E020 - Expert Onboarding Secrets: Unveiling the Art and Science of First Impressions (with Dr. Christina Moran)

In this episode, Erin Rice, People and Operations Coordinator at Process Street, delves into the transformative world of employee onboarding with Dr. Christina Moran, a licensed psychologist and a member of the leadership team at Then Design Architecture. Together, they explore the nuanced blend of art and science that makes for exceptional onboarding experiences. Dr. Moran shares her wealth of experience in organizational effectiveness, people leadership, and psychology to uncover strategies that not only welcome new hires but also set them up for long-term success. From creating memorable first impressions to leveraging AI and human touch, this episode is packed with insights and tips for HR practitioners and business leaders looking to elevate their onboarding process. Tune in to learn how to make your onboarding process a strategic asset for engagement and retention.

Transcript

Erin Rice (00:01.794)

All right, so we'll get started. Welcome to the Employee Onboarding Podcast where we are unpacking great onboarding ideas and best practices from the world's top HR practitioners and thought leaders. At Process Street, that starts with our mission to make recurring work fun, fast, and thoughtless for teams everywhere. My name is Erin Rice and I'm the People and Operations Coordinator here at Process Street. Today, I'm joined by Christina Moran, PhD. Dr. Christina Moran is a licensed

psychologist and works as part of the leadership team at the then design architecture. An energetic strategist and executor, she has demonstrated exceptional results in a variety of areas including people leadership, business operations, organizational effectiveness, marketing, international account management and analytic modeling. She has collaborated with C-suite colleagues and clients throughout the duration of her career.

Erin Rice (00:59.542)

business leadership, academia, athletic and performance domains, and nonprofit direction. An evidence-based thought leader, Christina's research has been published in a number of top tier peer-reviewed journals in the field, as well as Harvard Business Review. Christina obtained her doctorate and master's from the University of Akron's nationally ranked industrial organizational psychology program and her bachelor's of science in psychology with a minor in Spanish from John Carroll University.

She is licensed to practice psychology by the state of Ohio. Wow, Christina, that is an incredible background. I'm so excited to have you today. Thank you so much for joining us.

Christina Moran, Ph.D. (01:37.939)

Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Erin Rice (01:40.79)

So before we dive in, I'd like to ask you an icebreaker question, you know, just to get it a little bit silly. If you could have an unlimited supply of something, what would it be?

Christina Moran, Ph.D. (01:52.603)

Well, I think the easy go-to answer is probably money because most people feel like it can buy whatever else you might need, whether it's health, food, et cetera, so on and so forth. But really, if I could wave a magic wand and have an unlimited supply of anything, I would probably choose health. It's a very important thing to me. I think it's the core of being able to do all the great things that we're able to do in the world. So I'm a very health-focused and health-valuing person.

Erin Rice (02:20.079)

Do you have like a favorite activity that you like to do in your free time?

Christina Moran, Ph.D. (02:24.187)

Um, I do a lot of things and I do things that are usually either moving or creating. So I do a lot of different types of exercise, including yoga, Zumba, walking, running, all those kinds of things. Um, but then also creating, so gardening, sewing, um, playing the piano, baking, cooking, those seem to be the two areas that I just keep leaning more and more into.

Erin Rice (02:45.906)

I love that you're including creating into a health focus. That's such an important piece to our wellbeing. Awesome, so now what we really came here for, employee onboarding, I'd love if you could start by sharing a little bit about how you found your passion for people and people management.

Christina Moran, Ph.D. (02:53.338)

Mm-hmm.

