Here’s why Insider adopted a 30-60-90 onboarding program, and why your organization should too
Maddy Grassini and Ali Fetzer
Our Talent team has always worked hard to create a positive onboarding experience and make sure new hires feel welcomed, informed, and excited to begin their careers at Insider. The first three months at a new company are key, and our team tries to ensure new employees have all the resources that they need for success — even from afar. Since going remote at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, our team has worked to expand onboarding to stretch beyond a new hire’s first week with a 30-60-90 plan that provides support each step of the way.
First 30 days: Scheduling reminders to ensure a successful start at Insider
The first step in upgrading our onboarding process was creating a “30 Day Reminder” for new hires. Insider employees are provided with an abundance of resources and information during their first few days with the company. However, since they are also adjusting to their new responsibilities, meeting coworkers, and getting acclimated, it can be easy to lose track of important company information. This is where our “30 Day Reminder” comes into play. When a new hire reaches their second week, we send an email with key resources and information that they will need during their first 30 days. This email, tailored to both hourly and salaried employees, includes important FAQs, mandatory new hire trainings, our PTO policy, benefits information, and more. We also include our new hire training list, to ensure that all our employees have information about giving and receiving feedback, managing up, and mitigating unconscious bias.
Reminding new hires of our most important resources and processes during their second week gives them time to digest the information and reach out with any questions before their first 30 days are up. We believe that implementing this step in our onboarding process helps lay a strong foundation for success for all our new hires.
First 60 days: Sharing how to leverage Insider resources for success
As new hires settle into their roles and become familiar with our most essential resources, we want to make sure that they continue to make the most out of their time at Insider by fully leveraging our resources. To accomplish this, we created a “60 Day Check-In Training” that covers the wide range of programs, trainings, benefits, resources, and networking opportunities we offer at the company. This training walks through our Buddy Program and Mentorship Program, and explains how to attend and participate in the Employee Experience team’s programming and events. We talk through how office hours with our talent team and company leadership work. We also highlight trainings that can help new hires advance in their careers by improving their relationships with their managers, setting up actionable quarterly goals, and managing difficult conversations. Through this training, we are able to ensure new hires are leveraging all of our resources to be the most successful they can be at Insider.
First 90 days: Providing feedback to improve
As with any new program, feedback is key to ensure we are creating the most useful onboarding program. That’s why we send employees a feedback survey on their 90th day at Insider to learn more about their recruitment and onboarding experience. We want to ensure that all new employees feel welcome and comfortable when joining the Insider team, and use feedback from the survey to inform future changes to the 30-60-90 program.
Ongoing, quarterly: Creating networking opportunities to build connections
Every quarter, we host a Meet & Greet to give new hires the opportunity to meet and mingle with other employees. During this event, new hires can meet the Talent, Employee Experience, and Managing Editor teams, and can also break into smaller groups to chat one-on-one with co-workers. Since Insider is still fully remote, this is a rare opportunity that allows employees to meet people outside of their own teams and form new connections. We hope to continue this quarterly event in person, when more of our employees are back in our offices.
Insider’s talent team wants to ensure that all of our employees have all of the resources they need to be successful at Insider, and our 30-60-90 onboarding program has allowed us to provide even more support for new employees, especially while remote.