Did you know that new employees who have good onboarding experiences are 18 times more committed to their employers? If you’re having an issue with employee retention, but can’t figure out where you’re going wrong, you might want to go over your onboarding process. Many business owners feel that if they throw together something that resembles an onboarding process, it should be good enough. Your workers can learn everything else on the fly, right? But this line of thought can be hurting your company badly. Here are 11 employee onboarding best practices you should follow to ensure that your employees are happy and will stay committed!
1. Send a Welcome Package After Hiring
Before your new employees come in for their first days of work, make sure to send them a welcome package with some branded swag! Think of it as a welcome package; they’ll feel like they’re already part of your company, even before they’ve stepped foot in it.
You should aim to get these welcome packages out soon after new hires accept your offer. This will impress them since it’ll show that you’re on top of things and haven’t forgotten about your newest employees.
If it fits your company culture, you can even put some humorous gifts in the swag pack. For example, some companies sent out toilet paper in their welcome packages during 2020 as a nod to what the pandemic did to society.
Or if your brand is based on famous literary work, you can put in a nice edition of the book. That way, they’ll have something to put in their bookshelves that’ll always remind them of your company, even long after they’ve left it.
In any case, you want to make your welcome package exciting. If it hits its mark, then it’ll set the tone for things to come when they actually start work!
2. Invite New Hires to Company Events
It’s extremely important to invite your new hires to company events, even before they’ve started. This is because they can get to know everyone in a more casual setting and participate in some team-building activities.
When they’ve gotten a chance to speak to current employees (especially those on their team or in their department), it’ll make their first day at work less daunting. They’ll look forward to seeing their coworkers and will be able to focus more on their job.
Also, if you have company events between the moment they’ve accepted the job offer and their first day, this can keep the momentum going. Your new hires will definitely be psyched to start with your company!
3. Come up With an Employee Onboarding Checklist
It’s guaranteed that you’re not just going to hire one person and be done with onboarding forever. Whether you need to replace workers that leave, or you need to expand your workforce, you’re going to have to deal with hiring on a repeated basis.
So why not make it easier on everyone? With an employee onboarding checklist, your HR department won’t have to come up with or remember new tasks each time they hire someone new. And with a uniform process, your new employees will have a smoother transition into work since every detail’s laid out for them.
It might be beneficial to get something like WorkBright HR software to help with this. This paperless program comes with many things, such as an employee onboarding template for your required work documents.
Not only that, but your HR team can also track and do employment verification easily from one program. Your HR department won’t have to worry about tedious and repetitive tasks and they can focus on what truly matters instead!
4. Reach Out Right Before They Start
Making sure your workers don’t feel forgotten is a vital part of employee onboarding. You might’ve already agreed on their start date, but to go from hiring to the first day on the job without a word from the company can be odd, unsettling, and even unpleasant for a new employee.
To make them feel like a welcome part of the business, you should reach out to them right before they start. You can do this through an email or a phone call, or even a brief meeting in person if you wish!
Whichever medium you choose, you’ll need to go through what they should expect on their first day. With clear expectations set out, this will lessen confusion and make their entry into the company smoother.
5. Make Sure Their Workstation Is Good to Go
When your new employees arrive for work, you don’t want to still be scrambling around to get their workstation ready. Make sure you set up their table, chair, computer or laptop, and other peripherals they might need (such as a mouse, keyboard, monitor, etc.).
That way, when they arrive, your new hires will be ready to go! They’ll have a good impression of your company since everything was thought of and accounted for before they started. And they won’t have to sit around, twiddling their thumbs while people run around trying to source equipment.
Don’t forget about other important items as well, such as ID badges, forms for hiring they still need to sign, and account setup information if they need to do it themselves.
6. Go Over the Company Culture
Because company culture is essential to running a successful business, you should’ve already gone over company culture in the interview process. If you don’t, you might end up with an employee that looks perfect on paper but would be miserable in your workplace.
But it certainly doesn’t hurt to go over company culture again. Seeing as 42% of employees say a healthy workforce drives engagement, it’s worth it to reinforce what your company’s goals and visions are, as well as how people in the workplace should interact with one another.
