key: cord-0953531-cy1314dk
authors: Prince, Nicholas R.
title: Transitioning to a virtual onboarding process during the COVID-19 pandemic: An interview with Kat Judd, Vice President of People and Culture at Lucid
date: 2021-03-22
journal: Bus Horiz
DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2021.03.004
sha: bfdbbc6176dfd396fadb90e58d9c082f718dd2d6
doc_id: 953531
cord_uid: cy1314dk

nan

hires scheduled to begin the onboarding process the following Monday. Accordingly, the onboarding process went from face-to-face to online. What was that process like? What were your key objectives in quickly creating a virtual onboarding experience?

Kat Judd: Regardless of the delivery method, our main goal at Lucid when onboarding is to connect new hires with the people and purposes of the company. We do this by empowering new employees to be successful from day one via tools that enable them to excel in their roles and knowledge of whom to lean on for help as they come up to speed. The other key thing we focus on is helping them feel like a part of the team and letting them know that we are invested in them, both personally and professionally.

Enabling our new hires with the tools for success was relatively easydalbeit IT intensivedto switch to a virtual setting. A lot of the coursework and elements were already digital, though some inperson trainings had to be converted to a remote environment and adjusted contextually. Recreating the experience of bonding and getting to know team members required the most time and thought.

When Lucid switched to remote work, we realized just how heavily we relied on in-person activities to help new hires understand the company culture. We wanted to make sure that every new employee still had a deep connection to Lucid's core values. As such, we first scrutinized how we could switch our in-person traditions to a virtual setting and still recognize our employees more frequently as they continued to live and promote the company's culture. This included converting some of our onboarding traditionsdlike the Pathfinder Program, whereby new hires are paired with an experienced company mentor as a dedicated knowledge resourcedto a virtual setting. We also maintained our Breakfast with the Founders event and our new-hire lunches, transferring them from in-person to online meetings.

We then had to identify where the company needed to add new activities to encourage more of the casual conversations that would happen in an office setting. To this end, Lucid founded virtual networking parties, where veteran employees are encouraged to meet the new hires. We also emphasized the company's virtual norms, including live camera and profile photo utilization, to help create a sense of community. Interest group Slack channels helped people connect and make friends through common interests. Some of my favorite channels include #goodfictionfinds, #movies, and #pets. We also have a #bread channel that, as you can imagine, exploded during the pandemic.

About 20% of our new employees have now onboarded remotely, and each of them successfully jumped right in. Some even mentioned it was the best onboarding process they ever experienced. So, although I know that Lucid still has areas in which it can improve, I am very proud of our team and the way we have adapted. We have learned a lot from this process and we will most likely keep some of these new procedures even after we have moved back to the office, whenever that may be.

In her article, "Onboarding new employees: Maximizing success, Bauer (2010) identified four Cs of onboarding employees: compliance, clarification, culture, and connection. Considering your experience in creatingdand, now, managingda virtual employee onboarding process, I would love to (1) dive deeper into how you have achieved these four elements in your virtual onboarding and (2) have you share your recommendations for other organizational leaders hoping to do the same. The first C, compliance, refers to processes that help employees understand company policies and procedures. What advice do you have for doing this in an environment that is 100% virtual?

Compliance is something I am passionate about, especially because I come from an employment law background. My advice here is to keep things as interactive as possible. Yes, you need to have materials documented and available, but if you want new hires to really soak up knowledge about company compliance, I would refrain from turning everything into videos that participants watch on their own time. There is still a big benefit in having live sessions where you can bring energy and attention to the subject matter and people can interact to make sure they fully comprehend. We use different technologydlike Zoom and our own virtual whiteboarding application, Lucidsparkdto encourage interaction and collaboration. This also holds for many of our company-wide compliance trainings. I personally lead live, mandatory antiharassment trainings each year because I believe it is so important. Then, we follow up with resources to make sure that new hires have a firm understanding of everything. For example, we at Lucid make sure every training is accompanied by a written resource that is hosted on the company's internal network. It is easily searchable, so employees know they can go to the site and brush up on any topic they would like to review after an initial training. We also record all of the trainings and make them available on our learning management platform, Bridge. We're building a learning library around specific subjects, as well, combining our trainings to enable leaders to get their teams together to learn around specific leadership or industry knowledge-based topics.

The second C, clarification, refers to giving employees a clear understanding of their role. This includes those elements that are explicitly codified but also involves helping employees learn those parts of their job that are harder to codify and are tacitly learned as they integrate into the organization. What insight can you share about providing employees with role clarity when they are working in a virtual environment?

