Serving as a panelist on HDI’s recent
webinar, “Future Proof your Help Desk: Key IT Support Trends for 2025,” I enjoyed the discussion about Enterprise Service Management (ESM). I said that employee onboarding is a great use case for ESM. Good ESM supports organizational value streams. Employee onboarding is a great example of an organizational value stream, as it typically involves multiple departments within an organization, such as HR, IT and Facilities.
This sparked a question from the webinar audience: “Who is responsible for employee onboarding?” My fellow panelists and I agreed that it was that the organization is responsible for onboarding, as no single department within an organization can complete all the needed steps to enable the productivity of a new employee.
After the webinar ended, I began to think more about the question — “who is responsible?— in the context of our discussion. I realized that ‘who is responsible’ for onboarding wasn’t the real question. The real question was: “who is accountable for employee onboarding?” The answer is “whoever owns the value stream.”
What is a value stream?
Wikipedia defines a value stream as “the complete set of actions and processes an organization takes to deliver value to a customer, from the initial concept through final delivery and support.” Value streams are usually not processes, as I discussed in this article, as value streams are concerned with “how value is achieved, rather than how it is done”.
In the case of employee onboarding, there are usually many teams involved within an organization to deliver value — in this case, the value is a new employee enabled to do the work she was hired to do. Each team involved is responsible for some part of onboarding the new employee.
HR establishes records of employment — start date, job title and more. IT establishes credentials which facilitate access to data and systems, as well as provides enabling technologies like laptop computers. Facilities sets up a physical workspace for employees that are working in the office. Depending on the organization, there are other teams involved in onboarding a new employee.
But who is accountable for ensuring that all this work gets done? The value stream owner. Kaufman Global defines the value stream owner as “the individual or team responsible for the performance of an entire value stream.” Furthermore, Kaufman Global states that “assigning a [value stream] owner is a significant opportunity” for organizations. A value stream owner helps drive needed (and required) collaboration, ensures the definition of specific goals and objectives of the value stream, and establishes accountability.
Even though the activities for onboarding an employee are similar from organization to organization, the actual steps may be different. This is where value stream mapping can help.
5 tips for success with value stream mapping
Mapping value streams is a great way to understand the work being done, where to improve and gain agreement regarding the value stream owner. Here are my five tips for mapping value streams.
Use a facilitator. Bring in an outside facilitator — someone that is skilled in value stream mapping, but has no specific interest or participation in the value stream itself. An outside facilitator can ask the tough questions and challenge current norms.
Be inclusive. Effective value stream mapping can’t be done without the engagement of everyone that participates in the value stream. Make sure that each team involved is represented. Ensure that all participants contribute to the exercise.
Define and agree on goals. A critical factor for successful value stream mapping is to establish goals. Defining goals will help participants recognize where a current value stream may be falling short, identify potential improvements, and realize what value stream success looks like.
Stay focused. Often, a fun by-product of a value stream mapping session is the discovery of other inefficiencies outside of the target value stream. It can be tempting to go off-course and identify potential solutions for those challenges. Don’t do it! Instead, record those opportunities on a continual improvement register for future consideration.
Don’t rush it. Mapping value streams — both the current state and the subsequent “to be” stream — takes a little bit of time to identify the steps, participants, and potential improvements. Have a sense of urgency, but invest the right amount of time.