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Index
Introduction
In today's competitive market, organizations are scurrying to find talent and fill critical roles. However, few businesses put much effort into assisting new hires in assimilating into the workplace culture, forming connections with managers and coworkers, or acquiring the knowledge required to be successful in their position. While every organization views onboarding as a task list that must be completed, it rarely evolves into the necessary comprehensive process that considers social, organizational, and technical aspects that paves way for their employee’s career and personal growth. Businesses need to acknowledge that effective onboarding sets the organization itself and its employees up for long-term success and it should not be considered equivalent to some two-day necessary ritual but a constantly evolving process maybe spanning months.
The above data confirms that organizations need to think more carefully and pay more attention to how they turn desirable job candidates into successful, long-term employees if they want to stop the flow of new hires who leave their jobs too soon. Otherwise, they are wasting their time and effort in the recruitment and selection processes. And these are not the only costs of employee turnover. There are also costs of training and development, as well as underperformance of these employees and not to mention the loss of morale for other employees when their colleagues leave the company. Let's take a closer look at reasons that impactfully justify the need for an effective onboarding program as well as some crucial elements that ought to be prioritized in designing your onboarding program.
Importance of effective onboarding
Higher Retention and Engagement
When new hires begin their jobs, they aren't fully committed right away. According to a survey of senior executives, HR staffing, and recruiting functions conducted by the Aberdeen Group, 86 percent of respondents believed that a new hire's decision to remain with a company for the long term is made within the first six months of employment.
Spending time during this critical period in the employee's life-cycle thus becomes important as it is not only directly linked to ROI but also loss of social capital. When compared to the antiquated idea of a one-day orientation, a well-designed, enjoyable, and engaging onboarding process has a significantly greater impact on employee engagement and retention. The worst scenario for a new hire is to get his interests piqued during the hiring process, only to receive a depressing orientation that just addresses the administrative and compliance goals of the organization. If you value someone enough to hire them, you should value them enough to establish a relationship with them so they feel supported and at ease in their new setting.
Brand Building
The key to successful hiring and retaining talent is developing a strong employer brand. Your new hires will begin developing opinions as soon as they accept an offer, and those opinions will eventually form the foundation of your company's external reputation as well. Supporting an employee's success and general well-being is a mission-critical component in attracting and keeping talent because your employee’s voice is actually seen as more reliable than your CEO to the outside workforce. This becomes even more important today, when social media keeps finding its way into all facets of our online existence.
A successful employee onboarding program should demonstrate your commitment to employee success, your concern for their growth, and your commitment to positive workplace culture. You can inspire new hires to be outstanding ambassadors of your brand by creating an excellent employee onboarding experience. A potential employee is more likely to join the company if he hears positive feedback from an existing employee. Additionally, when someone has a great onboarding experience and is extremely impressed by it, he is more likely to write a review about it on Glassdoor and may even post it on Facebook, LinkedIn, or other social platforms which helps to build the employer brand.
Reduced Time to Productivity and Contribution
How long it takes for employees to start working and producing is measured as ‘time to productivity’. This transition period is the period from the employee's first day of employment to the point at which they are fully utilizing their potential to contribute to the organization.
A thorough onboarding provides the new hire with all the knowledge, resources, training, and tools they need to start being productive right away. Also, an effective onboarding leads to acclimatization to the organization and its culture as well as facilitation of relationship building with other employees which ramps up the time to productivity.
Opportunity for Innovation
It is critical to foster an environment where innovation is actually feasible because onboarding presents employers with a fantastic opportunity to innovate from within by listening to feedback from new hires. Asking your employees for innovative ideas is the quickest way to learn where things can be made smarter, more efficient, and less expensive. In addition, you'll convey your appreciation for their knowledge which serves as a motivational practice.