Christina Moran, Ph.D. (03:05.803)

Sure, absolutely. So in terms of my approach to people and what I enjoy about working with people is a couple things. One, I really enjoy the process of finding that hidden potential in somebody and then helping them find the way to number one, recognize that and then utilize that to maximize whatever they wanna maximize in their life. So it's just kind of a natural tendency of mine, I would say, is that I'm always kind of picking up on the hidden nuggets that people are.

sprinkling and sharing and maybe not necessarily leaning into themselves and just reminding them like you have a special talent there or a special skill there We got to lean into that like what do you want to apply that? How do you want to apply that? So that's of interest to me and then in all my work, I've just enjoyed being able to help people so whether it's in athletic attainment or in business or Even just my colleagues like knowing the amount of people that spent so much time away from their families and their personal lives

to devote to the business and knowing that my efforts to make things more efficient and effective can help them focus more on those talents and hobbies in their personal life, that is very personally rewarding to me as well.

Erin Rice (04:16.726)

That's awesome. So with such a strong background in psychology, I'd love to hear how you kind of apply that to your day to day life.

Christina Moran, Ph.D. (04:23.663)

Yeah, absolutely. So psychology, I'll start really basic, is just the study of why people do what they do. So whether it's high school students at a sporting event or a bunch of people at a crowd at a concert or one person alone after a bad day, psychology can help us understand what are some of the likely patterns of behavior or things that we would look for or expect based on some of those stimuli that exist, whether it's our own biology or an experience that somebody had.

so on and so forth. So when you think about psychology as understanding why we do what we do, the workplace is a place where we spend so much of our time, right? So if you think about why do people do what they do in the workplace, psychology can certainly give us a lens to view that, understand, and predict what might happen. So when I'm thinking about my approach to psychology in the workplace, I'm drawing on all fields of psychology, so things related to

aging as we have different people of different ages in the workforce and things that happen in a group setting, things that happen in an individual setting, how we word things. There's just so many different things. Some of the famous studies in our field even looked at lighting and how lighting affects our productivity. So there's just lots of different things. And obviously, if you want to retain a maximally successful business, you may or may not want to pull some of those levers or make things as conducive as you can to that success.

But I think the first step is knowing what those things are so you're not intentionally or unintentionally detracting from success in your organization.

Erin Rice (05:57.822)

And so how do you take that information and apply it to onboarding?

Christina Moran, Ph.D. (06:03.295)

So one of the first things I think of when I think of onboarding is I think of this visual of a hiring manager or an HR leader just going and saying, oh, great, somebody's accepted the offer. Great, congratulations, let's celebrate. What do we do now? How do we plan? How do we prepare for this person? And I think what most folks do in that situation is they pull out an old onboarding plan, dust it off, clean it up, refresh the dates, right? And say, yeah, I think this looks good and kind of put it in practice for the new employee.

And what we found throughout my career is that we found that there's different things, if you think about it like a decision tree, there's different things that should happen based on whether this person is client-facing or not. Do they have experience in this area or not? Do they have a sales goal or not? Are they an international employee or where are they based? So there's just all these kinds of things that either one should happen consistently throughout the onboarding practice. For example,

making sure that they have somebody to eat lunch with on the first day, or at least show them around, those kinds of things. Making sure that those are built in so people don't have to manually think of them and remember them every time. And then also the balance of that with the different decision paths that will occur based on that specific person and the role. I think that's where people get really jumbled up is trying to customize it, but keep it somewhat structured. It just ends up becoming really hard.

super loose, we'll figure it out as we go, or super tight, and then it doesn't really apply to certain people.

Erin Rice (07:36.598)

That's awesome. I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't mention that Process Street has conditional logic and you can have it specifically set to the department if they're client facing, if they'll be performing interviews so that decision tree, as you said, will create a different pathway for them within the workflow, which is really cool. But we're not here to talk about that.

Christina Moran, Ph.D. (07:56.211)

Love that.

Erin Rice (07:59.578)

So what would you say really makes a great employee onboarding experience?

Christina Moran, Ph.D. (08:07.363)

A couple of things. So one, so there's a practical side of things, right? The logistics that have to be handled. And then there's the feeling side of things. So this person's basically just gone on, you know, two or three dates with the company and decided to get married, essentially, is how it's gonna feel, right? You're making this big commitment after meeting a couple of people, maybe coming in a couple of times or doing that virtually. And so one, they're trying to think and evaluate every step.

