As an HR manager, you know a company is only as strong as its employees.

Your employees are the backbone of your company. They are the ones who interact with customers, produce products, and provide services.

In many ways, they are the ambassadors of your brand, and their interactions with customers can either reinforce or undermine your brand identity. 

That’s why knowing what qualities to look for in new hires is essential.

By finding candidates who align with your company’s values and providing them with comprehensive training, employees will be able to represent your brand effectively. So, what should you look for? 

• Identifying the qualities of a good employee
• The 7 qualities of a good employee
• The importance of hiring the right people 
• Your employees with either make or break your business 

Employee onboarding best practices are the anchor to stop you from going adrift.

Surely, you’ve had that sinking feeling? The one where you’ve invested in a super new hire, but it didn’t work out. When it comes to new hires leaving early, you’re not the only fish in the sea. Gen Z spends just over two years in one job. That doesn’t seem long, leaving you with the feeling that something’s off.

What’s more worrying is that 30% of employees leave a job in the first 90 days. Maybe the answer is to be more realistic with new hires. By that, do we mean to tell them Gary in HR has a habit of misplacing paperwork, usually passports? No, there’s a better way. 

The truth is that excellent onboarding leads to 69% of employees staying with you for up to three years. Want in on some of the action? We thought so. That’s why Process Street has written this article to point you in the right direction.

These are the 5 best practices for employee onboarding:

• Onboarding tip #1: Use preboarding to get a quick start
• Onboarding tip #2: Have an onboarding roadmap
• Onboarding tip #3: Use your new hire’s insight
• Onboarding tip #4: Involve your entire organization
• Onboarding tip #5: Plan beyond the first year

A company is only as good as the employees it hires. We all know this, but let’s take it a step further.

The employee life cycle is the bloodline for any organization. You need to take proper care of your employees to reap success. To do this, you need to understand each stage of the employee life cycle and where your employee stands in it. 

When implemented correctly, effective employee life cycle management boosts long-term retention. Your employees are happy, so they remain longer and continue adding value to your business. 

That doesn’t mean this management is easy, though. That’s why, in this Process Street article, I’m taking you through each stage with a free template. 

• Defining the employee life cycle 
• What are the 6 stages of the employee life cycle 
• The importance of employee life cycle management 
• Life cycle management: Optimize the employee experience

Let’s dive right into it!

You judge people all the time! 

But that’s okay, because we’re all guilty. This is specifically the case when we look at the workplace. Hiring managers make these snap judgments each day – and get paid for it. 

Our first impression of someone sticks. We’re then unconsciously looking for signs that confirm our first impression to be right – even when it’s not. 

Think of it this way: A candidate is late for their first day – the impression is that they’re always late. Now, whenever they arrive late, it confirms the impression that they’re always late. Even if they show up early or on-time most days. 

Please welcome unconscious and confirmation bias – the byproduct of the Halo and Horn Effect. 

This sociological theory doesn’t only exist on page. And it isn’t limited to our interpersonal interactions either. The workplace is a breeding ground for biased opinions and quick judgment calls, especially when hiring. 

To stop the Halo and Horn Effect from influencing your hiring decisions, you first need to understand how this bias creeps into how you perceive others.

• What is the Halo and Horn Effect? 
• How does the Halo and Horn Effect influence hiring decisions? 
• How the Halo and Horn Effect form part of unconscious bias 
• Why is the Halo and Horn Effect bad? 
• How can you limit the influence of the Halo and Horn Effect? 
• Stop judging a book by its cover 

HR digital transformation reminded me of South Korea.

On a recent trip to Seoul, I automated my whole journey. My train tickets, flight tickets, insurance, and apartment key were on my phone. As a result, I felt more engaged on holiday. Which made me wonder, did I ever want to carry paper documents again?

Okay, carrying paper isn’t a difficult task. But as a process, it’s convoluted. Plus, it’s slow. I wasted less time due to automation. By adapting to change, I had a lot more fun.

Adapting to change – technological change – is at the heart of an HR digital transformation. However, it’s not an easy one to get right. It’s often expensive, with HR tech spending up by 57%. But try not to worry. This Process Street post will explain how to do it without breaking the bank:

• What is HR digital transformation?
• HR digital transformation benefits
• HR digital transformation roadmap
• HR digital transformation examples

My psychological contract was beginning to wear thin. 

Rats surrounded me. Then two tons of glass nearly fell on top of me. My job description, at that time, did not include kindness, reciprocity, and understanding. But an unwritten agreement with my employer made me include those qualities in my work.

The agreement I’m describing is an intangible concept. Please don’t be embarrassed; I had to look that word up too. One thing you might want to look up is that 57% of employees quit their jobs due to feeling disrespected at work. That’s where understanding and respecting the psychological contract can help.

