Employee onboarding plays a key role in hiring success. A great onboarding process improves employee experience and increases employee productivity by 70%. The process makes employees familiarize themselves with the company faster and get productive earlier.
Ensuring a fantastic employee experience is not optional but a necessity for employers today. This article is an ultimate guide to great employee onboarding in 2022.
What is Onboarding?
Employee onboarding refers to the process of integrating new hires into the company to make them feel more welcomed and engaged with your company’s culture. This process includes activities such as completing the orientation process and introducing them to the company structure, vision, values, mission, and tools they will work with.
Companies have different approaches to onboarding employees. Some conduct meetings and presentations to help new hires learn about culture and policies passively. Some take the employees on an office tour and share the needed information directly. Regardless of your approach, your primary goal should be to ensure the newbies feel comfortable with their brand new environment and start a relationship with your company on a more positive note.
Why should Companies Bother about Employee Onboarding?
A recent study found that 89% of onboarded employees report they are well-integrated into the company’s culture. In contrast, only 59% of the employees that are not onboarded say the same.
Onboarding new hires has become a significant event for organizations today. As Elting said, “For the first time, the company needed employees more than they needed the company.” The great resignation that arose during the pandemic has turned the market upside down. Employers need to provide a great onboarding experience to their new employees.
Moreover, the employee onboarding process isn’t different from the first day of school or probably the first day of dating. This experience provokes anxiety and the judgment if they will stay or leave the company in the coming months.
Hence, all that is necessary is to make the new hires feel part of the company already. A friendly “hey” from their team members is enough to break the ice and begin a relationship. In contrast, failing to provide a great onboarding experience will make employees feel disengaged and disinterested in the company and their work as well.
Let us now learn how to improve the employee onboarding experience.
Employee Onboarding Best Practices 2022
You Don’t have to Wait to Welcome them.
How does it feel to be welcomed by someone you have made friends with already? Less anxious! Don’t wait for your new joiners to show up in the office to welcome them. Ask the new hire’s teammates to send formal “hey” on LinkedIn to make them feel included in the company already.
This small gesture eases the new hires on their first day and creates a positive opinion of the company even before they’re actually onboarded.
Make Introduction with Team Members Easy
Letting people talk about their social strengths will make the workforce and the organization stronger. Allowing the colleagues to introduce themselves to the new hires and showcase their strengths will help create great opinions and relationships between them. This approach also shows that you value your workers’ opinions and social identity strengths.
Organizations need to understand that the employees will have the right to achieve basic human desires rather than just thinking of them as paid workers.
Create & Explain the Purpose
Creating a purpose for their work and contribution to the company is as essential as your company’s purpose and goals. Tell them their purpose in the organization, even if it is small. Doing so motivates them the highest; you also need to remind them often during the meetings to keep them stay motivated.
Be Clear about Onboarding Paperwork.
Some documents like tax withholding forms need to be filled out and signed before or during the onboarding. And you cannot overlook them. Be clear about such activities and make the rest of the form-filling easy using digital tools or at their own pace before a deadline. An applicant tracking system will help you go through this step effortlessly.
Ensure that you inform them strictly about the documents to be signed and company-related compliances and policies like workplace etiquette and safety regulations while using company computers.
Be Informative about the Culture.
It is also essential to visually explain the structure of the company, hierarchy of management, division of departments, and workflow of new hires. A straightforward visual representation is easily digestible and helpful to them.
In contrast, you also need to be informative about the everyday culture. Let the new hires know if your teams go on coffee breaks together.
Provide Resources
Learning and development are crucial for the first few months of an employee’s onboarding. However, new hires need time to establish a routine and immerse themselves in the processes. Be resourceful and be available for them in case of any questions or doubts during the training. Assign a person for them to reach out to if they need something. Share them knowledge repositories to go and visit whenever they need them.
Pro Tip: Make a Checklist to Not Miss Out on Any
Create an onboarding checklist to ensure the essential form-filling tasks do not get lost in a large number of tasks. Informing them about their payroll, work permits, and submission of important documents cannot be delayed. A checklist lets you stay on top of all tasks and avoid inconveniences. As minor oversights can create big consequences over months, ensure you make a checklist and check if all boxes are ticked.
Bottom Line
A survey reports that an engaging onboarding program retained 91% of their first-year employees. Hiring success depends on a great onboarding experience. Make sure you exceed your new hires’ expectations and onboard them well. The above seven onboarding practices will help you drastically improve employee experience and retention.
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