Have I made the right decision? Do I feel comfortable here? Do I like being here? So that's kind of the first thing. So you wanna make sure that you sort of think about ways that you can wrap them in the feeling that we're so excited you're here. You're a special person. We know you're gonna do great things at our company and with our team. So we are so excited you're here and having that message reiterated across as many interactions as possible, especially within that first day, first week and first meetings with key colleagues.

So I think that's the feeling part and everybody's different, right? Some people prefer little gifts and trinkets and that's a love language that speaks to them. Other people are really into nice notes. Like I'm a person, don't ever get me a gift, just write me a nice note and I would be forever happy. Some people are like that. Other people really want the one-on-one attention. So you gotta think of ways that you can reach people in different ways without even really knowing them yet, which is kind of hard. So you maybe think of a couple different things that cut across.

a lot of people and hope that in that approach, you meet most people where they're at and where they like to be met. And then there's the practical side of things, right? They need a tour of the building. They need to meet key colleagues. Those key colleagues need to be prepared with agendas for that first day, right? They can't just like blow over from another meeting that maybe went well and maybe didn't and then be expected to take a deep breath, focus on the new employee and get into the mode of

We're so excited you're here. Let's talk, let's get to know each other. Let's form the relationship. And then let's also talk about what to expect, where to find me, where I can find you, all those other logistical things. So I think a really well done onboarding process is a beautiful mix of art and science, kind of the feeling and the logic part of the onboarding. And if, as HR leaders listening to this, if you continue to think about those two areas,

Christina Moran, Ph.D. (10:28.351)

how can we enhance both the feeling that this was a great decision, as well as the logistics of making things easy and memorable and having takeaways so they don't have to write down a million notes and so on and so forth, then I think you're probably on the start to a path to a great onboarding journey.

Erin Rice (10:46.942)

I love that you point out the importance of preparing those key colleagues and letting them have some time to get that agenda together because obviously onboarding a brand new employee in another department is not their highest priority to them, but meeting them is a high priority to the new hire. And so it's good to sort of help reframe some of that.

Christina Moran, Ph.D. (11:11.539)

Sorry, I lost you for a second.

Erin Rice (11:12.17)

What would you, yeah, we did research. I was just letting it catch up. What would you, so in that light, that's sort of what you would think of as like the best, most productive experience. What would you say is the biggest downfall with onboarding?

Christina Moran, Ph.D. (11:30.687)

I think one of the things related to onboarding is that people struggle with is, as you just kind of let into, it's another thing on my list. If I'm an existing employee, it doesn't feel like the start of something exciting and new if I'm bringing on a new employee. But if I'm that new employee, this is the start of a relationship and something exciting and something new. And so I think that is one of the biggest downfalls I see is just people kind of...

throwing into it, not really thinking about it. Maybe they're in town that day, maybe they're not. And sometimes those things happen, right, where a start date just happens to fall on a vacation or something that can't be avoided or shouldn't be rescheduled necessarily. But I really think that, like you would prioritize the customer experience and where they're coming from in the start to finish kind of journey in that realm, I would think about the employee experience in the same way. And the employee experience doesn't start day one, start date.

It starts from the moment that person first interacts with your company. It's just that onboarding piece is really the point at which it's like. That person is asking themselves, did I make the right decision? Do I feel like I can be successful here? Can I see myself here for a while? Do I like going in? Of course, the first couple of weeks are a big adjustment in routine and just everything that they're learning. But in general, you really want them to go home feeling like.

Okay, I like this. I like talking to this person. I want to ask this person this question next time I meet them or kind of wondering about things. And not just feeling like, oh boy, they don't really care about me. I'm just going to be left to figure it out on my own. Very small portion of employees will feel comfortable in that type of environment, whereas the rest will need more consideration and care and attention.

