Onboarding: How to Get Your New Employees Up to Speed in Half the Time [Hardcover]

George B. Bradt (Author), Mary Vonnegut (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 8, 2009

A guide to getting new employees recruited, oriented, and productive—FAST

"Onboarding," a growing trend in the business community, is a focused methodology that gets people in new roles up to speed quickly and efficiently. This book guides you through a process that enables you to recruit, orient, and enable your new employees to get the job done. Learn how to inspire and encourage your new employees to deliver better results faster.

George Bradt and Mary Vonnegut’s Onboarding helps ensure that your new employees are productive and efficient from day one. You’ll learn how to help them assimilate into your corporate culture and accelerate their learning.

• Onboarding is one of the hottest trends in business
• This is the first book about onboarding
• George Bradt is a leading speaker and consultant, and the author of The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan

For business leaders and managers who want well-trained, responsive, efficient, and effective employees, Onboarding helps you get the best from your new employees.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Getting new employees up to speed is one of the toughest jobs hiring managers face. Failure can lead to unfilled needs, unhappy recruits, and, ultimately, the failure to meet vital business goals.

In Onboarding, top executive transition consultants George Bradt and Mary Vonnegut help you recruit great employees, orient them to your business culture and goals, and enable them to start contributing immediately. Even better, the Total Onboarding Program lets you get your new employees on track in half the normal time.

The Total Onboarding Program can dramatically improve the performance, fit, and readiness of every person who takes on a new role in your organization. As a result, onboarding helps build, sustain, and perpetuate high-performing teams and leads to sustained, organization-wide competitive advantage. With deliberate practice and the right tools, you'll succeed at every step of the onboarding process:

• Preparing for your new employee's success before you even start to recruit
• Finding a powerful slate of potential candidates
• Creating a personal onboarding plan with your new employee
• Making your new employee ready, eager, and able to do real work on day one
• Speeding the development of importantworking relationships
• Providing the right resources, support, and follow-through for new employees

Each chapter of Onboarding includes forms, checklists, and other tools to help you make your way through the entire onboarding process with efficiency and effectiveness. You'll have all the resources you need to eliminate hiring mistakes and bad fits, improve employee retention, and align new employees with key business strategies.

For business leaders and hiring managers who want well-trained, responsive, efficient, and effective employees, Onboarding helps you get the very best from every new employee.

From the Back Cover

Praise for Onboarding

"A must-read for anyone bringing someone new into theirorganization—if they're serious about setting them up for success!Well organized, easy to understand and implement."
—Andy Kriz, Director, The Human Capital Institute

"This book shows you the MOST successful way to ensurenew recruits deliver for you. It's filled with practical tips.Why would you settle for anything less?"
—Robert Rigby-Hall, Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, LexisNexis Group

"Onboarding provides the framework and tools to rapidlyembrace new employees and position them for success.A must-read for high-performing organizations."
—Tom Colligan, Vice Dean of Executive Education, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

"This is an invaluable resource for anyone bringing newtalent into an organization. The up-front thinking and easy-to-usetools are key to making any external search a success."
—Alan Cork, Executive Director, Russell Reynolds Associates Inc.

"PrimeGenesis has done it again. Their new book presents a completelydifferent and clearly better way to manage the whole process of recruiting,jump-starting, and managing new employees. Hard to imagine anyonereading this book and not deploying its tools. Don't even think about startingto recruit anyone else until you've read this book."
—Kenneth Beck, Chief Executive Officer, The CEO Connection

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (September 8, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470485817
• ISBN-13: 978-0470485811
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 0.9 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #91,842 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #98 in Books > Business & Investing > Management & Leadership > Training

More About the Author

George Bradt has a unique perspective on transformational leadership based on his combined senior line management and consulting experience. After his education at Harvard and Wharton, George progressed through sales, marketing and general management roles around the world at Fortune 500 companies including Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, and then J.D. Power and Associates as chief executive of its Power Information Network spin off.

Now he is a Principal of CEO Connection and Managing Director of PrimeGenesis, the executive onboarding and transition acceleration group he founded in 2002. Since then, George and PrimeGenesis have reduced the risk of failure fourfold for executives they have worked with - from 40% to 10% - based on their own team, tools and perspective on delivering better results faster.

