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The Employee Onboarding Podcast
The Employee Onboarding Podcast
E024 - Designing Authentic Employee Onboarding: From Candidate to Culture (w/ Victoria Cooke, Manager of People & Culture at Happy Money)
Join Erin Rice from Process Street and Victoria Cooke, Manager of People & Culture at Happy Money, as they discuss creating authentic and high-impact employee onboarding experiences.
In this episode, Victoria shares insights on blending empathy and creativity, the importance of pre-boarding, and how to avoid the pitfalls of inauthentic onboarding in a remote work environment.
Learn how to engage new hires from the moment they sign, manage the process with limited resources, and ensure your company culture shines through the entire employee lifecycle.
Is there like a fan in the background? I feel like I hear, I can hear it. Okay, okay.
Victoria Cooke (00:05.943)
There is, can you hear it? Yeah, let me turn it off.
All right.
Erin Rice (00:12.462)
That's okay. It's just funny how like sensitive it like picks up.
Victoria Cooke (00:16.759)
I know, I feel like Zoom actually does a pretty good job of blocking out, but totally different platform. Okay, turn it off.
Erin Rice (00:21.294)
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure. Awesome. Welcome to the employee onboarding podcast where we are unpacking great onboarding ideas and best practices from the world's top HR practitioners and thought leaders. At Process Street, that starts with our mission to make work fun, fast, and thoughtless for teams everywhere. My name is Erin Rice and I'm the people and operations specialist here at Process Street. Today, I'm joined by Victoria Cook. Victoria is the manager of people and culture at Happy Money, a fintech company. She previously worked at WeWork.
leading events and workplace experiences. With an education and organizational leadership, Victoria has blended her background with experiences and organizational culture and HR to design unique and thoughtful people programs and strategies. Today, Victoria is joining us from Los Angeles. Welcome, Victoria, we're so glad to have you.
Victoria Cooke (01:11.223)
Thanks Erin, happy to be here. Excited to chat all things onboarding.
Erin Rice (01:15.47)
So before we dive in, I like to ask an icebreaker question. What has brought you childlike joy recently?
Victoria Cooke (01:22.871)
I love that question, childlike joy, something I feel like we could use more of. I recently had a just like intention for my spring to try something that I've never done before, do something just because I want to not because I have to. And I took some beginner dance classes and I looked like a fool because I didn't know what I was doing. And I live in LA and there's a lot of people in that space that are like actually trying to be dancers, which is not, I'm.
just this HR girl, I was just trying to do something fun. And I've actually stuck with it and it's been super fun. And I would say it's given me the childlike joy doing something for, not because I have to, no pressure, just purely for fun. It's like a good boost of like serotonin. So yeah, I would say my beginner dance classes.
Erin Rice (02:08.832)
That's amazing and I bet there are a lot of people out there that wouldn't normally be confident enough to go into a class like that. That's amazing. Awesome, so what we really came here for, employee onboarding. So I'd love to get started by just hearing a little bit about how you got into HR.
Victoria Cooke (02:17.175)
Thanks.
Victoria Cooke (02:28.023)
Yeah, it's been a journey. And with one that definitely wasn't planned, I kind of like fell into it. My background is in events and experiences, not just employee experiences, but large and like large scale events, small and intimate ones. When I left college, I really thought that I was going to be a plant planner for like the rest of my life. I loved all of the details that went into planning experiences, was mainly in person until the pandemic.
And I, but it's funny because I actually had my education as an organizational leadership. So I actually am using my degree, but for some reason, my entire program, no one ever brought up HR as a career, even though it like totally goes hand in hand. Like we were studying organizational behavior and leadership philosophies and management and never once was anyone like, you should, you know, check out HR. So it was never really on my radar. And yeah, during the pandemic, you know, it was.
Events wasn't like a great career to have because it was illegal to have them. And so I was like, okay, I got to make a, make a pivot. ended up joining the current company I'm at now, happy money to come in and do their virtual experiences and their virtual events. thankfully they were like, you know, they took a chance on me with someone who didn't have virtual experience background, but not a lot of people did because virtual events weren't really big until four years ago. So I came in specifically to do events and experiences for employees, which sat under the people and culture team. And over the past four years.
I've gotten more and more exposure in the people and culture space and have fully transitioned into a full HR role. And I've kind of done this career shift because I've really fallen in love with not only creating employee experiences, but creating workplace and culture that really treat their people well and treat them as individuals, not just a number, not just assets. So.
