By Ray Birch
SANTA ROSA, Calif.—Starting the onboarding process on a new hire’s first day is not the most effective approach, according to Redwood Credit Union, which begins its onboarding as soon as a potential hire is considered a candidate.
The credit union said the results from the program that begins months before a new recruit shows up for work and then continues for months afterward show its philosophy is the right approach. The $3-billion Redwood said its program leads to employees who are much more engaged, and members whose satisfaction scores are higher.
RCU reports it is now ranked at the very top among all companies nationally when its employee engagement scores are compared with Gallup employee engagement scores.
Sophisticated Staff Onboarding
For Redwood, a key objective of the sophisticated staff onboarding program is to get employees to feel like they are an important part of the credit union as soon as they start their job, which not only produces better and higher-performing employees, but stronger member service as well.
Kristina Derkos
“What is most important is the strategic aspect of employee onboarding,” said Kristina Derkos, SVP of administrative services. “I think effective onboarding deepens the CU/employee relationship so staff can fully experience and appreciate all that the credit unions offers. It is critically important that employees get up to speed on the organization’s vision and mission early on so they are highly engaged. In turn, we’ve found they give more back to organization, and more important, give more back to members. Effective staff onboarding is a competitive advantage.”
Derkos believes many too many credit unions mistakenly think onboarding begins on the employee’s first day, with orientation.
“That could not be further from the truth,” she said. “Onboarding begins the first 60, sometimes 90 days, before someone starts, during the recruitment process. This is an important time to connect with the candidate emotionally about your vision and mission.”
Employees, Derkos said, are a critical part of the credit union’s brand promise—“We love to help you succeed.”
“We have a powerful brand in our communities, so we want employees to experience that brand as soon as possible,” Derkos said. “The sooner they know our brand, the sooner they can deliver on that promise to our employees. In our opinion, that lets members experience the same high level of service no matter if they work with an employee who has been on the job for five years or five days.”
Online Portal
Key to new hire engagement is an online portal that’s accessible to recruits during the hiring process. The portal contains all of Redwood’s branding messages and images, the organizational “pillars,” videos and vignettes, photos of current employees, stories of how the credit union is helping members succeed, and information on how Redwood is making an impact in its communities.
RCU onboarding portal
New hires can also connect with their hiring manager and other HR staff through the portal to ask questions about the credit union.
“We really automate the onboarding experience. But by automating the process we don’t want to lose the personal touch, which we don’t,” said Derkos, adding that the personal stories, staff photos and the ability to interact with the credit union provides the human touch before the person comes aboard.
Once a new employee starts, Derkos said the next 180 days are important to the onboarding process, as well as is the consistency of communication.
“You have a small window to really win over your employees and get them engaged,” said Derkos. “So we look at the 60 to 90 days before they begin and the 180 days after they start as the key honeymoon period to cement the relationship.”
First 180 Days
Derkos emphasized that during an employee’s first 180 days on the job, senior management, especially president and CEO Brett Martinez, are involved in many of the onboarding “touch points.”
RCU 'mall' addressing CU's history
“Senior leadership are actively involved,” said Derkos. “So it’s not just the hiring manager and HR team our new hires connect with. They have direct interaction with leadership.”
Redwood has three separate orientation modules that take place day one, day 90, and then 180 days after an employee starts.
An important step in “Orientation 1,” is walking new employees down a “mall area” inside the credit union that shares stories, videos and other information on the credit union’s history and purpose. Staff then go to HR for a high-level overview of the credit union’s policies and practices, with an emphasis on helping new hires understand what is expected of them regarding meeting the needs of the membership. And then, it’s on to training classes.
“Orientation Two is 90 days out, and that is where our CEO and other leaders speak a lot about our values and mission,” said Derkos.
“Orientation Three” was just created, because the credit union felt another touch point was needed at 180 days.
“We are also creating more formal networking opportunities for our new employees,” she said.
Town Halls
The credit union, too, holds monthly “town hall” meetings for the entire staff—which now total more than 500—where often Redwood’s values are re-emphasized and member success stories are shared.
Derkos said that since the onboarding program has been in place during the last year, the credit union has seen new hires becoming more quickly engaged in the credit union.
“Not only do we see our new employees working even more effectively, they tell us they feel very engaged,” said Derkos. “They are engaged from the get-go, we see that. They are asking a lot of questions—a good sign. They understand how important their voice is.”
Derkos added that testimonials from new hires indicate that having pictures and information of current staff on the portal, as well as employee testimonial videos, have helped new hires feel they are part of the “Redwood Community” as soon as they start.
Redwood conducts an employee engagement survey annually, and this year’s numbers were at a record high, Derkos said.
“We use our own proprietary survey that is conducted by an independent third party and benchmarked against the latest Gallup Q12 Survey,” said Derkos. “Therefore we tabulate the results and we compare our results against other companies internationally, nationally, by state and by industry. We don’t compare our results just to credit unions, we compare against all industries.”
Derkos said that many organizations have Gallup employee engagement scores of about 30%, meaning about 30% of the organization is engaged at the highest levels.
“We were at 90% in our last study, which is about the best in the country when compared against Gallup,” Derkos said.