Acquiring and retaining customers for a business is difficult, but that’s never going to happen if a company can’t hold onto dedicated employees who want to be there. Imagine that your talent recruiter has spent weeks, possibly even months, tracking and interviewing suitable candidates. After accepting your job offer, they quit just two months later. Ouch. That’s a lot of wasted time and money.
On average, companies spend over $4,000 hiring for a new position; without an effective employee onboarding process, that money can go to waste.
Before we dive into how to build an employee onboarding strategy that will prevent your business’ new hires from jumping ship, let’s first lay out what onboarding is. You might think it’s simply a few hours of new employee orientation, but it’s a lot more and should weave in the company’s values, culture, and people, along with all that new hire paperwork.
Here’s why your business should prioritize building effective employee onboarding and how to do so. Trust us, and this will only make every aspect of your business more successful down the line.
Why an Employee Onboarding Strategy Matters
It’s a startling statistic for businesses, but one-third of new employees quit their jobs within six months of being hired. If you hire 12 new employees over a year at $4k each, that’s a potential loss of $16,000!
A business that works to improve upon its employee onboarding procedure is more likely to buck that trend. Meanwhile, a company struggling to welcome new hires will take an even harder hit.
There’s more than the cost of losing new hires, which factors into why good employee retention practices are essential. Think back to a job you loved and a job you hated. It probably didn’t take long to decide whether it was a place you enjoyed working or loathed, right? Maybe a week or month at the most likely. Most people know whether or not they want to stay at a company for the long run within the first week, and this is where a good onboarding experience can make all the difference.
Nearly 50 percent of new employees want a better onboarding experience, and a positive start as a new hire makes people almost 69 percent more likely to stay with a company for three years or more.
Steps to Build into Your Employee Onboarding Process
A vital employee onboarding process will start before the new hire’s first day and should begin soon after they accept the position.
1. Make the Employee Feel Welcomed
Communication is crucial, and the HR department should keep in regular contact with the new employee to let them know they’re being welcomed aboard early on.
One of the dreaded but necessary parts of any onboarding process will be… *dun, *dun, *dun the paperwork. Rather than welcoming new hires on their first day by trying to bury them up to their neck in paperwork, send over as much as possible ahead of time. This will help the new employee get started sooner on the job they were hired to do and will allow them to tackle the necessary forms at their own pace.
Oh, and because we’re living in the 21st century, why is your business still using actual paper for the paperwork? A paperless onboarding system that utilizes an electronic signature will save money and save somebody from a sore wrist.
When a new employee’s first day of work finally rolls around, they should feel welcomed from the second they step foot in the building. Let everyone else in the office know ahead of time that a new person will join the team and encourage them to say hello. The last thing a new hire wants is to wander around the office on the first day and be met with the puzzled faces of other employees who have no idea who this new person is.
2. Prep Your Employee’s Desk
Prepping your employee’s desks before they roll in on their first day might seem like a no-brainer, but it’s incredible how many companies scramble to put a desk together while a new employee waits awkwardly. Having their workspace ready to go with the necessary items speaks volumes about an onboarding process and shows that a company takes them seriously as a new employee.
3. One-on-One Meeting with Manager
One of the most critical aspects of an effective employee onboarding strategy is one-on-one time with direct managers. A recent LinkedIn survey of 14,000 professionals found that 96 percent said that spending one-on-one time with their direct manager early on was an important part of the onboarding process.[1]
This dramatically shortens the learning curve of new employees because it allows them and their managers to set expectations and goals early on. Developing a positive rapport with supervisors at the beginning of a new employee’s time on the job results in greater job satisfaction, performance, and upward growth.
4. Help the Employee Bond Better with Others
When DFY Links’ CEO, Charles Float, started his company, he made sure to build a team where new hires were introduced and forced to collaborate with veteran employees. This strategy helps to create a tighter employee culture in the company and results in more substantial business overall. It also improves knowledge sharing, which further improved productivity and scalability.
5. Clear Job Guidelines for the Employee
Every new job comes with some uncertainty for new employees. According to the LinkedIn survey, properly understanding job duties, procedures, and goals was the second most important part of the onboarding process. Developing a comprehensive job training platform that creates a direct path for employees to turn to should they have questions will lead to greater job performance.
This means guiding employees on how to do their job and teaching them about its importance and how it fits into the organization’s overall goals. This is particularly true with millennial workers; 64 percent said they would instead work at a job they enjoy that pays $40,000 a year than one they hate that pays $100k.
Bring your employees into the big picture and why their position matters. Introduce them to the duties of others in the organization and how the tasks they’ll be working on are related to other employees’’ jobs. This sort of all-encompassing way of explaining their job duties in the onboarding process can make them feel they made the right choice in accepting the job offer.
6. Check in with the employee Regularly
An effective employee onboarding strategy doesn’t simply take place the first day or the first week but should stretch out. New employees are bombarded with so much information during the first few days that it can be easy to feel overwhelmed by it all. HR team members should periodically check in with them during the first month to check if they have any questions or feedback on the onboarding process.
Are they happy with the work and feel like they’re part of the company culture? Lack of a good fit with a company’s culture results in a high overturn of new employees, so taking steps to bring them into the fold can dramatically improve employee retention.
Final Thoughts
Take a look inward at your own business’ employee onboarding procedure and look for ways that it can be improved upon.
Not every tactic will be proper for every business, but winning over a new hire early on will go a long way towards their success and your business’ success down the road.
| [1] | ^ | LinkedIn: 5 Things New Hires Want During Onboarding |
