According to Gallup, only 12% of workers believe their organization does a great job of onboarding new employees.
The transition should be smooth for new hires. If not, businesses will suffer from increased turnover, lower employee morale, and missed revenue targets.
Thankfully, there are simple things every organization can do to make new employees feel valued. Continue reading to learn five ways to improve your employee onboarding process.
- Be Prepared for Their Arrival
You’ll want to ensure their office and equipment are ready as soon as they enter the building on their first day. Engage them with a welcome email before their start date, and include helpful information to avoid confusion on their first day.
Take the time to personalize their onboarding process and ensure there are engaging training materials to bring them up to speed.
To lighten your workload, you can even outsource your employee onboarding process. A professional employer organization (PEO) can act as your co-employer, taking over duties such as employee training, onboarding, and guidance regarding hiring, termination, and compliance issues. For more info, check out this helpful and informative blog regarding PEO.
- Automate
Onboarding automation is a proven way to improve the experience for new employees. It can simplify paperwork and eliminate mundane tasks while saving your organization time and money.
Automation makes integration so much easier, and new hires will have more time to meet their colleagues and settle in, rather than repetitive paperwork. Plus your HR team also won’t be swamped with paperwork! They’ll be able to direct their energy to improve the new employee’s experience.
Organizations can decide what aspects of the onboarding process to automate.
- Make Them Feel Part of the Team
There are many ways to ease their first-day anxieties. Start by asking the receptionist to greet them warmly. Introduce them to their team and encourage their new colleagues to make them feel welcome.
Go out for lunch with them on their first day, and schedule regular one-on-one time to check in with them. You should also consider using the ‘buddy system’ and assigning the new hire a buddy at work to show them the ropes.
- Create an Employee Onboarding Timeline and Review Your Onboarding Process
Establishing an onboarding timeline for new employees will give them an easily digestible idea of their first months at the company. It takes time for an employee to flourish in a new company, so don’t rush to finish the onboarding process.
In any organization, there’s always room for improvement. Take a proactive approach by regularly reviewing your onboarding process to understand what needs to be refined. One way to do this would be by sending out anonymous surveys to gather valuable feedback.
Make the Onboarding Process as Smooth as Can Be
You only get to make a first impression once. And, in the workplace, the first few days for a new hire often sets the tone for their experience at an organization. So put in the extra effort and make them feel at home from day one.
Did you find this information about employee onboarding helpful? Well, check out more of our high-quality business blogs before you leave.