At Process Street, we know you can trawl Google like a fishing boat with a broken net. That’s why we write posts to make topics easily accessible. Here’s one about the psychological contract:

• What is the psychological contract?
• The importance of the psychological contract
• Psychological contract example
• What happens when you breach a psychological contract in the workplace?
• Ways to improve and maintain the psychological contract

I have a brain goblin.

At least, that’s what I call it. Others might use neurodivergent, neurodiverse, neuroatypical – a lot of neuro-something, basically – or the more specific category they fall into (ADHD, autism, etc.). 

Everyone has their own relationship with language, though – personally, culturally, socially – and for me, “brain goblin” sums up my experience pretty well.

Around 20% of the world’s population is neurodiverse. A CDC estimate places about 5.5 million adults in the US. 

That’s the total population of LA and Dallas combined – and that’s just the number of adults.

“Neurodiverse” covers a lot of territory, but it’s safe to assume that – with 1 in 8 people considered to be neurodiverse – some of them are your employees, even if you aren’t aware of it. In fact, they may not even be aware of it: Less than 50% are aware they could be considered neurodiverse. 

The aim of this post is to give you some actionable steps you can take to improve neurodiversity inclusion in your organization. 

Come to think of it, a lot of your employees would probably appreciate them, not just the ones caring for brain goblins. 

• Neurodiversity 101: The very basic basics
• Accessibility challenges for neurodiverse employees
• The importance of words for neurodiversity inclusion
• Building an inclusive work environment
• Neurodiversity inclusion: Understanding thought processes
• Fixations & obsessions: Mastering flexibility
• Executive dysfunction in neurodiverse employees
• Neurodiversity inclusion & the human factor

I’ll be honest: I dread all 30 days of June. 

This year, I found myself looking at the Process Street LinkedIn page, now sporting a rainbow logo, and contemplating how I felt about that.

Is it rainbow-washing? What else does Process Street do to support the queer community? Why can’t I answer that question?

I don’t think it’s rainbow-washing, but I should definitely be aware of what the company I work for is doing for the queer community.

I have complicated feelings about Pride. On one hand, I do believe in the immense importance it has. Pride creates a platform for big-picture political actions as well as the more personal experience of just not being in the minority for once. 

As more companies paint rainbows on their marketing materials from June 1 to June 30, it’s equally become more about commodification than community. 

I see you sweating as you glance at all your packed-up Pride material in the corner. You just wanted to show your support. What does rainbow-washing even mean? 

How do startups and small businesses show their allyship is genuine and not just part of a marketing campaign? 

There are no simple answers to any of this, but there’s only so much room in a blog post, so I’ll give you some actionable things you can do throughout the year to keep up your support long after Pride month is over.

• What is rainbow-washing?
• Allyship 101: Taking pride in Pride
• Back to the beginning
• Further resources

HR tips come in all shapes and sizes. However, the best tips are from experienced people managers.

A tip, and an unwritten rule, for working in a Japanese office is that you usually work in silence. When I worked in a Japanese company, my record was working eleven hours without saying a word to anyone. I practiced that task day after day. After sitting in silence for twelve months, I know myself well.

Learning the unwritten rules of any workplace can take time. All experienced HR managers know that. As well as concrete documented processes, you tend to pick up abstract rules during your career. As I progressed in a Japanese office, I discovered other unwritten rules, but for the moment, I’m going to share five unwritten rules we’ve collected from experienced HR experts in this Process Street article.

Here are 5 HR tips you need to know:

• Excellent communication comes from good relationships
• Be an active listener to employee feedback
• Make employee onboarding personal
• Simplify your process
• Let automation do the work for you

You must sometimes wonder if using employee onboarding email templates can be fruitful? Employees ignore 65% of emails; 96% of customers have unsubscribed from email lists.

The above statistics show that an email needs to be more effective than ever. With that said, email templates can be a gamble. You already know that if you’ve been searching Google. You’ve probably seen templates with more text than a phonebook and awful grammar.

However, email templates can save time, mainly when contacting new hires. At Process Street, we’ve created ten email templates to take HR managers through pre-boarding, onboarding, and right into a 90-day meeting. We’ve also edited the living daylights out of our templates. You’ll be getting friendly but succinct emails to make a great impression.

These are the email templates to use when onboarding new hires:

1. Pre-boarding email template
2. Employee onboarding process
3. Welcome email to a new employee from HR
4. Confirming the employee’s first day of work
5. Employee onboarding requirements
6. Virtual onboarding email template
7. Onboarding announcement email
8. Employee onboarding feedback email
9. Employee onboarding survey email
10. The 90-day email