Want to send the right impression to new hires? Assess your own onboarding process. Here’s how.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

I am going through the onboarding process as a new employee at a university where I’ll be teaching as an adjunct faculty member. Following my interview with the chair and another faculty member, this is my first real experience of the university. And, overall, it has been abysmal. If the Dean wasn’t someone that I admire and respect and want to work with, I might have walked away. As every company — from major universities to small and medium sized business — competes for talent, taking time to evaluate and improve your onboarding process is certainly time well spent.

My experience

To date, I have received 15 emails that require me to take action. These are emails that are generated as either form emails or pro-forma emails from systems or individuals who perhaps run a daily process to send these emails. They have the smallest degree of personalization — usually only my name — and only occasionally are they from an actual person with an email signature at the end.

Of these 15 emails:

• About 8 of them contain duplicative information — although that is not always clear — and so I check off items in every email to make sure I’m dotting every i…