That's kind of where I've ended up in HR. And now it's, yeah, it's just funny. I came in with a different career path and it shifted and I'm so grateful for it because I'm really passionate about it.
Erin Rice (04:31.182)
That's amazing. And what would you say sort of makes a great employee onboarding experience?
Victoria Cooke (04:38.039)
Ooh, I would say what makes a great onboarding experience is one that blends, you know, empathy, really immersing yourself in the perspective of your employees and creativity, really pushing the envelope on unique and fresh ways to engage those new hires. I also think something that I've found that makes a really great onboarding is recognizing when the experience begins and ends. I feel like I've found a lot of untapped moments within the employee lifecycle.
simply because people fail to recognize when the experience actually happens. So like, for example, a lot of people treat onboarding as if it starts on day one, but really I think that your onboarding experience starts as soon as an employee signs the dotted line, right? Kind of transitions them from a candidate into a new hire. It's your pre -boarding, but that's part of your onboarding experience. And a lot of companies drop the ball because they don't engage their new hires until a few days before, you know, their start date. And I think...
that the weeks leading up to their employment should have just as much thought and intention, just as much as your day one sessions. And we were talking about my background in events and people wouldn't think it, but events in HR, there's actually surprisingly a lot of similarities because you're designing experiences with like an end user in mind. And when I used to do events, people used to think that the event experience start when someone walks through the room, right? When they walk into the event, but no, the event experience starts when they get the invitation.
and all of the communication that happens between the invitation and the actual event, that's a part of your experience, whether it's a great one or not, and whether you recognize it or not, it's part of the experience. And when you kind of think about it, like someone getting an offer letter is kind of like an invitation to your work party. So I think recognizing when it starts and then on the other side of that, recognizing when it ends, a lot of people are like, cool, we crushed our week one onboarding experience, but onboarding takes, you know, and or some people, okay, with our first 30 days, maybe your HR team.
handles the first few days sessions, then it hands off to a manager and then they handle the next few weeks with the launch plan. And then cool, we did a 30 day check -in and the employees launched and ready to go. I would argue that an onboarding, a successful onboarding experience takes minimum three months, if not more, depending on the nature of the role and the company. And so I think towards the end, a lot of teams and managers can get really comfortable with the presence of a new hire.
Victoria Cooke (06:58.039)
And they're like, cool, they're transitioning really seamlessly. They're good to go. And they stop giving them the attention that they need to onboard and continue to launch them well, because they get really comfortable with their presence on the team. They make assumptions about what they need or what they don't need. And so I think we sometimes start too late, and then we end too early. So I think what makes a great onboarding experience is really recognizing when the beginning and ending points of the experience actually is.
Erin Rice (07:24.718)
That makes total sense. And how would you say moving into a remote position has sort of adjusted that onboarding experience?
Victoria Cooke (07:32.535)
yeah, it's like totally different, right? Like it's a completely new environment. It's crazy to think that we've been doing this for like four years now. I think shifting into a remote environment, excuse me. I think a mistake that I saw a lot of companies make with not just onboarding, but like culture and experience in general is trying to take what they did in the office, pick it up and like put it on Zoom or Teams or whatever your platform is, right?
What's wrong with that approach is like failing to identify the critical role that an environment plays in your experience. Sitting behind a computer screen alone at your home is totally different than walking into an office with employees and your coworkers saying, hi, hello, welcome. It takes a lot more thought and intention and it's just, it's a different environment. I also think an important acknowledgement is like the amount of change that people have gone through over the past four years.
since the pandemic, specifically their relationship with work. Priorities are different, the way that people view and think of work are different. And so to design an onboarding experience the same way that you did with people in a different environment who have gone through changes since then, I think is a miss. So remote work has really required me and my teams with onboarding specifically and our other, the way that we approach culture and experiences.
to really like crumple up the paper of like the way that we did things before and start with a blank canvas. So we've done a lot of experimenting over the years. I think that that's also something that makes a great onboarding experience is like try new things, see what sticks. If it doesn't, don't keep doing it. Like try something new, try, fail, learn is, was a mantra of an old team of mine that we've always stuck by. And so yeah, I mean, in the practical, like some of the favorite, some of my favorite things that we've done specifically with remote onboarding.
that we wouldn't have, that are not experiences that we did in person is like curating our welcome box with items that people actually want, not that are gonna get thrown away or donated to a goodwill when they leave. Doing virtual coffee chats with executives to make sure that they have exposure to leadership in their early tenure in their employment, really robust launch plans that set new hires up for success within their team. We love doing custom backgrounds on Zoom with their first team meeting.
