Hello! Welcome to our blog. In this article we wanted to provide you with helpful tips on how to onboard your new hires. Onboarding is a critical part of retaining employees. With a good onboarding process 69% of employees are more likely to stay with the company for three years. Job seekers now have many tools to find their next workplace if they are dissatisfied with their current one.
Moreover, the data shows that 60% of companies fail at onboarding their employees. This leads over 28% of new employees to quit their jobs in the first 90 days. Having a good onboarding process will have an impact on employee’s productivity, morale, excitement, commitment and team spirit. This is why it is important for companies to focus on what makes employees stay beyond the hiring phase. Here are some ways you can successfully onboard your new hires.
1. Build an effective onboarding strategy.
Onboarding is more than orientation as it goes beyond filing paperwork and giving the employee a tour of the office. Investing in a long term onboarding strategy will benefit your company as new hires are energized and more productive. Onboarding lasts from the first three months to twelve months. Even if they still leave afterwards, you will have the benefit of better output delivery while they are working for you.
2. Explain the job accurately
The onboarding process starts in the hiring stage where the employee first builds an impression of what the job will be like and what it would mean to work for you. Most employees may feel disillusioned after they start the job because they were provided with an unrealistic expectation of what the work would be like. Out of those employees that quit their job in the first 90 days, 43% state that it is due to their job not being what they expected day to day.
3. Make sure the tools are in place
Before it is the employee’s start date, it is important to make sure the tools the person needs for their work is in place. This is so your new hire is not waiting for their work area, equipment or digital tools to be set up on the first few days. To avoid a waste of time and loss of interest by your employee, get your new hire engaged in the process smoothly from day one.
4. Help them feel welcome
You can create a welcoming atmosphere by ensuring the rest of your team supports the new employee in different ways. Inform your team about the new member and their role on their start date so there is clarity on what that person will be doing. Encourage your team to be supportive and open to your new hire. Professionally, your staff can mentor and guide the new person on the team on how to go about their work tasks. Socially, colleagues and management can provide a warm environment by inviting the new employee to lunch, happy hour and social events.
5. Communicate often and ask for feedback
Keeping your new hire updated on what’s going on and making sure they feel they can ask questions will provide calm and a sense of freedom. After starting a new job, a person usually feels nervous and confused about the flow of events. Sharing with them the milestones, team priorities, areas of concern and ways to mitigate challenges are excellent ways to make new employees feel more at ease and as part of the team.
6. Spread out your onboarding process
Given that onboarding is a long term process, make sure not to overwhelm your new employee with information, tools and assignments. Have a checklist of milestones and provide your employee time to acclimate to new tasks, environments and colleagues.
Although as a business you may want to get your employee productive right away, if you overwhelm them, the stress and frustration will lead them to have a bad experience long term. Instead give them tasks that slowly increase in complexity and build their confidence as they succeed on each deliverable.
To learn more about onboarding, feel free to contact us to help you in engaging your new hire off to a great start. AJ Connect is a people-centred company recruitment agency that supports businesses in their hiring process.
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