Employee engagement starts with onboarding. Too long for onboarding, and your new employee can become frustrated. Too short, and they don’t know enough to be productive quickly. Is there a way to streamline onboarding and increase your new employee’s ability to hit the ground running?
Rework Your Onboarding Plan
Planning is essential to any onboarding plan. Consider each step you take during the process and ask yourself if it has the desired outcome. Is it time to look at your current onboarding plan objectively?
Start with your first step: Employee paperwork. Are you sending these documents before the first day of onboarding, so no time is wasted? For security reasons, it might be best to house the documents on a secure site and send a link to the candidate. That way, paperwork questions can be handled by HR before the first.
Early communication is a crucial way to cover small details with the employee. For example, they may want to clarify when payday starts or their insurance copay. Often, tackling these questions up front keeps things flowing when orientation kicks off.
Make Onboarding a Team Effort
Hiring isn’t just about bringing on someone new, it is also about making sure they assimilate well within the existing team. To do this, consider adding existing team members to the onboarding process. If you have a mentoring program, which we highly recommend, build time with that mentor as part of onboarding. Or, see if there is someone in the department the new employee will join. Train that person to step in for an onboarding module. That way, the new employee has a familiar face when they join the team after onboarding is complete.
Failing that, why not have a departmental lunch on the employee’s first day on the job? That way everyone gets to meet them, and things will feel more comfortable. The idea is that the new employee feels at home on the first day, and you engage the rest of the team in welcoming them. If the employee is remote, you can also have a virtual lunch with the same effect.
Improve Communication
Streamlining onboarding requires better communication. Onboarding should stretch beyond the first day or week when the employee is actively engaged in training. HR should communicate with the new employee for several months after they come on board. You can do this via email or text, and many modern software platforms allow you to automate these interactions, which should include the following:
- Surveying the new employee about the onboarding process. Did they get the tools and training needed to do the job?
- Offer help if the new employee feels like they’re struggling.
- At the 90-day mark, work with the manager to conduct an in-flight performance review. During this discussion, you should start to talk about a career map for the employee. What are their goals for this job? Where do they see themselves in the coming years?
Learn More From Our Team
How do we know so much about onboarding? We are FoxHire, an EOR that can handle all of your hiring and employment needs. Contact our firm to find out how we can streamline your onboarding process.