Victoria Cooke (09:54.679)
as a surprise when they walk in. It's kind of like the virtual version of having a welcome banner in their office. We make custom Slack emojis when we introduce them to the rest of the org. So just like fun, small, little virtual touch points, again, to put attention and intention behind the experience that would be missed otherwise, because at the end of the day, someone's just sitting right on the other side of their screen alone.
Erin Rice (10:19.95)
Yeah, for sure. It's all that like intentional things that you have to do because you can't run into each other in the hallway or while you're heating up your leftovers for lunch.
Victoria Cooke (10:29.143)
Totally, totally, totally, totally. Yeah, finding the virtual versions of it. You're not always gonna get the one -to -one. Like you can't always fully replace it, but finding the gaps and then finding what works virtually, right? I think that's the thing is we can't replace the water cooler chat that you would get in the office, cause it's not the same, but what's possible and what's an opportunity in the remote space that we didn't have in the office as well.
Erin Rice (10:53.166)
Yeah, for sure. We use water cooler questions in Slack twice a week. And I've seen, so I've been with my current company for two and a half years. And I would say like in the last three months or so, I've really noticed any prompt that requires them to offer a picture that's something personal. They participate like 75%. They do. And it's so easy because they can just pull it up on their phone.
Victoria Cooke (11:13.751)
Love. People love a photo. Yeah.
Erin Rice (11:20.142)
And then instantly within a couple of hours, we've learned a hundred different things about our teammates, which is amazing.
Victoria Cooke (11:24.951)
Yes.
100%. We do something similar, question of the week. And it's like, funny, you find the questions that actually get people to participate. Something that we always say at my current company, and not just say, but something that we really believe is like, that the highest performing teams are ones that trust each other, but you can't trust somebody that you don't know. So it's worth investing in those relationships at work. And maybe that's a photo that they share in the question of the week, or that's getting to know, you know, a new hire as they come in.
But getting to know the people around you really makes you stronger as an organization, I believe.
Erin Rice (11:58.222)
Yeah, for sure. There's so many requirements that go into onboarding a new person. How do you manage, you know, making sure that you do all the things that you're supposed to do?
Victoria Cooke (12:11.351)
Great question. Yeah, it's there's like a really long checklist and, and, and SOP, I think we, we've used a few different tools, like over the years, we've used Asana workflows. We actually leverage Slack workflows, which are really helpful when we're, we've got higher volume in onboarding as well. I also got my own like personal checklist. It's interesting because, and I actually think that this is, there's no way that we're the only company that's going through this.
Erin Rice (12:16.398)
haha
Victoria Cooke (12:40.535)
There was a time where tech companies had, you know, they were really large and really, they were hiring a lot, hiring volume was really high. So a lot of new hires coming in and their teams really, really robust. and so I, like, we had an onboarding experience team. We had a culture and experience team. I think a lot of teams did, and that was a luxury, you know, at the time we had learning and development teams. And so when I had at that time, I had.
10 plus people involved in the onboarding experience. Definitely takes a lot more program management in phases like that, right? You've got a lot of moving parks, a lot of herding cats for people that are involved. I think those, it's great when you can have a season like that where you've got a lot of people involved, a lot of expertise in the room, a lot of touch points for the new hires as well. However, like times are different now, this is for us and a lot of people in the FinTech space, honestly in the tech.
space and beyond other industries as well. Like companies have drastically slimmed down. And so they've taken, let's say the responsibility of like an onboarding coordinator whose full -time job was to manage their onboarding program. So the way that they manage all of the things to do with onboarding looks different than, you know, me right now, who is a talent partner and HR business partner and onboarding coordinator and employee experience. Like I've got a lot of hots, right? Like their whole list of responsibilities is now a bullet point in my job description.
and we've had to condense it. And I think that those limited resources and tighter teams means that the onboarding experience has also had to evolve and change. I think sometimes people misunderstand that that feels like a step backwards, that your experience goes down in quality. But it doesn't have to be. My dream onboarding experience, like Wishlist, is no longer realistic. But.
I didn't have to downsize and like start from scratch. It's not like, I've never done this before. We have historical context. We've got SOPs that are built out. We've got tools and resources that we can leverage. And I get to use that historical knowledge to continue to build the experience. So I think now we're shifting into like, how do we simplify the experience? How do we simplify the workflows? How do we prioritize the highest impact moments so that we can also protect our bandwidth and our input versus output?
