New Employee Experience

Project Completed

Problem Statement

New employees have stated their confusion around the hiring process, including whether they need to attend an Onboarding appointment, what documents they need to complete, how to sign up for an appointment, where to go for their appointment, and what the next steps are afterwards in regards to benefits, timekeeping, systems access, what to expect in their job, where to go for help, and more. To add to this, often the employee's first experience with the university is through mandatory hiring forms and documents versus through "warmer" welcome messaging.

Business Case

When employee's have an unwelcoming Onboarding, their experience and vision of their new employer -- the university -- can be impacted or even shattered. This could impact turnover, employee morale, and even productivity. To an extended degree, through poor Onboarding, this could lead to costly wasted time and effort, such as when a manager needs to direct an employee to the correct timesheet information to be paid, waits for an Employee ID to be emailed to their employee, or waits for instructions to be sent on how to set up access. Additionally, when documents are unclear, this puts the university at risk of being out of compliance of UCOP policies or State/Federal laws, including the I-9 Employment Eligibility form, and that can lead to fines or even loss of grants and funding.

Objectives

  • Launch People & Culture New Employee Welcome Emails, consisting of a month long series of emails to new hires that contain key information and resources about campus life, policies, and benefits as well as the Chancellor's Welcome video; then, automating this.
  • Improved hiring and work authorization paperwork and instructions to New Hires, including the DocuSign hire packet, follow up "to do" activities, checklists, and websites.
  • Improved Regional Welcome Emails consisting of the new hire's Employee ID number, personalized timekeeping instructions, and other follow-up actions; then, automating this.

Success Metrics

  • Regional Welcome Emails with Employee ID and Payroll instructions are sent in less time than it currently takes (Example: 3 days versus 24 hours)
  • P&C Welcome Emails are sent to every new hire of the UC Berkeley campus after launch
  • Process to send the P&C Welcome Email is automated
  • Survey sent to hires to gather baseline feedback and values on their UC Berkeley Onboarding experience, then improve these values

Project Leaders

  • Sponsor: Marc Fisher
  • Project Manager: Isabel Nguyen

For more information on this project, contact:

Prior Accomplishments

Project accomplishments from prior months are noted here.

DateAccomplishments
Nov 2021
  • P&C New Hire Welcome Emails
  • P&C continues to work on the process for gathering the new hire email addresses, loading this to the Mailchimp software, and subsequently removing the email addresses once the series of emails is complete.
  • P&C Welcome Emails
    • 8/15/2021 - Finalize CalNet reports and source of data
    • 10/1/2021 - Email content completed and content stylized in Mailchimp
    • 10/4/2021 (3 weeks of effort) - Chazey Partners (bot writers) to record Douglas McSkimming (the “bot supervisor) doing the process manually; may need testing rounds over the 3 week period that will require time with the bot supervisor as well.
  • Improved Onboarding DocuSigns (ProS and SHARE)
May 2021
  • Successfully sent out improved DocuSign hire packets: 5/1/2021
Apr 2021
  • BRS Onboarding team invitation and follow-up emails have been consolidated and revised for tone and branding as well as to imbue more welcoming language.
  • P&C New Hire Welcome Emails
    • Finalized content for Week 1 of P&C New Employee Welcome Emails: 4/15/2021
    • Mailchimp email test completed. 
Mar 2021
  • P&C is continuing to work on building out the content emails and they are ready to start the MailChimp automation tests.
Jan-Feb 2021
  • Incorporated Chancellor's video into DocuSign hiring packets and the BRS "Starting a new job at UC Berkeley" for all new hires to be able to view and experience.
  • Reworked and clarified DocuSign hire packet documents and instructions, hopefully improving employee's experience and increasing compliance.
  • New Employee Reception & Orientation has been reworked and moved online in light of COVID, agenda and activities have been improved based on new hire feedback.
Oct-Dec 2020
  • Finalized the proposed outputs: (1) DocuSign packet with the Chancellor's welcome message; (2) series of welcome messages including vendor partnerships from P&C to new employees sent from Mailchimp and automated via the bot; (3) revising/rebranding DocuSign packets and BRS welcome letters; (4) automated EID# notification with CalNet instructions; (5) automated CalTime notification and instructions. Also a newly revised online NERO has been set up and is being communicated to new hires.
Jul-Sep 2020

With the inception of the new Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging team in People & Culture, a new resource from DEIB has been added to help lead and guide the vision of the new hire Onboarding Experience for UCB. This is a key step in providing alignment on the goals of this workstream from an operational perspective with the overall experience for an employee at the university. This new team is convening to develop the charter and objectives for this workstream with the P&C vision in mind. Additionally, 

  • Onboarding Packet Improvements: Reduced from 50+ pages to 27 pages and rebranded

  • Website for New Employees developed, which includes the follow-up information and checklists for new hires; linked in Onboarding packets

  • Welcome email and timesheet instructions language made more consistent and rebranded

Risk/Issue History

Project risks and issues that have been resolved or closed are noted here. 

DateRisk/Issue
Nov 2021

P&C Welcome Emails - The schedule may be delayed. The team has increasingly found it difficult to obtain an accurate list of "new hires or rehires" to receive the emails. Without this list, we will not be able to launch the emails successfully.

  • Improved Onboarding DocuSigns (ProS and SHARE): The schedule is delayed and a new date is TBD until we can 1) determine how to transfer the improved DocuSign packets correctly 2) finalize any concerns around work authorization policies with WAQA.
  • Mitigation Plan:
    • P&C Welcome Emails - A number of technical and reporting experts across campus have been brought in to help us acquire the list and come up with a solution to this.
    • Improved Onboarding DocuSigns (ProS and SHARE): ProS is working with an IT analyst on DocuSign and will escalate to DocuSign if needed. If not, both SHARE and ProS will recreate the packets into their DocuSign accounts.
Jan-Feb 2021
  • Type of Risk/Issue: Resource, Schedule
  • Mitigation Plan:
    • Resource issues escalated in order to acquire new resource and get back on track, but ramp up has been slow. Will monitor and then reassess.