O.C. Tanner improves workplace culture through personalized employee recognition solutions, so people feel appreciated, do their best work, and stay longer.

O.C. Tanner’s Success Metrics:

68%

engagement rate for hiring managers

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The Challenge: Disparate Processes and Manual Onboarding

Connecting new hires to your brand purpose and mission is the gold standard of onboarding success. And for O.C. Tanner, that purpose is to “help people thrive at work,” says Greg Peterson, O.C. Tanner’s head of recruiting. 

“It’s my job to sell that employee value proposition to candidates. It’s a fun job to sell not just a purpose, but a company that’s been doing it for almost 100 years … and has really good intentions about treating its people right.” O.C. Tanner’s longstanding commitment to employees is why the company is consistently certified as a Great Place to Work.

As demand for O.C. Tanner’s recognition solutions increased these last few years, so has hiring. Bringing on 200-300 new hires annually, the recruiting team saw an opportunity to streamline the entire onboarding and orientation process.

“We had disparate experiences from the moment someone signs an offer all the way through the first year and beyond. Each department and manager was doing it slightly differently,” explains Greg.

The HR team was also bogged down in manual tasks that were taking time away from more strategic work. “It was hard for HR to have a standard to hold people to because we didn’t have a way to automate the process and loop everyone in on the same thing,” says Greg.

“We went to the market to look for a solution that could automate some of these processes that were very manual for us.”

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The Solution: Long-Term Partnership for Seamless Onboarding

Choosing Enboarder to automate and streamline onboarding at O.C. Tanner “was just a no brainer for us,” says Greg. “There’s a solid relationship that started off from the very first conversation. We felt like there was an understanding there and a great partnership that would last a long time.”

Beyond Enboarder’s customer service, the onboarding technology itself played a big part in their decision. “It just made sense to me. It felt like it was going to be a great enabler of building what can be a complicated process in terms of onboarding workflows.”

And for the HR team, they would finally be able to see the whole onboarding workflow, edit with ease, and provide a standout experience for end users – including managers and new employees – that’s on brand and personalized.

The first onboarding workflow was a pilot for O.C. Tanner’s customer success and IT departments. “Those were the areas where we were experiencing the most turnover. We realized if we can get onboarding right, then that might be one of the factors in helping people decide to stay. And also, those are the areas where we hire the most, as a direct result of the turnover.”

The team was able to easily connect Enboarder to O.C. Tanner’s HRIS, so now when a new hire is loaded into the system, they’re automatically launched into the right workflow. “That was huge for us,” says Greg. “Now we don’t even think about it.”

The pilot was so successful that the team decided to launch Enboarder across the entire U.S. employee base.

Here are some highlights of their onboarding process, which starts two weeks before day one and takes new hires all the way through to their first anniversary with O.C. Tanner:

Preboarding communications: “It’s really important that new hires start building relationships early and that the new hire feels like they’re being seen and appreciated and are being thought of … We want to alleviate the stress of a new job with communications that help them understand what the next few weeks are going to look like, what their first day will be like, who’s on their team.” So new hires receive a first day checklist along with nudges to fill out their I-9, a company swag box, and a video from O.C. Tanner’s chief people officer (check out a screenshot below of a sample notification).

Virtual office tour: “This is a great way for remote new hires to understand what the campus is like in Salt Lake City. And it’s also helpful for those who will be working here, relieving some of those nerves and understanding what the space looks like.”

Timely manager prompts: “We really wanted to prompt our managers to take specific actions. So, for example, making sure they have the right equipment ordered and they have the right access; or the employee shows up on day one and their desk is set up; that the team has sent out a welcome card.”

Now every new hire shows up with a laptop ready on day one.

Buddy system: Hiring managers choose their new hire’s buddy and the buddy gets an immediate notification with the new hire’s contact info so they’re able to reach out and introduce themselves before day one.

Post day one onboarding: “Here we make sure they feel appreciated and have a good growth plan that’s catered to their first year within the role. The workflow helps the new employee understand key aspects of how the company works, as well as how they can succeed in their role.”

Hands-on product introduction: “At the end of the first week, they’re asked to send an e-card to the person who had the biggest impact on their onboarding experience through our own O.C. Tanner software. So they get introduced to our product very quickly.”

Having the Enboarder team as a resource during implementation and beyond was a game changer for O.C. Tanner. The collaboration has been, “authentic, down to earth, and easy,” says Greg. “You can never ask too many questions and they were always willing to give some helpful hints and tips.”

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The Results: More than $150k in ROI and an Elevated Experience

Greg estimates that automating the entire onboarding process between new hires, HR, hiring managers, and executive administrators saves O.C. Tanner a headcount and a half, or about $150,000 in time savings annually.

“It’s an extremely valuable tool and frees us up to do other important things,” explains Greg. “If we were to hire someone and ask them to do everything Enboarder is doing, they would be extremely busy. They would come to me within the first two weeks and say, ‘I need more help.’”

The feedback from hiring managers has also been incredibly positive: “This just makes their job so much easier. Bringing on a new employee on top of everything else is stressful. Having that communication sent to them automatically is a lifesaver for a lot of our people.”

Feedback from a hiring manager at O.C. Tanner.

Employee retention remains a high-priority goal for O.C. Tanner, and the team is investing in various programs to move the needle on that, including compensation, career pathing, client segmentation – and of course, a more effective and connected onboarding experience.

“There’s a reason we tell managers in that first sequence that first impressions matter. The first five experiences you have with an employer, a friend, a significant other, a school, a teacher, is going to make a lasting impression … So we want to make sure those first five to 10 impressions they get are fantastic, because that’s going to stay in their mind as they continue to experience our culture. There’s a lot of in-person interaction in our onboarding, but Enboarder facilitates 90% of those experiences for us. Enboarder acts as that initial liaison.”