Erin Rice (13:18.002)

As HR leaders, sometimes it can be hard to motivate those hiring managers and other leadership people to prioritize those things. Do you have any advice to give to HR leaders out there that maybe are struggling to motivate that priority of that new hire for those teammates?

Christina Moran, Ph.D. (13:35.759)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure. So when I think about that question, I think about the role of HR as an internal service provider. And so just like we struggle to get on our clients' calendars or talk to people outside the organization and have them prioritize different things, as an HR leader, we do that more so internally, right? And we're going to those internal colleagues and saying to them, this is a priority. I'm trying to help you be successful. Let me be for you in this situation.

And so what I like to do as a service provider is I always try to think of all the barriers that there could be to this person really putting all their effort in to this onboarding practice in particular, for example. So like one of the things that I did was I built this onboarding plan builder, which it sounds very similar to what your company has created in terms of the conditional logic and so on and so forth. It's basically a form that asks the hiring manager, all these questions that they can do in their own time. And.

Based on that, it spits out the onboarding plan for them. So they don't have to spend 30 minutes with HR unless they want to, or they don't have to go and dust that old one off and then try to refresh it and maybe do that effectively or maybe not. And if there's a process change, we can just do that directly in the form versus trying to communicate out a bunch of people and say, hey, remember next time you do the onboarding plan, you have to do this, or it'd be great if you did this, or this worked really well.

Um, so I think centralizing that and then thinking about how you can be that concierge service for those hiring managers, it goes a long way. I don't believe that a lot of people intentionally try to be prickly or deprioritize it. Um, I just really think logistically, we're all pretty overwhelmed in terms of our work and our workload. And so it's the extent that we can give that white glove service to people, but also there's some responsibility there. We don't do everything for them.

But make it easy for them to make those decisions. It is wildly successful in my experience compared to what it would be otherwise.

Erin Rice (15:37.438)

Yeah, in our department, we talk a lot about giving that white glove service to our hiring managers because they're kind of our clients in a way, right? Like we're going out and seeking those people and helping them find those people. They may ultimately make those decisions, but we're the one that's like, all right, here's your baby chick. We're going to raise them up together. Like we got this. And it is very much a collaborative, you know, kind of a client relationship. I love that you pointed that out. So

What would you say is the differentiation between, you mentioned day one is not their first day, so where does onboarding really begin then?

Christina Moran, Ph.D. (16:19.979)

I think it depends on who's involved, right? So I think the town acquisition folks, the recruiting folks, they are definitely setting that tone. They're representing the employer brand from before even the first interaction, right? So that potential employee finding your company's account on a social media page or looking at your website or seeing you in the community in some of the work that you're doing, all of those things represent your brand, both to potential clients as well as to potential employees.

So just having that awareness that you're reaching potentially people who are gonna partner with you from a business standpoint, a revenue standpoint, and from an employee standpoint, I think is a big thing. And then I think onboarding, so you're not trying necessarily to overwhelm them prior to their start date. So I wouldn't say a ton of onboarding happens prior to that, but you are sprinkling things about the culture into the interviews and sharing about the way that your company does things by how promptly are you scheduling things? Are you constantly rescheduling things?

Are you communicating well? Are you treating that person like they're a priority? All those things are signals about your culture. So whether you call that onboarding or you say onboarding truly starts the day that they started your company, either way they're all signals that people are using, again, to lead to, am I gonna be successful here long-term?

Erin Rice (17:38.942)

I love that a lot of stuff is coming out, especially on social media, about it being a mutual decision, right? Like you as the new hire or the potential new hire are choosing a company. Not only are they choosing you, and I love that those signals are so important in the beginning to decide if this is a good place that you're going to be successful, not just that they're going to give you the tools, but a place that you'll be happy to.

Also, the buzz is all about AI and how we're relying on automation and robots and that kind of thing. And you mentioned you have a forum that is kind of managed in that way a little bit. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that balance between AI and the human touch.

