Value in Onboarding : Designing the New Employee Onboarding Procedure for a Hybrid Working Environment
Mitrofanova, Elena (2023)
2023
All rights reserved. This publication is copyrighted. You may download, display and print it for Your own personal use. Commercial use is prohibited.
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2023112832144
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2023112832144
Tiivistelmä
In current times of rapidly changing working environments, employee onboarding remains a topical subject for research and development. The purpose of this thesis is to develop an internal procedure for new employee onboarding for the benefit of Customs Support Finland (previously SA-TU Logistics Oy). This is achieved through designing guidelines on onboarding for the use of team leaders and line managers. The procedure facilitates new employee onboarding in the hybrid and remote work context.
Employee experience is at the core of this research-based development work. Theories from human research management and applied psychology are examined through the lens of service-dominant logic and form the theoretical framework of the study.
This thesis is a qualitative research-based development work in which service design methodology has been applied for data collection and analysis and to solve the development task. The data was gathered employing multiple methods such as a literature review, semi-structured interviews, focus group interviews, and internal documents analysis. The focus was on the current state of onboarding. Participants were recruited from inside the company. The employee experience of newcomers during the onboarding period was examined through twelve semi-structured interviews with nine freshly hired employees and their supervisors. The organization’s perspective was studied through three focus group interviews with line managers, executives, and other personnel involved in onboarding new employees. The focus group interviews involved six to eleven participants at a time. During the sessions, the participants elaborated on creating a persona card and a new employee onboarding journey map to understand the employees’ perspective better.
The interviewed participants verified that onboarding is a complex procedure engaging numerous processes, roles, and responsibilities, and consequently requires thorough planning. The findings demonstrate that in Customs Support Finland the employee experience during onboarding was mainly positive despite the absence of a coherent structure in onboarding practices. Furthermore, several gaps were identified during the development work.
The participants’ collaboration during the development work resulted in several significant outcomes. For instance, the managers, HR, and IT have collaboratively decided on how the general onboarding-related activities, roles, and responsibilities must be distributed. Onboarding was commonly acknowledged to be a key internal service for employees with related phases and interactions. These service phases and interactions were mapped out on the onboarding service blueprint for the future use of the company’s personnel.
An unexpected outcome of this thesis work was the development of a new model that facilitates the design of a new employee onboarding procedure. This model incorporates a previously created framework of the four levels of onboarding integrated with key principles from the service-dominant logic. The model illustrates the occurrence of value co-creation on the four levels of onboarding between businesses and new employees.
Employee experience is at the core of this research-based development work. Theories from human research management and applied psychology are examined through the lens of service-dominant logic and form the theoretical framework of the study.
This thesis is a qualitative research-based development work in which service design methodology has been applied for data collection and analysis and to solve the development task. The data was gathered employing multiple methods such as a literature review, semi-structured interviews, focus group interviews, and internal documents analysis. The focus was on the current state of onboarding. Participants were recruited from inside the company. The employee experience of newcomers during the onboarding period was examined through twelve semi-structured interviews with nine freshly hired employees and their supervisors. The organization’s perspective was studied through three focus group interviews with line managers, executives, and other personnel involved in onboarding new employees. The focus group interviews involved six to eleven participants at a time. During the sessions, the participants elaborated on creating a persona card and a new employee onboarding journey map to understand the employees’ perspective better.
The interviewed participants verified that onboarding is a complex procedure engaging numerous processes, roles, and responsibilities, and consequently requires thorough planning. The findings demonstrate that in Customs Support Finland the employee experience during onboarding was mainly positive despite the absence of a coherent structure in onboarding practices. Furthermore, several gaps were identified during the development work.
The participants’ collaboration during the development work resulted in several significant outcomes. For instance, the managers, HR, and IT have collaboratively decided on how the general onboarding-related activities, roles, and responsibilities must be distributed. Onboarding was commonly acknowledged to be a key internal service for employees with related phases and interactions. These service phases and interactions were mapped out on the onboarding service blueprint for the future use of the company’s personnel.
An unexpected outcome of this thesis work was the development of a new model that facilitates the design of a new employee onboarding procedure. This model incorporates a previously created framework of the four levels of onboarding integrated with key principles from the service-dominant logic. The model illustrates the occurrence of value co-creation on the four levels of onboarding between businesses and new employees.