An employee’s first day on the job can be stressful for all parties involved. If your company’s employee onboarding process is disorganized or otherwise lacking, this stress can be multiplied. Without adequate planning on your part, onboarding can become unnecessarily confusing and may even drive away good employees. Since turnover is such a big concern for most employers, this is the last thing you want. With all of the paperwork, training, new faces, and acclimating to a new environment that onbaording entails, it is crucial that your company does not add poor onboarding practices to the first-day mix. Here are some tips for improving your company’s employee onboarding practices.
- Don’t wait until Day 1 to get them started. Instead of waiting for an employee’s first anxious day to get them started, try onboarding in advance. A pre-onbaorded employee will be far more prepared when s/he walks through the door on the first day. This is also a great way to fill that often anxious waiting period that candidates experience between accepting the offer and starting their first day on the job. Use this time to get some of the onboarding paperwork and other essentials out of the way.
- Adopt a long-term view. In reality, onboarding is so much more than an employee’s initial paperwork and introductory training. Instead of conceiving of onboarding as something to be gotten through as soon as possible, instead consider it just the beginning of cultivating great employee performance. Start your new hires off with a manageable work load and then add more responsibilities as their skills grow. Set goals for the first few months and check in regularly to gauge their productivity.
- Hire with an eye to retention. Onboarding is a huge factor in employee retention. Companies that recognize the link between onboarding and retention will want to revamp inadequate onboarding programs to encourage employees to remain on the job longer. Good onboarding practices can make all the difference between an employee who remains loyal for the long haul and one who jumps ship after just a few short years. If you want your employees to stick around, good onboarding practices are key.
