Top 15 Best Employee Onboarding Practices

Top 15 Best Employee Onboarding Practices

Best Employee Onboarding Practices, have you just hired a new employee in your organization? You should understand that bringing them onboard doesn’t just require a nice day one at work, a welcome letter, or just a few days’ orientations.

No matter how great your first impression might be, the later impression might be different. . You should implement programs on integrating a new person into your organization. Using effective strategies on onboarding new people in your team helps in retaining and engaging them, and hence contributes to the success of your organization.

The programs you implement should last not less than three months and sometimes extend up to one year. This is because it takes time to teach new workers the behavior and knowledge required for them to contribute to success in your company.

However, there are no specific strategies for onboarding. In this article, I highlight for you some of the best practices you can use to create strategies on onboarding that are unique and solve the needs of your organization.   

Best Practices on Employee Onboarding

1. Prepare for the Person Before the First Day at Work

In most cases, there is some time taken before offering a job and for the new hire to begin working. You should take this time as an opportunity to create excitement to welcome the new worker. You should not make the mistake of waiting for their arrival on the first day to begin orientation.

You should search for information that they require to get on board quickly. First, once an employee has accepted your job offer, you should send them information on the history of your company, the values required, and what they should expect for the first few months at work. This includes information on dress code, who to receive them at the reception, what they should bring, and whether lunch you provide lunch to them.

Also, give their portal to enable them to learn more on their own and also your company’s social media sites. Everything should be complete in advance so that on the first day, your new workers have all they require to start working immediately. 

• Generate Amazing Welcoming Practices

Welcoming practices go beyond sending the new worker your company policies. To help them get ready for their first day, you should consider doing things like sending them a welcome email and a phone call, send them a welcome package like a company coffee mug, prepare their tools and design strategies for orientation, and lastly, provide for opportunities to meet with other team members. You may want to go further and decorate a new employee’s desk for their first day.

Also, you want to remove all paperwork out of the way. Paperwork can be boring and confusing during onboarding. Paperwork on work contracts, company policies, and payroll and tax forms should be completed before day one. The faster you finish on paperwork, it helps you save time and focus on engagement. You also create a good first impression of your new worker.       

• Ensure the First Day Counts

New employees who are less engaged with their coworkers are less likely going to ask for help from them. You should ensure your new workers are engaged from day one. Ensure you pair the new person with a buddy from the team to guide and train him, and get answers for his or her questions.

A tour of your company should also be given to the new employees and you also introduce them to their fellow team members. Ensure a new worker’s desk is set up with all guidance needed. Your system should be able to allow log in’s from new employees too. You can even go further to plan for a lunch together with colleagues. This will help improve the culture of belonging. 

• Assist Your New Workers Get Deeply Involved

To help your new workers speed up quickly contributes to retaining the top talent. You should ensure you provide clear outlines and descriptions of what is expected of each employee. Show them the importance their roles contribute to the objectives of your organization. Your new workers should get all the training and support they need from you. Integrate them into a team so that they are not left to do things alone too. Also, give them tasks to be accountable for with supervision if necessary and also responsibilities. 

• Have a Source of Information

Your new worker’s portals should have a source of information on the commonly asked questions by new hires and procedures to be followed in their departments. The portal gives information to new hires that act as support and training through videos, texts, and questionnaires. Your database should have your business policies such as code of conduct, forms that need to be filled like a payroll form, information on your general organization and culture, online videos for training, and social engagement opportunities like upcoming company get-togethers. 

• Use an Onboarding Software

The onboarding process contains many different tasks and activities. They include new hire paperwork completion, programs on orientation, and training of the new worker. There is available software like BambooHR that provides automated employee onboarding services. The software reduces the use of paper forms, eliminates manual data entry, smoothens the onboarding process, and also saves your time. The software also ensures your new worker doesn’t miss any important tasks during the first weeks of employment.     

