6 Ways To Make Your Onboarding Process Better
Onboarding a new hire allows you to ensure that your business benefits from their skills and expertise from the off. But with the cost of finding and hiring a new employee between 10 and 30% of their starting salary and the onboarding process running into the hundreds of dollars, the last thing you want as a small to medium business owner is to get it wrong and waste your time and your money.
Would it surprise you to learn that 80% of new hires would be thinking of quitting already if the onboarding process was poor? At the same time, Bamboo HR recently found that half of the employees who received unsatisfactory onboarding are likely to leave. Only 12% of those surveyed felt their onboarding process was adequate.
With this in mind and the fact that the same study found the cost of training a new hire to run past $1,200, how can you ensure you aren't just going through the motions time and time again? One of the biggest assets a business has is the addition of a recruitment company that specializes in high-level positions. For example, a CTO executive search company can help with identifying the right people for the roles that you have available in a way that you might not be able to by yourself. Knowing that you have an expert on your side can make a big difference in your hiring.
Be Prepared
In the first instance, you need to be completely prepared for your new hire. You need to have all of the resources in place before they begin. This means having all the appropriate documents ready, a training schedule, all the materials they need, and any employee handbooks. You should also alert your current employees, especially those who are working with or will be guiding them, that they are starting and keep them in the loop about what to expect when they join.
Have a list of answers ready for all of their questions, and try to preempt anything that might crop up or that you think they will need to know about.
Employee Handbook
Put together an employee handbook of information they can refer back to help them find their feet. There will likely be a lot of information you need to go through with them, but having something they can read and go through at their own pace and return to if required can be extremely helpful.
This book includes everything they need to know about the company, including;
Management
Directors
Shareholders
Your business goals
What success looks like in your company
Your company culture and guidelines to adhere to
Who to contact if they need help or in the event of an emergency
Office locations, meeting rooms, floor plans, etc
Who your customers are
What you pride yourself on as a company
What do you expect in terms of confidentiality and security
Social media rules of engagement can affect the company image and correct behavior online or in person when representing the company.
Training
Of course, the exact training each employee will need will depend entirely on your business and the type of work they are carrying out. For example, suppose they work on a shop floor, in construction, or in a warehouse. In that case, a manual handling training program can benefit them to help them work safely and reduce accidents or injuries. If they are working at a desk, training in the systems you use, protocols, cyber security, and data handling training will work better for them.
Have the training application in place, whether in person with other employees on the shop floor, in a classroom setting virtually, or have a program to follow via an app that they can come in and out of at their own pace.
Involve Multiple Teams
From here, you can bring in multiple teams and people to assist you with training and helping your new employee to get to grips with who works there and who they can expect to come into contact with during their working day. This can be their immediate team leader; it can be HR, finance, your IT department, other managers, and more to help you get them settled and used to your team before jumping right in.
Reduced Duties
Initially, you will want to ease them into their workload to help them become acclimated to your way of working and ensure they have the breathing space to find their feet to do their job well and set them up for success. Let them know this will be for a duration of your choosing, be it a week or a month, to be assessed depending on performance. Remove any expectations from them as they find their footing and get settled in. From here, you can increase the pressure slowly until they meet your expected output level, and then you can look at applying goals and targets and measuring their performance.
Set Times For Feedback
Let your new hires know that their onboarding is a process you will be working through periodically. Set up dates and times for feedback to answer any questions and address issues and ensure this is adhered to by all parties. Doing these meetings to discuss potential concerns or performance can help you acknowledge a job well done and assess their skills and productivity for career advancement and progression. First impressions count, so use this time to gauge who they are, how they work, and what their future looks like with your company.
Do this for at least the first 60 to 90 days of their employment and let them know you are there for support and will keep an eye on their progress to lose them in any way you can. If you don't have the time to do this, have a designated management member carry this out to keep the process running and stay in the loop regarding their performance.
Onboarding employees can come with a massive cost to employers; the last thing you want to do is to be awaiting your money due to a high turnover because you don't follow a thorough and effective onboarding process. Pay attention to all the new things an employee needs to start well in a new job and what your company needs from the employees, and create a process that sets both parties up for success from the beginning. Be prepared, have thorough training, and give your new hires the tools they need to succeed.