Onboarding new employees is a reference to the process that you start off as you begin an employee’s time working with your company. This is why there is onboarding software for small business and large businesses alike to help in the onboarding process of new employees.
This is a process that includes the preparation of new beginners in helping them to become functional members of your company in a safe and efficient way that helps both you and the employees, as well as the whole organization.
In this world, where there is so much remote working and a lot of hybrid working patterns, it is very important that you have a structured and robust system to help integrate your new workers into your existing team. Remote access to It is a crucial part of any organization.
Let us talk you through 5 quick tips to optimize your onboarding process with new employees and get the most out of the whole process for your business.
#1. Start The Onboarding Before Their First Day
So many businesses will make the mistake of waiting right up until the employee starts work on their first day before they start onboarding them.
Yet, there is a period of days, weeks and even months between you hiring a new member and them starting their role. This time period is a brilliant opportunity for you to start up the onboarding process, so they feel like part of a team.
You need to give them the information that they need to get up to speed on everything they should be required to know before they start working.
Also note that if they do work a very long notice period then employees can easily feel isolated, and it is not unknown for new employees to have a change of heart during this time. This is why you should always start working on integrating your new employees sooner.
You want to make them feel like an important part of the company from the moment you hire them, not from the moment they start working for you.
#2. Define All Expectations
Many of us hate ambiguity, and somewhere it does not belong is in the workplace. It actually hinders productivity. Sadly handbooks and a job description usually suffice for guidelines in too many companies now, which usually leads to employees feeling a bit lost in what is going on.
Managers should always develop a full guideline and expectation set that will go over deadlines, deliverables, and company goals.
It should be robust and detailed, but should also be an active document that employees can see and stay updated with, so they know what is going on.
Do not forget to also cover company culture, and not just issues relative to specific teams.
Explain to them that all their hard work won’t go by unnoticed and that they’ll be fairly compensated for it. Show them how you take employee recognition seriously and how that reward system works. Tech tools can help you easily keep track of their productivity and performance so that you can give a just reward.
You should also consider offering your new employees a 5-week course which does extra to onboard them, instead of just handing them a job description and giving them a single day of orientation.
It can also help to show you if an employee is right for you as well!
#3. Create Ways For Them To Meet The Team
Part of the onboarding process is making your employees feel comfortable and at home in their role. It is important for how they will perform in their future and how the overall team will work as well.
You should provide as many opportunities as you can to help the employees build important relationships during the onboarding process. Allow them the opportunity to make new connections around the office (be it an office or at home) to help them feel more comfortable.
Using a colleague look-up system can help to make the transition easier. If you have a lot of employees it can be tricky to find ideal colleagues for them to integrate with. Using a system can help to enable them to find colleagues from other locations and teams.
It is very important that your new team members who work remote do not miss out on a ‘meet and greet’ session. We are social animals after all.
#4. Consider Mentoring programs
Mentoring programs are great, they partner up with your new hire on their first day and may continue to do so over the next few months. This will usually be a peer of theirs, or a team member who has a good understanding of the workplace and is respected in the team.
They need to be a good communicator, and someone who respects the company culture. If your new hire has access to this person from day one it can help them ask informal and difficult questions making them feel less anxious and more at ease.
Access to a mentor is very important for younger hires who may not be experienced in this particular environment, especially if they started working during the course of Covid-19.
Research actually shows that organizations who make use of mentoring programs actually have a higher retention rate than those who don’t.
#5. Prepare Managers As Well As Hires
Remember to not only prepare your hires but also to prepare management as well. You should not only target the new hire as you complete the onboarding process.
There are some actions that managers can actually take to speed up the process and have employees 100% productive in 75% of the time it would have taken.
Managers should get emails from HR about all new hires, and with a checklist for the employee’s first day.
This means that managers need to discuss roles and responsibilities, helping the hire to develop a social network, matching them with a mentor, setting up check-ins on a monthly basis, and encouraging open dialogue and following through with this.
Whether the manager does this or not is up to them, however, it does reflect on the manager if the employee is productive.
Employees should not be viewed as a single unit themselves, but as a cog in the machine of a team and its effectiveness. Nurturing a new employee can enhance productivity quickly if done right.
Bonus Tip
When you are working with a new hire, never just throw them into the deep end, you want to allow them time for training. It does depend on the job that you have hired them for, but new employees may need some extra training to perform at their very best.
So, they will need extra time to properly adapt and learn so that they can do their very best in their new role. When you throw them in the deep end you fail to give them enough time to really develop their skills and become the best version of themselves in the workplace
This is exceptionally important with roles in work sectors that have a lot of very specific company terminology and processes. If you do not allow them the time they need to learn the roles, you can expect them to fail already.
In fact, not only that but it will also demotivate them before they’ve had any real time to get an understanding of the company, thus pushing them ever closer to leaving the company before things have even really started.
Your onboarding process will set the tone for the rest of the employee’s time with the company, it includes everything from social integration to training and giving them a sense of community.
Each part of the process is absolutely integral to the smooth running of things and you need to ensure that you are giving your hire the best chance to succeed.