In addition to having HR discuss company culture, it’s also a good idea to get some senior leaders to join in. Have them give a presentation that’ll engage new hires.
As part of the discussion on company culture, it’s also good to go over more granular goals, such as those for their team. When you help new hires understand both team and overall company goals, it can help them feel like they fit in more and are part of a whole unit working toward achieving the same things.
7. Make Their First Day Unforgettable
80% of employees say they experience first-day jitters. Surely, you remember how it felt to first step foot in the office. You had to learn the lay of the land, meet new people, figure out how the office works (both physically and digitally), and prove you’re good at the job, which is a lot on your mind.
Show that you understand how your new hires feel by making their first day both comfortable and unforgettable! Not only should you make sure that their workstation is ready to go, but that they get another small welcome package. A nice touch would be some small notes attached from their coworkers, as this shows that people are eager for them to be there.
You can also schedule a lunch for them with the CEO or other high-level managers. This can make new workers more comfortable about approaching their higher-ups if they get to know them right from the start.
8. Give Them a Schedule to Begin With
On that note, you should give your new hires a schedule, just to begin with. In many cases, when there’s no set schedule, they can end up with nothing to do at times. This can affect their morale, causing them to wonder if work is always like this.
A good idea would be to put some simple tasks in the schedule, such as “set up your employee account” or “read our handbook”. While these things might seem very obvious to do, being new can make someone nervous and forget to do these things. Having these tasks written down on paper can be a helpful reminder to get these essential tasks done.
Handing employees a schedule also shows that you’re confident in your onboarding process. After a few weeks or so, you can then let up on the scheduling so your workers have more freedom in what they do with their time. This shows that you trust they can be productive on their own.
9. Facilitate Meetings With Other Employees
It’s important that employees don’t just know their own teams, but other ones as well. Getting to know people in other departments means they’ll be comfortable contacting them, should the need for inter-department collaboration work arise.
Being familiar with other teams can also help new hires feel not so siloed and alone at work. If they feel “banished” to working in their team in a corner, this can have a negative effect on them.
When you facilitate meetings with other employees, this shows your new workers that you care about them belonging in the company, and that you don’t just view them as meaningless workers shoehorned into their own spaces.
Plus, if you allow them to learn about what other employees are doing, this can give them a newfound appreciation for what the business does as a whole. This can motivate them to keep up with their own important tasks.
10. Don’t Stop Following Up After They Get Settled In
Just because you’ve gone over everything important for work doesn’t mean you should just cease communications with your new hires. In fact, we’d argue that the period right after all the paperwork is signed and your employees get settled in is the most crucial time to keep in touch!
Even if they know the work tasks well, your new hires can still have a difficult time adjusting to your workplace. So it’s important to touch base every week or so, just to see how they’re doing. They’ll feel like a valued member of the company, especially if you ask for their input on what can be done better for onboarding and take that into account for future workers.
As a result, you’ll be able to keep your employees happy and increase retention!
11. Add Remote Onboarding
The pandemic that consumed the world in 2020 shook many business processes up. While some companies already had remote workers prior to that, they probably didn’t have solid remote onboarding processes set up. But with the pandemic came the realization that remote onboarding is a must.
Whether you’re still taking precautions at your workplace or you’re planning on involving more remote work, you’ll want to add online onboarding as an option for your employees. This will involve a solid internet connection, good video conferencing software, and quality webcams and microphones, so get on that if you don’t already have them at your workplace!
Considering that many of today’s workers prefer to work remotely sometimes, they’ll surely appreciate the remote onboarding option. This indicates that your business is open to either complete remote work or a hybrid workstyle that so many employees enjoy.
Follow These Employee Onboarding Best Practices for Success
If you’ve been looking to improve things at your business, then you must follow the above employee onboarding best practices.
While it might take a little extra thought and planning to redo your onboarding process, it’ll be worth it. When your new employees see how good it is, and how organized you are, they’re sure to appreciate it. And as a result, you’ll have happier workers who are more likely to stick with your company!
Now that you know how to perfect your employee onboarding process, keep reading our blog page for more information on how to run your business.