George and his wife Meg and his dogs Augie and Lanie live in Stamford, Connecticut. They moved there from New York City the long way - via Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, the United Kingdom, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and California. Their three children drop by from time to time between their own various travels to try to soak up more back to school chats.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A must -read for HR professionals November 15, 2009

By S. Pennella

Format:Hardcover

How many times have we dropped the ball in onboarding new employees? Too many times to count.
This step-by-step guide will ensure that it never happens again. The book is a must read for every HR professional, no matter where you work.
I recommend it to all my colleagues.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential tool for talent management November 15, 2009

By W. Berman

Format:Hardcover

Businesses have known for years that the skills and talents that make you successful in one job do not necessarily make you successful in your next job. Until now, however, the responsibility for adapting to the new role has been in the hands of the individual. Bradt & Vonnegut provide a concise, practical process and set of tools that enable the organization to maximize success with new employees. Like his previous work, Bradt starts before the beginning, making sure the organization is clear about what they need and want, and making sure that the new employee fits with those expectations. Then attention turns to helping the new employee get the right tools, meet the right people, and takes the right steps to win in the company. I recommend this book to all of my talent management and HR clients, and use it to help them plan for their own success through the success of their new recruits. A top-line resource for any size company!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Dynamic and Practical - Essential Reading for All CEO's August 27, 2009

By Alan Kneale

Format:Hardcover

As a recruitment professional, I feel I should supply a copy of this book with every C level or senior appointment I manage.
It is essential reading for CEO's and HR Professionals in every organisation, large or small.
Simple, practical tips from a seasoned pro, get it right first time and enjoy the success you expected.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars starting the new employee off right January 9, 2010

By pellet head

Format:Hardcover

Onboarding new employees is a popular topic and this book does an effective job of summarizing how to get the new hire off on the right foot. The authors focus on the individual employee and so do not look to this book as how to manual for a corporate onboarding program. Nevertheless, the individual focus informs the programmatic elements of an effective enterprise wide program.
In my experience as an HR Director, oftentimes new hires are derailed by a lack of fit with the organization's culture. That lack of fit begins with little or no job preview, an unstructured selection process and extends through the critical months in the new position.
All too often the new employee ends up in a sink or swim situation with a lack of supportive structure. This book does a great job at the micro level of taking the reader through the onboarding process from qualifying and checking out the new hire to building networks of key relationships. The authors offer forms and tools that they allow the reader to use in limited quantities to address key issues that surface in the new employment relationship. This reviewer liked the practical nature of the text.
For those looking to create an onboarding program from scratch, this book is helpful but limited given the emphasis on the individual new hire. This reviewer is most interested in alignment of all aspects of talent acquisition, performance management and retention with the brand and direction of the organization. For additional resources on strategic alignment of onboarding efforts, the reader is encouraged to go to the Human Capital Institute website.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Indispensable December 8, 2009

By Mr. George Olcott

Format:Hardcover

For anyone who is involved in the hiring of senior management, this is required reading. It well written, well organised and absolutely to the point about all the issues that you need to consider to ensure the success of the new manager's entry into the organisation.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An Outstanding Step-by-step Guide from the Onboarding Experts! November 16, 2009

By J. Brown

Format:Hardcover

George Bradt and Mary Vonnegut give practical advice and action-oriented plans for ensuring your new employee's success. The news for me was in learning that onboarding starts even before the recruiting process begins. This book gives you not only new ways to think about onboarding, but a step-by-step guide to help you through the entire process, from recruiting through integrating your new employee into the organization and gaining those important early wins on the job. I'm a fan!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Invaluable and Easy to Implement Onboarding Advice: An Insurance Policy to Help Keep and Get the Most From New Hires November 15, 2009

By William Epifanio

Format:Hardcover

Occasionally someone writes a book which successfully sensitizes us to long-overlooked problems while offering practical solutions. "Onboarding: How to Get Your New Employees Up to Speed in Half the Time" does exactly this. Building upon George Bradt's earlier onboarding books, authors George Bradt and Mary Vonnegut deliver an inspired "How To" manual aimed at both keeping and accelerating the impact of new hires. This book walks hiring managers through what the authors define as a "Total Onboarding" process step-by-step. From aligning people around what to look for in recruiting, to accelerating new employees adding value to the organization, this book describes compelling and practical improvements to any company's hiring process.

While a great deal has been written aimed at helping new hires, relatively little attention has been given to the challenges employers face at successfully integrating talent into their organizations --- and keeping them there. I'm sure you'll find this book easy to read, easy to follow, and, essential to implement.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth Every Page November 14, 2009

By H. Kangis

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

So many business books are long on theory but short on practice. This book hits directly those critical things that organizations and the managers themselves need to do to start being productive and deliver results right away in a new job. How many of us have started jobs where somebody points to the desk (assuming there even is one ready when you arrive) and says "let me know if you have any questions." Companies can and desperately need to do better, and this book is the place to start.