Victoria Cooke (14:58.391)
and really differentiating what's a high standard that can't be compromised versus what's good enough with what we have right now. So that was kind of a long answer to basically say like, we've had to simplify things. That's how we manage it with tighter teams and limited resources. But I don't think that my company is the only one that's experiencing that these days.
Erin Rice (15:17.998)
Yeah, I'm in a similar situation where I wear a lot of different hats. And I think in a lot of ways, it's been a blessing in disguise because it's allowed you to or allowed me to sort of have multiple perspectives while doing the onboarding. And so then it's like, I can sort of think like a hiring manager in that perspective to be like, this is just one bullet point for that hiring manager and their job description as well.
Victoria Cooke (15:32.247)
Yes.
Erin Rice (15:44.462)
And so it helps to sort of have that empathy and compassion to how many different things that they're juggling as well.
Victoria Cooke (15:50.167)
100%. It has absolutely changed the way that I've worked partnered with, hiring managers as well and managers onboarding new employees. And there's a benefit to being the person who hires for that manager and then also partners with them on onboarding, right? Like it's now the same person. So I've got the context. and that's changed. Like we, you know, use like an ATF. I mean, this is Morgan in the hiring realm, but even through like onboarding, like normally communication would happen within that platform. But because I know.
that this is like, not that it's not a priority, but that our hiring managers are just so busy, just like I am as well, that now a lot of that communication is just happening in quick slacks. And they actually appreciate that because I'm meeting them where they're at instead of requiring them to go to another platform. So again, it's not moving backwards in terms of, we used to have this really robust Asana workflow and we had all of these automations and that was really great for us. Again, made sense in a season, but for right now we've kind of...
had to pare back be a little bit more scrappy, but it's what works for our people. And I think that's the thing. I would tell anyone, find what works for your internal teams, find what works for your new hires. It doesn't have to be what anyone else is doing or even what you used to do. I think that's the case with even culture. Don't have an onboarding experience or design it because that's what we've always done or don't, any element of culture. The reason why you do something should never be because that's how it's always been done. It's because that's what meets the needs of our people.
Erin Rice (16:50.414)
Yeah.
Victoria Cooke (17:16.279)
right now in this season.
Erin Rice (17:18.254)
Yeah, for sure. Where do you see onboarding going in the future? Things are changing so rapidly. What do you sort of see happening?
Victoria Cooke (17:28.055)
I think that like what I was talking about earlier, just that simplification and prioritizing higher, you know, higher impact moments and really having to simplify, like it's not the next big thing in onboarding because it's actually the small thing because it's going from big to small. But I think a lot of companies are going to have to look at like what they've done in the past and look at the team, look around, who do you have as a resource now, who's actually a part of this experience and what can you realistically do?
I think so many times, especially when you've been a part of creating a world -class onboarding experience, you don't want to... sorry.
Erin Rice (18:02.478)
I think it cut out. That's okay. I heard who you have on your team and then it cut out. Can you go back to that? Sorry.
Victoria Cooke (18:10.199)
Okay. Yeah. Yeah, no, let's go. Okay. I was just saying, yeah, I think a lot of teams need to look around and see who do they have on their team? What resources do they have access to? How is that different than what they did have? Look at their current onboarding experience. Is it realistic? Is the input that you're putting in, does that match the reward that you're getting as an output?
I think that a lot of people, when you've been a part of designing a world -class onboarding experience or, you know, really maintaining these high standards, it's really hard to pull back because it feels like compromising. It feels like you're compromising your standard. It feels like you're compromising the experience. And of all experiences, the first one that an employee goes through is like not the one that you want to compromise, right? But it doesn't have to be a compromise. You can still, again, find those moments where the high standard is not negotiable.
But then you also have to offset that with what is realistic for me as one person. We used to do a, you know, or there was a time where we were transitioning into a one week, like a week long onboarding experience led by a learning and development team. That's no longer possible because I don't have a dedicated team to do that. That doesn't mean it's a, it's a, you know, a worse experience for the employee. I can still create a good experience. It's just going to look different. And also people don't know what they don't know. So when a new hire comes in,
they don't know what you used to do. They don't know what you want it to do. They only know the experience that you're delivering to them. So I just, I think that that's what we're going to see is we're going to see people really simplifying what used to be really complex and robust experiences. And hopefully like with that comes maybe some more authenticity, you know, the like smaller and scrappy, I think feels human sometimes. It's really easy to think like, we got to be super like buttoned up.
