What is new hire onboarding
New hire onboarding is a process that assimilates new employees into your company’s work culture, familiarises them with the tools they need for their job, and helps them understand your company’s goals better so they can feel right at home while working. A successful method to onboard new hires can go a long way to increase your organisation’s efficiency.
Why is it important to onboard new hires
Onboarding new hires is a meticulous process that reaps positive dividends in the long run. Here are a few such benefits.
1. Acclimates new hires to their new role
New employees can be nervous about joining a new office and working in an unfamiliar environment. Onboarding new hires can help you get the best out of your new employee by familiarising them with your organisation’s work culture and processes. Once acclimatised to their new role and environment, employees will be better able to perform and deliver to the best of their abilities.
2. Reduces employee turnover and attrition rate
Often, new hires quit their jobs within the first six months of joining. Such employees feel they need to be more settled in their new workplace and seek employment elsewhere. New hire onboarding helps mitigate the risk of employee turnover as it gently initiates a new employee into the new company’s way of working. A successful onboarding ensures that an employee feels settled and welcome in a new workplace. Onboarding new hires can thus create an atmosphere of harmony and satisfaction in your workplace, helping you retain your employees. This way, new hire onboarding can also reduce your employee attrition rate.
3. Creates an engaging workplace
A work culture that emphasises onboarding new hires is an inclusive, engaging, and collaborative environment for employees to work in. By onboarding new employees, an employer conveys that they value and appreciate their employees. This creates an engaging atmosphere where employees are encouraged to collaborate and work collectively towards the organisation’s growth.
New hire onboarding can help ease new employees into an unfamiliar workplace and help them perform to their fullest potential.
New Employee Onboarding Checklist
Onboarding new employees can be quite beneficial for employers and employees alike, leading to more productivity and higher employee retention rates. So, as an employer, you need to ensure that you onboard new hires in a streamlined manner. An onboarding checklist can ensure that you take all the steps while onboarding your employees. Also, it helps refine your onboarding process over time. Here is all you need in your new employee onboarding checklist to ensure that you successfully onboard your new hires.
Pre-boarding checklist
Onboarding new hires is a multi-step process that begins before the employee starts working with your company. Here are the essential tasks you need to do as part of the pre-boarding process.
1. Confirm your hire with HR
After choosing a candidate for a position in your company, you must run it by your organisation’s HR department and submit a job requisition document for approval before hiring. The HR team may also conduct a thorough background check before going ahead with the hire.
2. Send a welcome email to your new employee
A welcome email is an essential part of the pre-boarding process as it helps calm your new employee’s nerves and makes them feel welcome and excited about their first day at a new, unfamiliar workplace. The welcome email should include the details regarding their new role, the dress code, and their first-day schedule. It should also inform the new employee about the documents they must bring for the onboarding process.
3. Inform your existing employees about the new hire
Good communication is the backbone of a healthy workplace. As an employer, you must keep your employees in the loop regarding new hires. You can send an email informing your employees about the details of the new employee’s background and role in the organisation. This email helps to make employees feel like a part of the new employee’s onboarding process and helps assimilate the new hire into the new workplace quickly.
4. Prepare new employee paperwork
You should prepare all the documentation the new employee has to sign during the onboarding process. This includes contracts, agreements, payroll information, tax documents, etc. Also, include a point of contact the employee can refer to in case of any queries.
5. Prepare new hire’s office and equipment
It’s best to plan ahead and procure the supplies and equipment your new employee needs to function in their new role. Make sure that your employee has a clean desk, chair, and other essentials at their workstation. You should create your new hire’s work email account and add them to the organisation’s calendar and mailing lists. These efforts should help the new employee feel settled, and they will be able to perform the job duties faster.
These steps will help you successfully prepare for the onboarding process when the employee joins the company.
Onboarding checklist
Now that your pre-boarding preparations are complete, it is time to onboard your new hire. This onboarding checklist will allow you to successfully onboard your new employees.
1. Introduce your new employee to your existing employees
Introducing your new employee to the workplace makes them feel comfortable and humanises them to other employees. As some employees may be introverts, this introduction serves as an ice-breaker and allows the new employee to feel part of the team. This way, you can enable your employee to socialise with other employees and become proactive team members in the future.
2. Gift your employee a welcome package
A welcome gift can go a long way in making an employee feel appreciated. You can gift them things like office merchandise and supplies that will come in handy while working for your organisation.
3. Give your new hire an office tour
For physical businesses, it is vital to give your new employee a tour of the office building, introducing them to key personnel within each department. You should explain your workplace’s security protocols to the new employee and hand them their access key or codes. Also, ensure that you point out the location of facilities like washrooms, cafeterias, and other common areas.
4. Introduce the employee to their workstation
After the office tour, it’s time to set your employee up in their new workstation. Provide your new employee with the things they need to access their workstation, like passwords, office keys, elevator cards, etc. Then the new employee will feel settled in their workstation.
5. Finish up your new employee’s documentation
Ensure that your employee signs the requisite documentation. It would help if you also informed the employee about your organisation’s workplace policies and code of conduct so that your new employee is well versed in how to conduct themselves in the workplace.
6. Assign a mentor
A mentor can be any experienced peer in the same department who can take care of your new hire’s queries while training them regarding their responsibilities. Assigning a mentor can help your new employee acclimatise faster.
7. Schedule an onboarding feedback session
It is essential to meet your new employee a week or two after onboarding and learn how they are adjusting to a new work environment. The new employee should be encouraged to provide feedback regarding the onboarding experience. This feedback can be incorporated to improve your onboarding checklist.
8. Set up a 30, 90, and 180-day check-in plan
As part of the long-term onboarding process, you should meet your employee on a regular basis, especially after 30, 90, and 180 days of their hiring. These meetings will help you understand how well your new hire is adapting to their new role and the workplace.
An onboarding checklist standardises your onboarding process and helps you hire and acclimatise your new employees faster.
While not exhaustive, the onboarding checklist mentioned in this article covers all the essentials you need to successfully onboard your new employees. As your organisation grows in strength, you can further refine your onboarding checklist by using the feedback of your new employees. This way, you can create and customise your onboarding checklist for new employees that serves your organisation well in the long run.
