NJORD Law Firm Ensures Better and Faster Onboarding with the Introdus’ Data-driven Dialogues

The Challenge

NJORD Law Firm is a company that is driven by well-being and employee care, and therefore we in HR are always curious about what initiatives can support this.

Introdus are experts in onboarding, so it was natural for us to use their knowledge and expertise, says Conni Falkner, COO and continues: “Although our onboarding worked before, the partners lacked insight into how their new employees felt onboarded and welcomed into the company. Often the conversations between the new employee and the partner became a kind of ongoing ‘mini-MUS’ a la “how’s it going?”.

This did not leave room to talk about the more difficult but important topics, such as matching expectations and the feeling of belonging in the company.

Helene Emilie Dalager Christensen, HR manager, mentions: “It may turn out that the employee scores himself/herself high in professionalism, while the partner scores the employee low. For the manager, it is an expression that the employee still has some learning in the professional area, which is completely normal. But if it is not communicated, employees may get the impression that he or she is not good enough“.

The Solution

NJORD Law Firm uses Introdus’ onboarding dialogue tool to ensure a structured dialogue framework around the onboarding conversations. After 1, 3 and 6 months, the employee and manager answer a short questionnaire that follows the 6 onboarding categories. The answers are automatically set up in an onboarding report which is used in the dialogue between the new employee and immediate manager.

Introdus’ Onboarding Dialog Rapport

The dialogue report gives the manager specific information about where the new employee is in their onboarding and what needs to be focused on to ensure a good and faster time to performance.

The process:

• The new employee answers a questionnaire regarding their onboarding
• The manager receives a link to the Onboarding report
• The manager receives direct instructions on what needs to be done is focused on in the onboarding dialogue

The report contains, among other things.

• Overall index figure on onboarding
• Data on each of the 6 onboarding categories
• Identification of the 3 most important areas to focus on

Introdus’ Onboarding Model

Based on global studies and many years of experience with onboarding, Introdus has developed the Onboarding Model©. The model maps the most important elements to create and manage a structured onboarding process.

The onboarding model consists of 6 categories and 18 attributes, which can be used to identify where the company has focused on the onboarding program, and conversely where it could be advantageous to intensify efforts.

The 6 onboarding categories:

• Culture
• Rules
• Network
• Collaboration
• Competences
• Performance

The Results

NJORD Law Firm increased new employees well-being. The law firm created a space where the new hires can talk openly and honestly about the steep learning curves or challenging experiences with colleagues or clients.

Helene highlights: “With the structured onboarding conversations, the partners get much more involved as active players in the onboarding process of the new employee. The partners now have a clear role in the process, and they have gained a clear understanding of what good onboarding entails and what their management responsibility is in the process.

Because we now have data to speak from, a confidential space is created for the employee to talk about their start in the company and where they feel insecure, which is a great help for both manager and employee.”

A solid platform for a difficult conversation

Before the onboarding conversation, both employee and partner have completed a survey about the employees start at NJORD Law Firm. It takes 4-5 minutes to complete and results are shown in a dialogue report, which is used for the interview.

In the report, it is clear where the employee feels onboard and where the employee needs extra support or clarifying dialogue, as well as how the partner assesses the situation.

“The report allows us to put into words the expectations and this has a really strong effect on the good collaboration“, specifies Helene.