Luckily, a lot of the things we were doing to help employees understand role expectations translated pretty seamlessly to a virtual setting. First, Lucid has role-specific competencies defined for each position. It's the same language used in company performance reviews, so new hires can refer to these broad expectations to understand not only what is expected of them in their current role but also what goals they need to aim for in order to move up to the next level. We also have weekly 1to-1 syncs between managers and their direct reports. During these, managers outline the new employee's first 30, 60, and 90 days to help establish immediate expectations while also building out an idea of what the first few months will look like.

The third C, culture, refers to helping employees learn and integrate into the organization's culture. This most commonly comes through the policies and procedures a company implements and is also strongly influenced by the stories shared in an organization. How do you teach and integrate employees into Lucid's culture when they are virtually onboarded? What advice do you have for other managers as they work to do this?

One of my favorite onboarding sessions is dedicated completely to Lucid's company culture. When in the office, we accompanied this session with a picture-based scavenger hunt to help new hires become more familiar with our building and the elements placed throughout reflecting the company's values and history. Unfortunately, we cannot do the scavenger hunt during remote work; however, we still make sure that new employees are introduced to the company vernacular, make sure they are aware of the different Slack channels dedicated to interest groups, get them up to speed on our wellness activities, and expose them to our charitable and diversity opportunities.

I'm also very passionate about having our executives involved in the onboarding program. A company can list its values on a wall, but the only way they are truly ingrained in a company is if executives embody those values and lead by example. Because of this, I think it is important that employees meet the executive team when they onboard to see company culture in action. For example, Lucid's president, SVP of finance, and SVP of engineering teach new hires about the history of our company, how our business operates, and how we are looking toward the future. I personally teach the office norms and policies session. And our cofounders, who are also Lucid's CEO and CTO, have breakfast with all new hires to talk about why they built the company. While all of these sessions are important, putting Lucid's executives front and center so that new employees can interact with leadership and ask questions is invaluabledespecially so given the virtual shift. I would encourage all companies to consider keeping executives at the forefront of their onboarding.

The last C, connection, refers to helping employees develop relationships with their coworkers. In a face-to-face setting, employees have opportunities to develop relationships through chatting with coworkers before and after meetings, walking down the hall, and other such water-cooler moments. This is an essential component of employees becoming socially integrated into an organization. Working remotely, these social interactions are less likely to take place organically. How do you help new employees build connections with their coworkers in a virtual setting? What advice do you have for other managers facing this challenge?

I think everyone is struggling with this. You cannot replace in-person interactions; however, we are doing our best to provide opportunities for people to connect. For example, we hold monthly trivia nights, we do networking events, and we even partnered with a theater in Los Angeles to provide private virtual magic shows. The theater sent something in the mail to make the show interactive and it was geared toward all ages, so we were able to watch and participate with our employees and their families. We got great feedback on that! Our EMEA team also partnered with a comedy and improv club to put together a friendly virtual roast. It was such a good time and really helped new team members that have been onboarded virtually to get to know things about their team members.

Lucid has always provided a budget for group activities and I have been very impressed with our teams and their creativity in keeping these going in a virtual setting. We've hosted online cooking classes, virtual game shows tailored specifically to each team, and even something as simple as paying for lunch so everyone can catch up over some food while they put work aside for a bit. My advice to managers facing the virtual connection challenge is simply to make connection a priority. Invest in connections for the whole team, not only new hires. Be deliberate. Set time aside. Dedicate funds. Budget for bonding! If you are hoping it will happen by itself, it will not.

As you think about the onboarding process, is there anything we have not addressed that would be important for HR personnel to know?

Another element we like to include in our onboarding process is a recognition survey. Before new employees start, we send paperwork for them to fill out. Most pieces, of course, are logistical and legal documents, but there is one document that is a little different: our recognition survey. On it, we ask a few simple questions that we think can be really impactful, including: What are the ways in which receiving recognition means the most to you (i.e., do you like a public shout out or do you prefer a written note)? How do you feel about surprises (i.e., do you love it or this is okay)? What is your favorite snack, beverage, treat, restaurant, store, sport, hobby? What do you like doing outside of work?

Once new employees complete this survey, everyone in the company has access to view their individual preferences. So when someone goes the extra mile to help with a project, you can look up whether they'd like a personal note of gratitude or whether a shout out in the team Slack channel is more their style. When it's someone's birthday, you can tailor the treats to something you know they will like! Being virtual, I also love that I can send an employee a gift card to their favorite restaurant to thank them for working late and helping me with a project.

The recognition survey questions are seemingly unimportant in terms of company business, but with this information, Lucid makes a point to new employees that we care about them and their preferences. Everyone likes to feel valued and appreciated at work.

Thank you, Ms. Judd, for taking time to speak with the readers of Business Horizons.

Onboarding new employees: Maximizing success