Onboarding is an essential part of every organization. An employer must ensure that employee onboarding is smooth. Onboarding is a crucial time for an organization to hire and introduce them to the company’s goals, vision, and organizational culture. By making a set of employee onboarding practices for your organization, you can motivate and retain the top talent so that they contribute towards the success and productivity of the organization.
Best practices for employee onboarding
Whether an organization is onboarding on-site or remote work employees they should follow certain practices.
Here are some onboarding practices to reduce employee turnover:
1. Preboard the employees before day one
Pre-onboarding is a time gap when the candidates accept the offer letter and their first day of work at their new job. Organizations can use this time by:
- Completing all the onboarding documents required
- Providing new employees with their first-week schedule, organizational charts and presentations, policies and code of conduct (if any)
- Making them familiar with all other employees, the company’s culture and their respective heads
Many HR software includes the pre-onboarding element to bridge the gap between the interview stage and employee induction. In this manner organizations spend less time on these tasks during the new hire’s first day and training in their new job position.
2. Prepare a workplace for effective employee onboarding
HR professionals or recruiters must ensure a proper working environment for new employees. Sales employees should be provided with proper equipment such as headphones, laptops, company cell phones etc. Managers must ensure a safe place for employees to keep their equipment or belongings.
Besides equipment new employees must be provided with an employee kit which includes employee uniforms, handbooks or manuals, badges etc.
Additionally, some employees need access to various software. So credentials for the same should be provided to employees.
3. Ask your team to welcome the new employee
HR professionals should inform their existing employees about the new member who is joining their team and ask them to welcome the new employee with excitement so that the new employee feels welcomed. Meanwhile, HR professionals should provide new hires with a taste of the company’s organizational culture.
Some ways in which an HR can make the first day of new hire exciting:
- Sending emails to new employees about their pre onboarding defining the necessary procedure
- Assign a buddy to the new employee who can help them with any query
- Providing company-themed gifts to the new employees so that they feel welcomed in the organization (HR teams should check with the new employee if they have any allergies to ensure that they don’t send any such food item which deteriorates their health.
4. Arrange an orientation schedule
HR professionals should not make the first day of a new employee very hectic. They should arrange a proper orientation schedule so that new hires can become comfortable in the organization.
The orientation schedule should make them introduce the important aspects of the organization.
Employee orientation programs should include the following:
- Introduction of new hires with existing employees of the company
- A tour of the company’s workspace
- Explanation of necessary features, if applicable
- Explanation of company’s procedures and policies
- Lunch with supervisors and other team members
- Training and learning opportunities for their self-growth
- One-on-one with their managers
Some organizations include unique orientation experiences in their schedule. For example, some organizations set one-on-one sessions including training of new hires.
Whatever the case, orientation schedules are essential to ease new hires into their job roles and ask them questions to make the session more interactive.
5. Make a proper plan to track their training
Training sessions are necessary for new hires to make them aware of the company’s policies and working procedures. Great training can help employees to understand their work and increases the chance of employee retention. On the other hand, inadequate training may result in frustration of new employees, lowers employee morale and productivity and increases the chances of a job switch.
A training schedule could include various things such as:
- Software programs lessons
- Safety measures adopted by organizations
- Company’s organizational policies
- Work culture
- Diversity, equity and inclusion
6. Provides feedback opportunities
New hires play an important role in providing feedback regarding their orientation and the whole onboarding process. It gives a chance of improvement to HRs to create a more effective onboarding process.
Organizations can also make use of engagement software solutions to gather feedback and survey employees.
Organizations can also make use of ATS software to improve employee engagement and ensure a smooth onboarding process.
