Purpose

In Cleary, you can customize and automate the pairing of onboarding buddies! New hires can be matched with a veteran member of the team to help them navigate as they get accustomed to their new role.

Set up

Note: Only users with the Journey Manager permission can set up onboarding buddies. 

 

To begin, head to Admin → Onboarding Buddies and click Settings. You can then configure the following settings: 

Employee Eligibility 

First, adjust how long after an employee’s start date they’ll be eligible to be a buddy. The default will be set to 6 months: 

 

 

You can then choose whether to automatically make all eligible employees available to be a buddy. 

 

 

Unchecking this option will require employees to opt-in to becoming an onboarding buddy, with the added option of generating an email prompting employees to opt-in: 

 

If this option is unchecked, the following module will also appear in an eligible employee’s home feed: 

 

 

After customizing the automated pairing, you can then determine how long after the last assignment an employee can become a buddy again. This duration will also inform how long onboarding buddies are paired for in Cleary! 

 

In addition, you can search and select employees to never be selected as an onboarding buddy. 

 

Matching Criteria 

Next, you can determine how new hires will be paired with their onboarding buddies. Using the drop downs, you have the ability to prioritize and customize different criterias to determine how Cleary will surface the best pairings for buddies.

Assigning Buddies

From a Journey 

To automate the onboarding buddy process, read our help guide for creating an Assign a Buddy step in an onboarding journey! 

As a Journey Admin

Once set up, an admin will be able to see a list of eligible buddies and new hires who need a buddy. The new hire card will display at the top, with the list of eligible buddies in the table below. The table will be sorted according to your matching criteria so that the best-suited buddies are at the top of the list. As you click through the carousel of new hires at the top of the page, the table will be sorted again based on the new hire’s attributes. 

 

 

 

Clicking the Assign button to the right of an eligible buddy will then assign them to the displayed new hire. You can also see how many times that employee has been assigned as a buddy, and when their last assignment was so that you avoid relying on the same employees too frequently! 

 

 

In addition, you can use the filters at the top of the list to search for an eligible buddy by name, or filter eligible buddies by the matching criteria set up in settings (in the example below, City and Department were selected for matching criteria). 

 

 

You can also filter the eligibility of active employees by clicking between Available, Assigned, and Inactive at the top.

 

 

 

Available employees meet the eligibility criteria, if set, in Settings. These employees can be paired to any new hires needing a buddy. 

 

Assigned employees are already paired with a new hire. These employees may not be paired to any new hires needing a buddy. 

 

Inactive employees are not paired with a new hire or available to be paired to any new hires needing a buddy. This can include employees who have opted out of being a buddy, or who do not meet the eligibility criteria listed in Settings.

 

If Automatically make all eligible employees available for buddy assignment is unchecked in settings, you’ll also see a tab for Eligible onboarding buddies.This is a list of potential onboarding buddies who have not yet opted in or out!  

  

 

Multiple Buddy Assignments

Admins also now have the option to assign an employee to be a buddy to multiple new hires at once! 

To illustrate, let's say an employee was assigned as an Onboarding Buddy to a new hire. 

 

Supposing he meets the Matching Criteria, that same employee will still appear as an Available Buddy to another new hire, and can still be assigned.

 

 

This employee will become the Onboarding Buddy in both the new hires' journeys and will get any steps in that journey triggered to them.

 

As a new hire 

If the option Allow new hires to choose their own buddies is enabled, the new hire will see the following module in their home page: 

 

If the new hire clicks View all buddies, they’ll see the following page. These buddies will be sorted based on the prioritization criteria set earlier: 

 

Here, they can further search for buddies, or use the City filter to further refine colleagues to pair with. Clicking Select Buddy will assign them to this buddy! 

 

Once assigned, the new hire and buddy will see the respective modules on their homepage: 

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Clicking Schedule a chat will open Google Calendar or Microsoft Calendar, prompting the logged in user to schedule a meeting with their buddy. 

 

 

Interaction with Journeys

On new hire onboarding journeys, it can be set up so communication and tasks can be sent to an onboarding buddy automatically once they are assigned to a new hire. 

 

Here’s an example of a task that would be generated to an onboarding buddy once they’re assigned: 

 

 

When adjusting the journey step, this task can be triggered automatically like so: 

 

• 💡Tip: To learn more about Onboarding Journeys and Journey steps, click here

 

Additional Options

 

While in Settings, there are additional advanced options. Under additional options, you will determine if new hires gain the ability to choose their own buddies instead of requiring admins to pair buddies. This option is off by default, and is only recommended for organizations onboarding 100+ new hires per month. 

 

Advanced Settings 

In the next section, you’ll determine when a new hire is eligible to receive an Onboarding Buddy. This can be customized to be before or after their start date, but will default to 14 days before. 

 

Finally, you can customize which groups of employees are eligible to be onboarding buddies. 

 

Similarly, you’ll select which new hires have the option to be paired with a buddy. 

 

 

FAQ: 

Q: If a new hire clicks "I don't want an onboarding buddy," is there a way to add them again? 

A: Yes, head to Admin → Dashboard in the journeys section, and search for the new hire. 

You can then click on their name and click Assign a buddy. 

 

 

 

Q: If we manually designate a Buddy, will the weekly meetings be scheduled automatically, or is there another step we need to take? Also, is there a specific timeframe within which we need to complete this?

A: There are steps in the onboarding automation process that will trigger the meetings to be scheduled automatically at a certain time. Right now, they're assigned 4 days before the new hire's start date. So, the Buddy needs to be assigned 5 days before the start date.