After proving themselves to you at the interviews, new employees deserve a great onboarding experience. Besides, onboarding is your own chance as the employer to show them that joining your company will be worth their while. According to Click Boarding, an onboarding software company in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, 69% percent of employees are more likely to stay with a company for up three years if they experience great onboarding.
Companies that invest in employee onboarding understand that employees settle in better and faster and are more likely to stay with the company for the long haul. Onboarding is like the start of a new relationship, which means that a great first impression matters. But a great first impression is not enough to sustain the relationship. Employers and HR executives must ensure that that impression or experience lasts long in the minds of new hires.
What are the Benefits of Good Employee Onboarding?
Research shows that implementing a smooth and good onboarding process for new hires can have a substantial positive impact on an organization’s success and long-term employee engagement, retention, and productivity. Some of the benefits of great employee onboarding are:
Minimize Employee Turnover and Maximize Loyalty
According to statistics from Click Boarding’s survey, as mentioned earlier, more new hires will be motivated to stay if they had a great onboarding experience. Employers need to understand that onboarding extends far beyond the first day at work, and into the first 60 days, at least. Making sure that the new hires are properly started in their new roles is one reason why they won’t start thinking of leaving shortly after joining.
Reduced Cost of Employee Turnover
Great onboarding reduces employee churn and can create long-term employee engagement, effectively lowering the cost of hiring, interviewing, training, and onboarding a new set of employees every few months.
Attract Top Talents
Remember that potential employees and job applicants do their research before applying. And more times than not, they’re on the lookout for organizations with excellent work culture, seamless onboarding processes, policies, etc. Keep in mind that employees will always share their experiences on sites like Glassdoor, allowing other potential candidates to learn more about your internal processes.
Strengthen Company Culture
When culture fit is at the core of the hiring process, an effective onboarding process ensures that the new hires quickly understand the culture, mission, and vision of the company, and adapt accordingly.
Enhance Engagement and Inclusion
Giving employees a sense of belonging right from their first day at work is a great way to start them off. As an added benefit, they tend to blend in easily as they are less anxious and will be more relaxed. Having a sense of belonging helps in driving employee engagement and improves organizational performance.
Improve Productivity
According to Glassdoor, an effective onboarding process can boost organizational productivity by more than 70%. When new hires understand their responsibilities and are received warmly into the organization, the chances that they will resume with a high spirit are high. If this is sustained, such organizations can expect to experience a boost in productivity.
Minimize Business Risks
Great onboarding processes include outlining the job description of the new employees, preparing their first paychecks (you don’t want new hires thinking that you run an unreliable payroll system), signing the employment contract and NDA forms, where necessary, and communicating the company’s business policies clearly.
Having these in place not only ensures that new team members have a smooth sail, but also helps to protect the business and its stakeholders.
Key Success Factors For a Seamless and Effective Employee Onboarding Process
The following are key success factors that HR executives must keep in mind if they will be successful at creating a great employee onboarding process.
Define the experience you want to create: Define the kind of experience you want the new employees to have as they join your company. What impression would you like to create? What messages do you think you need to communicate? Having a clear purpose for onboarding makes it even more impactful.
Create realistic expectations: keep in mind that as employees join, they may still be trying to get over the anxiety from the interview stage, and may not be psychologically ready to face the whole team. Some, on the other hand, may be very expectant of meeting with the rest of the team as soon as they join. Knowing this can help you manage new hires who may not be responding as fast to the orientation and onboarding process.
Avoid bombarding them with too much info: It could be tempting to download all the information on your new team members as quickly as you can. In fact, you will be excited about doing so if your organization has an excellent reputation. However, you want to be mindful that you could be overwhelming the new team members with too much information.
If possible, spread the onboarding and orientation process across several days, and have more than one person handle each aspect. This helps information to sink in deeper and even ensures the new guys enjoy their onboarding experience better.
Make sure that they are ready to go: Don’t be caught unaware. A good number of your new team members are enthusiastic and prepared to hit the ground running on the very first day. You want to be sure that they have everything they need to get started. This includes a well-equipped workstation, work email, communication hierarchy, if any, work tools, etc.
If you are hiring remotely, ensure that new employees have their sign-on and are profiled to resume as soon as the onboarding begins. Grant them access to work platforms and remote communication tools so that they can quickly connect and adapt to their new environment.
Final Thoughts
Studies have shown that a great onboarding experience plays a critical role in maximizing the potential of new employees. But a successful onboarding process starts with adequate planning. In the long run, every organization is better with a proper onboarding process in place.
Want to create a great onboarding process for your company and you’re not sure how to begin? Contact us today at Mission HR today. Based on our experience in the HR industry, we’ll be happy to help you create the perfect employee onboarding strategy for your business.