Feature of the month: Manager Toolkit

Introducing the manager toolkit: empower and involve your hiring managers for an effective onboarding process

People don’t quit a job, the saying goes - they quit a boss. Research published in DDI’s Frontline Leader Project confirms this old figure of speech. More than 70% of employees have left a job in their career because of their manager. To ensure this relationship starts off on the right track, the first introduction, impression or interaction is oftentimes the most important. 

At Appical, we believe in the importance of setting up new hires for success ahead of their first day with a company. To ensure they receive a warm welcome as soon as they start their onboarding journey, we recommend scheduling a personal welcome message directly from their manager. However, particularly for hiring managers, onboarding does not always enjoy the highest priority in their day-to-day activities. Which is why it's necessary to clearly outline their responsibilities, set the right success metrics and decrease the workload by scheduling specific actions via automation. This and more can be achieved in the manager toolkit.

Tackle your (hybrid) onboarding challenges with the manager toolkit

With the manager toolkit, hiring managers or other relevant stakeholders in the onboarding process receive their own environment that empowers them to oversee, engage with and manage their new hires.

Hiring managers are HR’s key resource to a personalized, effective employee onboarding program, but only with the right support. 

In the improved new hire profile, managers get an easy overview of the onboarding process of each of their hires. Seeing their progress specific per course, an overview of the new hire checklist and a quick access to their in-depth essay answers gives managers everything they need to assess which employee requires more attention with specific topics. 

The manager welcome message works as the digital introduction at the very start of the new hire’s onboarding journey. The goal is to make the new hire feel immediately welcome as soon as they join the onboarding platform and start off the manager-new hire relationship on the right foot. With the option to automate this message by using personalization tokens, you can ensure the first point of contact is always personal and on-time.

As McKinsey says, what gets measured gets done. The Manager To do’s serve exactly that purpose. By setting up specific checklists, HR can measure and thereby ensure managers stay on top of their responsibilities in the onboarding process. 

Specifically in a hybrid workspace, different new hires might require different actions based on their unique attributes. So if one talent joins as a full-time remote employee an action item like “give a tour of the office” might become less relevant. To ensure your new talent still receives the manager support they need, specific ‘Rules’ can be set that ensure every manager receives a to-do list that adheres to the specific characteristics of their new hires. This guarantees a detailed outline of their responsibilities and establishes a structured, efficient onboarding process supported by managers.

No matter if you are a smaller, local company or a global enterprise, it is not a secret in 2021 that active manager involvement improves the onboarding experience of new hires and consequently increases retention in the long run. The challenge remains increasing the managers awareness for onboarding. With the manager toolkit, all the necessary steps can be taken to assure your managers will play an active role in the onboarding process of your new hires.