New Employee Onboarding
As an Enablement Manager at Avalara, I created a monthly new employee onboarding (NEO) program for new hires in technical product support. This program, separate from HR onboarding, prepared support agents to assist clients in using Avalara's cloud-based sales tax compliance software and handle a variety of customer issues, from simple password resets to reconciliation discrepancies to questions about sales tax laws.
I'd previously worked in Avalara product support, so I already had a good understanding of the business and the challenges faced by support agents. I surveyed support leaders and frontline managers to determine which knowledge, skills, and behaviors they deemed the most important to master within the first 30 days on the job. I also interviewed support agents who'd been hired over the previous year to identify current gaps in training.
After meeting with other enablement managers, we realized that a shared week 1 experience would not only maximize efficiency and minimize redundancies, but provide an opportunity for new hires to build relationships with cohort members in other lines of business. We collaborated on a curriculum introduced our new employees to the business, basic sales tax compliance, and the customer experience. During week 2, the new hires split into three groups (prospecting, selling, and service) to begin learning about Avalara's core software products. For week 3, these groups further divide by specific role to start exploring processes and tools and apply their new knowledge and skills to practical scenario-based activities.
The final NEO program used a blended instructional approach, alternating between virtual instructor-led sessions and asynchronous assignments. We also leveraged an existing buddy program so the new hires could first begin observing their coworkers, then more actively shadowing as they gain in confidence and proficiency. Over time, we added two self-guided weeks to the program, a week 0 of preboarding activities and a week 4 of independent post-work. For more detailed information on the curriculum, click to expand the images below.