You know, as in, and this is kind of like shifted, I guess the way that I like have thought about onboarding as well. And that's come with a lot of these changes is I used to think that like onboarding was you got to put your best foot forward as a company and put all this effort behind impressing a new hire. Not only do I think that that's not true, I actually think it's a little harmful to like the employee experience. And what I mean by that is like, we used to not used to, but like sometimes it feels like, okay, like.
Victoria Cooke (20:30.615)
I would need to put on this mask to display this really positive picture and experience of a well -polished picture of the company, all for the curtain to be pulled back weeks later and employees see how it really is, which makes an organization look inauthentic, which can actually fracture trust. And we know that trust is built, not earned, especially on day one. So risking that super early in the employee lifecycle, I think, is a little dangerous. So I think as people are pulling things back, simplifying.
There's also room to be really authentic and ensure that your onboarding experiences match, matches what your actual employee experience as well, you know.
Erin Rice (21:08.718)
Yeah, and to your point earlier about the pre -boarding experience, really like continuing that fluid transition from the moment they sign. And that's what we talk about a lot in HR is reminding that person why they said yes, you know, because it's a mutual decision, right? Like you pick them, but they also pick you.
Victoria Cooke (21:27.159)
Yes. Yes, 100%. I love that reminding people of the why. Yeah.
Erin Rice (21:34.478)
Yeah, awesome. Well, this has been so great. Before we go, I have one last question. What do you feel like is sort of that wow moment that you can create for a new hire?
Victoria Cooke (21:47.799)
Ooh, the wow moment. Let's see.
Okay, I think this is like maybe an unconventional answer because I think of some of the really fun like creative experiential moments that like I, you know, I've helped design like over time. And yes, I think that those moments while people like when they get a surprise, you know, gift to their front door before their day one or when they're getting to, you know, interact with certain employees through their onboarding experience or when they get to, you know, watch a video of like a really cool cultural moment that we've had. Those make people.
For sure. I think that those make employees say, wow, this is a cool company. What I actually think makes them say, wow, and even more, and really is that like the wow factor for them is 30 days later when they're interacting with employees, when they're actually getting embedded into the DNA of the company and they see, wow, what I was pitched at onboarding. Actually, let's start even back.
what I was pitched in the candidate process, and then what I was told and presented during onboarding. And now what I'm experiencing is all the same. So it's kind of back to that consistency and that continuity that we were talking about. So I am all about finding fun and engaging and wow moments. But I think even more than how do you create this best onboarding experience ever, I think what makes people say, wow, and like,
that wow actually turns like I was talking about into trust is when people say, wow, this was, this is all the same. Like this is, this was all authentic. None of this was just like a buttoned up presentation to try to impress me and to get me through their doors. This actually is how it is. You know, like people always when hopefully when people have like a really good onboarding experience, a lot of times I've heard employees say, is this too good to be true? And like, what a shame for someone to like,
Erin Rice (23:43.63)
Mm -hmm.
Victoria Cooke (23:46.999)
be two months into their team and say, yeah, it was. I pulled back the curtain and it was too good to be true. And so instead I never want anyone to say that. I want someone to say, is this too good to be true? And then they look and it's actually the same. And maybe it doesn't feel too good to be true. Maybe it feels just like normal and human and it feels like whatever your company actually is. But I think that like the transparency and authenticity have really become just key in how I've approached the onboarding experience. And I think that's what's gonna wow people is realizing.
okay. They were just telling me how it actually is instead of trying to like impress me on a first date, you know?
Erin Rice (24:22.382)
Yeah, and like, thank goodness they trusted us in the candidate experience to actually believe that what we said our culture was like was actually true.
Victoria Cooke (24:31.863)
Yes, a hundred percent, especially with HR. Like man, like the trust that we have with employees, HR gets such a bad rep sometimes, but like to have trust with employees means so much. So like, if you break that during onboarding, because like you pitched a different picture than what was actually true, like within their team, you know, a year later into the employee life cycle, when you are launching a development program or you need their feedback and engagement survey, like.
Erin Rice (24:39.79)
Yeah.
Victoria Cooke (24:58.743)
That's going to play a part there in how they show up and how they participate and how they engage with your initiatives and how they engage with your culture. If they now don't trust that like HR is either in tune with what's going on with the company or is honest and transparent and authentic about the organization that they're onboarding into.
Erin Rice (25:17.39)
Yeah, that's so true. Awesome. Well, Victoria, this has been so lovely. Thank you so much for your time today.
Victoria Cooke (25:23.511)
Thank you, Erin.
