The most common complaint I get from newly placed candidates is a simple one. They will say within a week or two after being hired, “I have absolutely no idea how I am doing here.” Pretty amazing considering the time and effort my clients invest in a successful hire. The help I give my candidates and clients regarding salary negotiations, reference checks and making the process flawless are just a few of the advantages an automotive quality recruiter can bring to the table. Once a placement is completed and the candidate starts, my work certainly isn’t over just yet. Onboarding is as critical to a successful placement as finding the right candidate.

Fortunately, there is a great deal of information out there on ensuring the success of a new hire (even Wikipedia has a rather interesting explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onboarding). I’ve read a tremendous amount on the subject over the years and prefer to keep my learned advice for automotive quality managers as simple as possible.

You need to do two extra things that will help ensure a smooth hire:

#1. Schedule lunch with the new employee away from the office at least two times in the first month or so.

The first one is simple and can make all the difference in the world in the psyche of a new hire. Most automotive quality leaders (Quality Managers/Directors, Plant Managers) who have just hired a person realize the candidate coming in is what I refer to as consciously incompetent. They aren’t yet aware what they don’t know regarding the company’s  products, processes and culture. The hiring manager spent so much time and effort to get them on board, there is a period of time they allow the newly placed candidate to get settled in by giving them general guidelines and some basic tasks to do in the first couple of weeks. For the most part, the hiring manager gets busy with other pressing matters and will give a ‘honeymoon period’ to the new person.  I routinely hear that the new hire will attend meetings and generally have short private meetings with the hiring manager.  This is just not enough. No matter how much experience you have in the automotive quality field, every person needs to feel accepted and comfortable in their new surroundings. Even the most confident person will have doubts about the job they are doing if they don’t get enough feedback, and a simple pat on the back from the hiring manager will resolve those doubts.

When you take the new person to lunch (and we all have to eat lunch at some point or another anyway), they feel comfortable and relaxed to freely discuss how they are doing. The conversation is set to whatever tone is really necessary, whether it be serious or completely informal depending on the current situation. The result I’ve seen in these situations is nothing short of outstanding.  The new candidate leaves the lunch happy and comfortable with the transition because any angst or issues bothering them, which usually stem from a simple lack of knowledge, can be cleared up. In rare cases where there are significant or severe problems being handled, this meeting can be a huge help in understanding internal and external dynamics as well as getting the backing of the new boss. This lunch works wonders.

#2. Provide specific and measurable quality goals: next month, 6 months and year.

The second one is equally as important as the first. As an automotive quality recruiter with over twenty years of experience, I can safely say most of my written job orders from automotive clients look about the same.

Automotive Quality Engineer: Needs TS-16949, PPAP, APQP, 8D, FMEA….you all know the drill.

Most hires begin with the hiring manager pretty much knowing what they want done and the quality engineer/manager knowing pretty much what their job entails in general terms. Depending upon the structure of the organization, it could be a customer focused position or one dedicated to APQP or supplier quality etc… As the new person gets started, invariably their phone starts ringing as things get dumped on their desk, and off we go to the races.  I rarely, however, see tangible and measurable targets with set timetables given to new hires that I place.  This, combined with the honeymoon period lead to a lack of clarity on the part of the new hire about what is expected from them. If a candidate starts on day one and knows, ‘this plant is at an internal scrap rate of 800 PPM and it will be under 100 in 8 months,’ everything seen through their eyes is now different. Every work instruction they read, every procedure examined is now looked at in a different way than just “we need to make this plant run better.”

I’ve learned much about goal setting from a number of fantastic managers. They all seem to agree the goals need to take your breath away, yet be attainable. When a new hire walks in the door and knows in say 6 months what is going to be measured and how, the clock starts ticking on day one with a goal sitting at the end.  Be sure to put the monkey on their back and see how it is riding when you write off that first lunch! Happy onboarding everyone.