Effy decided to be metaphorical today, taking on human resource’s onboarding process and zombification!

As defined by the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM), onboarding “is the process of integrating a new employee with a company and its culture, as well as getting a new hire the tools and information needed to become a productive member of the team.”

Well executed onboarding have several benefits such as to:

• Accelerate learning curve for newly hired employees, so that they can reach higher level of performance and productivity faster;
• Foster stable work environment, with little to no social friction thanks to clearly established norms and practices;
• Higher employee retention (up to +25% according to this article or this one) ensuring smooth work continuity and lower hiring / training costs.

To improve onboarding program’s efficiency, HR departments employ numerous strategies and methods. Some simply hand out a leaflet together with the labor contract. On the other side of the spectrum, some structure organizes fancy week-long training programs in dedicated learning centers.

A lot of academic materials on the subject is available in specialized libraries or simply online. Oddly enough, most authors overlook the issue of new employees’ own individual personality. Mostly disregarding possible conflicts with the onboarding program content. Instead, most authors focus on programs’ delivery method effectiveness, without questioning or detailing the content in depth.

Besides, effective here often translates into effectively transposing required knowledge into newly hired. The transfer of knowledge from new employees back into the organization is mostly under rated. And no, onboarding program feedback that focus on the method and not the content is not a solution.

So overall, it is a well-established practice that onboarding programs are less focused on integration, and more on assimilation, if not flat out brainwashing.

Which brings another definition.

From the Medical Dictionary to mind, the one (slightly altered) of zombification:

“The purported conversion […] to a state in which the awareness of an individual is retained […] while the body, lacking will or agency, becomes the slave […]. Zombification is deemed to be murder in Haiti even if the victim is manifestly still alive. The state is either induced by various poisons or by strong suggestion in a context of powerful superstitious belief.“

Effy founds her own specific way, assimilating through replacement. Sucking dry new hired of their own self to the last drop. It then becomes very easy to pour in adequate knowledge, culture and social norms into the empty shells!

Constructive comments welcome.

G.M.