For instance, let's say a new employee discovers after a few weeks that project retrospective meeting preparations aren't up to par with what he was used to in his previous organization. The entire company could then benefit from this person's approach or strategy. Moreover, employees currently undergoing the onboarding program are the clearest mirrors that can showcase the shortcomings and potential improvement areas in the onboarding process itself. These insights can improve the onboarding experience for the next wave of new hires. Thus, making sure that people can raise issues and offer suggestions for improvement regularly is a must.
High Performing Employees:
The cost of onboarding is worthwhile if you want to keep your employees and get the best performance out of them. Many times, it is only as late as the first performance review that companies realize the performance issues are linked to unclear roles and expectations, tracing them back to the lack of clarity provided during onboarding.
Every job has a set of prerequisites that must be met by an employee to perform it effectively. Even if a person has all of those skills, they still need access to the required tools and resources, a clear understanding of their responsibilities and expectations, and the crucial social integration to reach their full potential and contribute to your company. Additionally, when they go through a subpar onboarding process, they hastily conclude that joining the organization was a mistake. As time goes on, this initial bias grows and hardens, impairing their performance.
Employee onboarding and training initiatives boost output and performance by addressing the most difficult facets of being a new hire and by consistently dispensing instruction at the appropriate time. It is important to note that as significant as the costs of recruitment are, there are also costs that are tied up to the productivity and performance of an employee, thus onboarding is directly linked to the business bottom line as well.
Important Elements of an Effective Onboarding
Organizational Culture
Every organization has a history that has shaped its character, traditions, language, and most importantly, its values. Any new employee must be familiar with, comprehend, and integrate these ideas to participate fully in an organization's daily operations. An organization’s culture is the most important value proposition it can offer to its employees. According to a study conducted by Gallup, 95% of employees believe that culture is more important than pay.
An organization's distinctive pillars such as culture, mission, brand, and other pertinent foundations must be lived and communicated consistently throughout the onboarding process. What is your destination? What motivates you to travel there? What is the process? Any new employee would have these important questions, and you should be prepared with the right answers. You can increase a person's involvement and commitment to the company by responding to these questions. Employees are more engaged and driven if they are aligned and connected by the shared organizational purpose!
Therefore, initiatives in this area should start as soon as a candidate accepts a job offer. The secret to a successful social onboarding program is actively ensuring that social interactions which promote engagement, performance, and loyalty are being incorporated into the onboarding program. Efforts can be directed towards the creation of internal social sharing and connection platforms and even the formation of new-hire communities. Also, developing an appropriate timeline that incorporates a significant number of social interactions interspersed with the essential transactional processes is important.
Social Connections
Making sure new hires are aware of the people they will need to collaborate with to carry out their duties should take up a significant portion of the onboarding process. But there is more to it than simply being “aware” of a colleague. Humans yearn for interpersonal interaction and connection. Unfortunately, work can often feel incredibly isolating for many employees, and since most of their time is spent at work, the well-being of employees depends greatly on workplace relationships. An employee's stress levels, productivity, and general happiness may be positively or negatively impacted by these relationships. These variables have an impact on both an employee's work performance and his health.
The onboarding process should be centered on the unique needs of each new hire and the quality of their experience. Social connections hold significant value in this context. Today, when more and more businesses have started implementing remote and hybrid work models, this approach becomes even more crucial. As the traditional avenues for forging interpersonal relationships in-person are now closed for many, and the experience of being physically surrounded by a team they can turn to for support, counsel, training, mentorship, or a morale boost is no longer present, an organization's social capital may suffer significantly.
Therefore, initiatives in this area should start as soon as a candidate accepts a job offer. The secret to a successful social onboarding program is actively ensuring that social interactions which promote engagement, performance, and loyalty are being incorporated into the onboarding program. Efforts can be directed towards the creation of internal social sharing and connection platforms and even the formation of new-hire communities. Also, developing an appropriate timeline that incorporates a significant number of social interactions interspersed with the essential transactional processes is important.
