Here’s the deal

In case you've missed it, re-onboarding is bubbling away as a micro-trend at the moment. Personally, I think it's a fantastic idea for three main reasons;

1) People are struggling with a lack of connection and identity

Some people have worked at companies for two years and have hardly ever (or maybe never) met their colleagues. Others are struggling with a lack of connection to/identity with the company they work for without the daily link to 'a place'.

(Side anecdote: I've done a couple of surveys with teams recently and in all of them, the number one thing they say would help them work together better is spending more time together)

2) Things have changed

It's become clearer who companies are / aren't. In many cases ways of working have significantly shifted, or there's been huge growth or down-sizing.

3) It allows for a reset

Given the above, a really clear realignment is worth a lot in resetting what it means to be part of that organisation. If a great onboarding experience is a key to success in someone's first few months at an organisation, maybe re-onboarding acts as an ignition switch to people feeling a refreshed sense of belonging and alignment to what they do.

If you've really embraced hybrid work, a great re-onboarding approach allows you to role model what a meaningful face to face experience would be for teams. Heavy on connection, collaboration, and creativity, light on information dumping.

Bring it to life

However you roll out your reonboarding (there's some ideas coming up), there's a few topics, questions, and ideas you should be sure to cover:

What we've learnt about ourselves as a company in the last couple of years (include what worked, and what mistakes or missteps were made)
Values reset: what do the values mean in the context of 2022? How do we individually bring them to life now?
What does it mean to work here?
What really matters / what are we striving for? (bonus: what are we going to stop doing?)
What does great look like at all levels and roles?
What do we no longer accept (bonus: how will we make this change, or how will we help people call this out?)
What's next? Where are we going? What's exciting? What will be challenging?
Stories
The truth

Of course, all of these topics can (and should) be made interactive and collaborative. You'll definitely want to put your Human Centred Design / expert facilitation chops to work.

Make it your own

Finally, here's a few ideas for you to play with in the design and delivery of your outstanding reonboarding experience. What if...

the reonboarding had an 'all hands' element, and a 'teams' element, to create different levels of connection to the overall messages.
you made it multi-media with an audio element that people could listen to in advance to set them up for the session (bonus points if you include a playlist), and a physical 'program' / workbook sent out to them (we miss analogue things).
there was an un-conference element where your people decide the agenda topics and what order they run in.
you asked some newer and/or more junior team members to do a 'wrap up' at the end of the session with their insights.
it was a week-long experience featuring short sessions with a different focus / leadership sponsor each day.
this isn't going to fly at an organisational level, but you do your own version for your department / team / whatever small group you can influence?

This shouldn't be a case of style over substance, or spending a gazillion dollars getting Nick Cave to perform (although if you do, please invite me), but creating a memorable + meaningful experience that acknowledges that the company that people joined, might look a little different in 2022, but you'd love them to be part of it.

Over to you

Is this something you're thinking of this year? Had you heard of this bubbling trend and been intrigued by it? Re-onboarding is the type of project I love helping teams with. If this is on your to-do list for 2022 but you need an injection of ideas and hands-on delivery, let's chat.

How to make the most of this year's best surprise trend: re-onboarding