Christina Moran, Ph.D. (18:24.267)

For sure. So it's obviously a conversation that we're not getting away from anytime soon as we explore and see how it unfolds. I mean, it's reminiscent to me of like when the internet started, it was everybody's like this panic of what's going to happen. And then I just feel like everything kind of gets watered down before becoming mainstream. And then it's not as scary as maybe it was in the very beginning. So certainly a disruptor, but for me, I view it as an enabler versus something that is going to

blow up or really ruin anything that exists now. With any tool or technology, the human judgment is the important piece. And that's the part that you, at least as far as I know right now, we can't entirely replicate. So for example, even in tasks, I've heard of friends and colleagues who utilize AI services for creating coaching guides or, you know, can you redraft this email or something like that? And why not use it? As long as it is not.

You know, it's being used appropriately. You're not putting out company information or private information or anything that would be damaging. Then it is another tool just like you'd use a calculator to calculate a math function or something else, right, to support that effort and take off the human load so that the human can focus on the areas that are really unique to the human that are going to enhance whatever the product is. So I personally don't fear it. I know that wasn't necessarily your question. I'm not fearful of it. I think like anything, it will be an enabler.

And it will be, you know, it's already being woven into so many products that we use. It's going to be available anywhere and everywhere. We're not really going to remember what it was like before it. And more than likely, certainly there will be issues here and there, like with any product or service. But they'll get ironed out just like we trust the free market to iron out all those other types of things.

Erin Rice (20:14.538)

Yeah, and to a point you made earlier about the downfalls of like, you know, let machines do the part that machines can do so that the humans can be present and really be there in the way that they need to be there, which sometimes is just physically there.

Christina Moran, Ph.D. (20:28.651)

Mm-hmm. I totally agree. I mean, I can't tell you how many tasks where I've gone to do something and either said right in the task, it said, let AI help you with this, or thought to myself, you know, maybe AI could be a little bit helpful here. I'm going to go there and just see what it comes up with. Because it takes less than 10 seconds usually, right. And it's the equivalent of going down the hall, maybe and asking a colleague, hey, what do you think about this? It's formulated more quickly. If it's

helps you get 40% further down the road, it's maybe not gonna take you 100%, but even 40% further down the road is further than you were.

Erin Rice (21:03.55)

Yeah, 100%. And that's a lot of how these companies are marketing it. It's an AI assistant. It's not the person doing the job. It's just someone assisting or something, I guess, assisting. Awesome. Great. Well, one last question before we go. I'd love to hear, what is the one thing you think that companies can do to really create a wow moment for new hires?

Christina Moran, Ph.D. (21:15.499)

Agreed.

Christina Moran, Ph.D. (21:29.035)

Okay, I'm gonna give this a thought for a second. So one thing that companies can do to create a wow moment for new hires, I'm gonna go something that's maybe really fundamental and woven into all the aspects of the onboarding process, and that is stop, center yourself, and give your full attention to the new employee. You maybe can't clear your schedule for eight hours on that first day or whatever that might be, or even the first week or.

whatever your expectation is that you feel is reasonable. But I think a lot of the downfall comes in us moving too quickly, onboarding being another task that we need to check off on our list. And if we all would just take a deep breath, center ourselves, focus on the conversation at hand, slow down, listen to the other person, I think that we would find almost all of our answers in those conversations.

It's just that so many times, again, we're moving too quickly, we're checking a box, and we're not having that real humanity that needs to happen to make it wildly successful. So you don't have to have a huge budget for swag or this whole like a laser show when the new hire starts or anything like that. I just really think if you could do one thing, I would say really make sure you're going to spend quality time with that new hire and then you will find your way to the rest of the process.

Erin Rice (22:53.43)

Awesome. That's so great. Well, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate your time and all of your insights. I know I got a few nuggets that I wrote down during this of things that I wanna share with my team and I'm sure our listeners did too. So thank you.

Christina Moran, Ph.D. (23:08.907)

This has been my pleasure. Thanks for having me.