• Be Serious on Paperwork

 Completing forms is necessary for onboarding a new employee. Since onboarding focuses on increase a worker’s engagement and productivity, all onboarding tasks have to be efficient including paperwork. To ensure the completion of forms, you can take some steps. Step one includes sending the forms to the workers before their first day. Also, putting the forms online and automating filling to ensure your new employee access at all times and also save time. Another thing is to assign a buddy that will help the new worker in filling the forms. 

• Bring Together a Team for Onboarding

Moving from an onboarding buddy to involving a full team in onboarding helps your new worker engage with others and become a part of the community faster. Onboarding should not be left to just HR staff or the hiring manager. Socializing and introducing the new worker to the company culture is also a part of onboarding. You should build a team that is active to organize functions that help in welcoming a new worker. Some practices allow the involvement of the wider organization in onboarding. They include pairing the new worker with more than one work buddy to offer support and answers, planning launches and meeting for new workers to meet and interact with members of your organization, including time in the onboarding schedule for the new worker to better understand other departments, and also exercises and sessions for team building. 

• Involve your Whole Organization

Study shows that new workers feeling socially accepted contribute to their success in your organization. A successful onboarding program should engage the new worker at the workplace through social connections. To ensure your entire organization is involved in onboarding, here are some ways: Arranging social functions like team lunches, organizing for sessions to introduce the new worker to different departments and teams, assign new employees to open area fields to meet, and collaborate with team members, and also announcing joining of new workers so your team members are aware of new people to ease welcoming them.

1. Regularly Set Expectations of New Employees

Supporting your new workers consistently makes them more engaged and more successful. This is achieved through stating clearly what is expected of them at onboarding and as they develop their career. To ensure your workers understand what is expected of them at all times, you should consider the following: You should create an agreement that states the duties of each employee at all positions and their support role to each other. Your company objectives should be measurable and be made understood to new workers. Ensure they understand what decisions to make on their own and which to forward up the command chain. Your expectations relating to any important business aspect should be clearly defined. 

1. Create a Trust Agreement with Your Worker

You should write down a collaborative and reviewed document that seals your agreement. The agreement form on trust acts as a foundation to building a positive relationship with your new worker. The moment during onboarding is crucial to making a new employee belong. A trust agreement complements the onboarding program to enable the belonging of the new worker. You should get from a person what they need to feel they belong. You also share with them what you think so they feel included and that they matter to you. 

1. Conduct Regular Meetings with Your New Worker

You should conduct regular one-on-one meetings also called check-ins with your new workers. This helps cement a positive and productive relationship between you and your workers. These meetings should be made a normal routine and a habit at work. For your new hires, this meeting should be on their first day as part of onboarding and orientation. This will also ease the holding of meetings in the future. 

1. Involve Senior Leaders in Inspiring New Workers

New hires need someone they can look up to for career advice and inspiration. Your leaders should discuss and give information to new workers on learning and development. This shows that your business is interested and supportive of development. Also, senior leaders like founders help the new workers understand the company culture and history, and also explain to them what values and behaviors to uphold. Senior leaders can be involved in training specific areas and taking new workers on lunch or coffee dates.   

1. Get Feedback on New Worker’s Experience

The majority of new workers make up their minds to stay or leave your organization within the first six months. To avoid a new person leaving your company, you should get feedback on their experience and understand if anything is causing them to be unhappy and fix it. Employees do not always give honest feedback to employers, so you should create feedback coaches. These are people trained to gather information from employees without causing fear to them. Also, you should have multiple feedback sources on the performance of your new employees and if they need any help. Your feedback coach should not be among your team members. You should also allow for anonymous feedback from your workers through online portals and surveys. Once you get feedback, you should act so that employees feel motivated to come to you with suggestions again. 

1. Broadcast the Culture of Your Company

Reinforcing your company culture during onboarding can lead to increased customer satisfaction. Research suggests that new workers fail due to not fitting in with the organizational culture. To broadcast your company culture, you create your company’s social media accounts and share content on culture. During orientation, you should give new workers information on your company history and culture. The buddy you pair to a new worker should have stayed with your organization for a longer time to guide them on the culture. Frequently asked questions also give insights on cultural facts. Lastly, new workers should be included in meetings and events that portray your company culture.     

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