole organization from many different perspectives and to create new relationships with key staff members.

In addition to interacting with internal staff, if it is appropriate for their role, ensure that the new hire is scheduled to meet in person with any necessary partners, funders, Board members or other constituents within the first month. Encourage new hires to notify their personal and professional contacts of their new role, thereby providing a marketing opportunity for your organization.

The First Three Months and Beyond

The output expectation for the first week should be nominal so that the time can be most effectively used for learning and settling in. During the first month, it is traditional to expect modest deliverables in which the new hire can learn by doing and be positioned for success and confidence building. By the end of the first three months, the new employee should be getting up to speed and should be expected to be evaluated on a normal workload.

After 90 days, have the supervisor provide formal feedback on the new hire’s performance, while also soliciting feedback from the employee. Depending on the organizational culture and policies, this meeting could involve a representative of the human resources department. During this meeting, any issues should be addressed and all parties should be confident that the new hire is poised for success in their role.

Remember to build opportunities for feedback into the on-boarding process. Encourage the new hire to note any ideas that they have for improving the operations, strategy, or culture of the organization. The new hire may or may not feel comfortable sharing these immediately, but it is important that the organization be open to the impressions of someone with fresh eyes.

Throughout the first three months, stay mindful of opportunities to integrate new hires into their work groups and into the organization as a whole.

Conclusion

Although all of these steps require an investment of time and resources, it is an investment whose cost / benefit analysis is clear. The potential downsides of failing to effectively on-board an employee include that individual’s failure in the role, potential embarrassment to the organization, resignation or termination, and a new hiring process with an estimated total expense to the organization of three times the position’s annual salary. On the positive side, implienting these suggestions will increase employee satisfaction, speed of getting to full performance levels, quality of ultimate performance, and long-term retention in the role. Effective on-boarding is also a fantastic way to show all of your employees that you value their happiness and want them to succeed.

This article was written by Commongood Careers and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

For more information about nonprofit and socially entrepreneurial careers, visit Commongood Careers at http://www.cgcareers.org.