Pros
I started at Argo within one of their business units in late 2020. Given the fact that my prior job was an in-office position, and I onboarded with Argo during the COVID-19 pandemic as a remote employee, this was an entirely new process for me (I think we're all figuring this one out). For my review, I'll break this down into two parts, a review of: 1) The team/social experience, and 2) The broader, get-to-know the company/resources experience. THE TEAM/SOCIAL EXPERIENCE: I'll start out by saying: the enthusiasm that I was met with from my fellow team members at Argo was GREAT. Onboarding while remote, much less during a pandemic when much of life is uncertain and tentative, can be tough for anyone. You don't have the same collegial water-cooler "chance" connections, you don't have as much opportunity to do the whole "get to know you" dance with teammates, etc. What's more, end-of-year can be a busy time, where a unit is focused on getting numbers finalized, and 1/1 renewals handled. The really great part was that it was clear from the get-go that my teammates wanted to, and were/are willing to make the time to chat about work questions, provide resources, background on procedures, and to have those nice, feel good, "human" moments. As far as the work itself, I am impressed with how much responsibility that my business unit is willing to invest in relatively new hires - my divisional president and manager have given me a large amount of autonomy when it comes to handling work that my previous company would either 1) review heavily, or 2) not permit anyone below officer level to handle.
Cons
Get-To-Know The Company/Resources Experience: Getting a sense of a company can be tough when you aren't there attending in-person onboarding seminars, etc. When I joined Argo, I was informed that I would need to sign-up for the SHINE Onboarding program. It wasn't quite clear on how I was to do this (was I going to get an email prompting me to do so, did I need to contact HR, etc..). Fortunately, I found the online learning catalogue and fond the Onboarding sessions - but it seems like the first Onboarding session (there are a series of these) wasn't open on the calendar. So, I went ahead and signed up for one of the later "Values" sessions. This was okay to start with a later session, but I think having the initial Onboarding session regularly available (or at least someone from HR to help point you to resources if it isn't available) would be helpful. I spent some of my own time hunting down executive org charts, functional area overviews, etc. This wasn't a problem, but it would be helpful to have a little bit of guidance/a roadmap to better understand the company beyond the walls of my business unit (you don't know what you don't know, right?). This being the case, I'd recommend that Argo provide a listing of various tools/applications/web pages for new hires to explore to better acquaint them with the company more frequently would be helpful - i.e., "here are our various org charts; here is where you can find internal job postings; here's career/compensation series documentation," etc... But, all-in-all, I'd rate this as a 3/5 onboarding experience from my perspective - as I mentioned previously, we're all figuring out the "onboard while remote" business due to COVID-19.
