How we onboard and train new managers at warp speed

Sarah Kulhanek is the People Operations Manager at brightwheel. Sarah is a Rippling Wavemaker, a leader who challenges the status quo and finds creative ways to solve problems and drive business impact.

There’s a lot of internal movement at brightwheel, which means it’s common for our employees to become managers for the first time after promotions. Even if we hire managers externally, we still need to get them up to speed on company processes. Either way, onboarding new team leaders used to be a pain. Here’s how we made it one-click simple. 

The problem: Time-consuming transitions

Manually onboarding new managers spread us too thin. Since we handled every one-off task piecemeal for both internally promoted and externally hired employees, the administrative stuff alone—setting up Slack and Google Groups permissions, teaching new supervisors how to approve timecards and PTO, assigning manager versions of sexual harassment traning—cost hours a week.

Meanwhile, some of the more interpersonal training—like coaching first-time managers on how to speak to employees about performance issues or what the process is for parental leave—slipped through the cracks. We’d be unaware that a new manager, say, didn’t know how to talk to an employee about taking a leave of absence, until that conversation actually needed to happen months later and the new manager was frantically Slacking around asking for support.

The solution: Automating new manager onboarding

Thanks to Rippling, we’ve moved on from doing every little onboarding task manually. Now, we have a set-it-and-forget-it workflow that handles it all for us. Here’s how we made it happen:

Step 1: Build out a self-service portal

First, we put together a comprehensive guide to share with every new manager. We kept it broad, so that it works for internal promotions and external hires, but built it out to serve as the one-stop-shop for how brightwheel supervises employees. We wrote out a friendly blurb explaining why the new manager is getting the message, then linked to a “Manager Resource Guide,” which includes:

• Answers to questions employees commonly ask managers
• Best practices for approving timesheets and PTO
• Employees’ benefits information
• Recorded tutorials 
• Guides for one-on-one meetings and conversations

Step 2: Set up the workflow

Why send this guide out to every new manager, anytime they’re hired or promoted, when you only have to tee it up once? Within Rippling’s Workflow Studio, there’s an “is a manager?” field. Once that changes to true for an employee, the system automatically sends them the resources guide. We can also use that same field to automatically assign Slack and Google Groups permissions to new supervisors.

Step 3: Assign trainings 

The resources guide has pre-recorded videos that teach new managers how to handle different one-on-one conversations with colleagues. Separately, we assign workplace sexual harassment trainings through Rippling’s Learning Management System, which automatically invites new managers to take courses tailored to supervisors—and auto-sends reminders to complete them before the deadline.

The impact

So far, 26 managers have received this onboarding workflow this year. It sets our new team leaders up for day-one success—helping them become better, more supportive supervisors—while taking administrative work off the HR team’s plate. 

Time saved

Rippling automations save us hours every time we onboard a new manager. We offloaded all the cumbersome manual work and saved our HR business partners from fielding constant requests from new managers. 

Self-service

Managers can find all the information they need to supervise their teams in the automated email, whenever they need it. This helps prepare supervisors for their new role ahead of time. Now they focus more on supporting employees, less on fact-finding side quests.

Stress-free compliance

Administering sexual harassment training through Rippling’s LMS allows us to give individual contributors and supervisors courses tailored to their needs and legal requirements.

This blog is based on information available to Rippling as of December 20, 2024.

Disclaimer: Rippling and its affiliates do not provide tax, accounting, or legal advice. This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide or be relied on for tax, accounting, or legal advice. You should consult your own tax, accounting, and legal advisors before engaging in any related activities or transactions.