Technical Onboarding
New hires require the appropriate tools, knowledge, and the freedom to make their own decisions if they're to get up to speed quickly and enjoy their jobs. Make sure newcomers are aware of their roles and responsibilities during the orientation period and be transparent and clear about the expectations the company has from their role. Moreover, managers should provide them with enough autonomy to start the trust-building process right away.
Similar to autonomy, an early opportunity to contribute is also crucial. New hires want to showcase their abilities and what value they can bring to the table. Giving your technical staff a project that is simple to manage and will result in a quick victory can help you create a standout onboarding experience. By assisting them in adjusting to the workplace culture, you will increase their confidence.
The majority of technical workers are enthusiastic about learning and growth. By putting a strong emphasis on career development, you can engage your eager new employees and motivate them to advance their careers within the company. Regardless of your development strategies, new tech hires have specific personal goals, and aligning them with company priorities enables strategic and scalable growth. Employees are inspired and driven to reach their full potential when the larger purpose of the company is connected to the social impact the organization is making. Therefore clarifying this aspect is also important.
Giving them specialized, tailored training that is pertinent to their technology and domain increases their self-assurance as they work on their first projects. In addition to technical training, it's important to focus on other areas of personal development like soft skills, time management, decision-making etc. These are just as crucial and integral to every job as the necessary technical skills. And sometimes, all a new hire needs to feel more confident in his new workplace is a little boost to his communication abilities.
Logistics and resources, like laptops and other necessities for the workplace, are also crucial. Ask them about any preferences they may have and send these resources as a part of the pre-boarding process before their first day. Being prepared in this area goes a long way toward demonstrating to your technical staff how much attention to detail you pay, and it will help you forge a lasting and significant connection with them during the onboarding process.
Compliance
The Onboarding process has a lot of integrated components, but it also gives you a chance to check for compliance for the first time. It should enable HR managers to complete any paperwork that is necessary by law, obtain employee approval for employment contracts, benefits, and company policies, rules, and regulations, and complete any training that is necessary to become compliant right away. Furthermore, an excellent onboarding program should be fully automated, mobile, digital, and seamless. Selecting an onboarding system that enables your employees to complete all of this required paperwork at home is a good way to process compliance tasks.
Compliance protocols not only safeguard your workers but also your business. To avoid any potential liabilities or lawsuits, your company probably has specific policies regarding conduct, diversity, and grounds for termination that you require new hires to read and sign. Depending on where you are in the world, new hires may need to undergo a certain amount of training. For instance, some nations/states mandate sexual harassment education for all new hires, while others demand specialized training for particular professions. To ensure proper compliance, it is crucial to consult with legal counsel. When you know which training will help you comply, you can upload it to an onboarding system for your new hire to finish, ensuring due diligence.
Concluding Thoughts
A thoughtful onboarding procedure requires effort and time to develop. However, if you're prepared to make both investments, you'll lay the best groundwork for long-term retention and add value for the new hire as well as your business. HR teams should have a set procedure for the onboarding process that starts as soon as an employee receives his offer letter. Like any relationship, the employer-employee relationship needs to be successful in the long run. This means maintaining open lines of communication, setting clear expectations, and having a future-focused outlook. Moreover, the way a relationship starts often sets the tone for the rest of it.
Designing your onboarding procedure as a long-term human resource strategy for your business rather than just a one-time task with a checklist is a good idea. Making every effort to assist every new employee as they become familiar with your organization and their work will greatly enhance employee engagement and job satisfaction in your organization as well as the performance of your entire company. Effective onboarding is directly related to your company's return on investment, which further emphasizes its significance. A few months of efficient onboarding can pave the way for many years of excellence!
References:
1.An Onboarding Checklist For Success
2. Reducing New Employee Turnover Among Emerging Adults
3. Technology Can Save Onboarding from Itself
4. Why Your New Employee's First Six Months Matter Most
5. Bad Blood in the Workplace: Survey of 1096 American Workers – Fractl
6. 50 Onboarding Statistics to Improve the Employee Experience
7. Culture: Why It's The Hottest Topic In Business Today