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How to Onboard New Employees in 6 Easy Steps

Did you know that employers with a great onboarding program experience 50% more productivity from their new hires?

How to Onboard New Employees in 6 Easy Steps

Don’t underestimate the importance of onboarding new employees and getting them started on the right foot.

Think about your company’s onboarding program. Is it full of useful and up-to-date information? Or is it outdated, irrelevant, and miss the most important details? Even worse, is it nonexistent?

If you need to rethink how you bring your new employees on board, check out our tips for six easy ways to onboard your new employees.

1. Start the Process Before Their First Day of Work

This is especially important if there is a period of time between the candidate accepting the job offer and actually starting. Keep them excited about the job by staying in touch leading up to their first day.

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Send them a “welcome to the team” package with company swag or welcome them with flowers, a cookie bouquet, or another fun welcome basket. You can also ask other employees to send them a welcome to the team message.

In addition to the welcome gifts and messages, there should also be useful content that is shared with your new employee before their first day, including:

  • Where to park on the first day
  • Dress code
  • Employee handbook
  • Where to go and who to meet with on the first day
  • Information about payroll, benefits, what to bring on the first day, etc.
  • Their company email address, phone number if relevant, address, etc.
  • Information on how to access company communication

In addition, send them an agenda for their first day and the first week of work, assuming that much of the first week will be devoted to onboarding.

2. Set a Clear Agenda

The agenda that you set and share with your employees prior to their first day should be clear and provide time for breaks, questions, and time for the employee to digest everything.

The first day will likely be devoted to a lot of HR-related activities, such as paperwork, but you should also make sure the agenda focuses on defining the expectations of their role. You want to make sure this is clear on day one.

You might even consider creating a months-long, ongoing onboarding process. Onboarding shouldn’t end at the end of the employee’s first day, week, or even month of work. Instead, you want something that continues through their first few months as they learn more about company culture, their role, expectations, and responsibilities.

Don’t just throw someone into a new role and expect them to figure it out with a few days worth of onboarding. You want your employee to stay, so make sure you do your best to keep them. See this website for onboarding best practices.

3. Personalize the First Day

Meet your new employee at the door on their first day or designate someone to meet them. There are few things worse than a new employee showing up at their new job and wandering around, wondering where to go.

New employees should have time to meet with their manager at the beginning and end of the first day and also should be introduced to their new colleagues. If possible, organize a lunch our or cater in for your employees to meet each other. This should be more casual and meant to let the employees get to know each other rather than talking about work things.

Make sure that time to interact with colleagues is provided and start showing off the company culture from day one.

4. Schedule Regular Check-Ins

The first day should start and end with meetings with a manager or supervisor. Additionally, you should schedule regular check-ins with your new employees. A 15-30 minute check-in each week or every other week can help your employees feel engaged and connected. This is especially important if the role is fully remote.

At a minimum, there should be a 90-day review where you can set future expectations and discuss your employee’s performance thus far.

5. Help New Employees Feel That They Belong

No one likes feeling like a new person. Feeling like a new person is inevitable when starting a new job, but you can help make sure that your new employees don’t feel new for long. Make sure they are welcomed to the team, treated as a fully contributing member of your organization, and have a social network to access for any questions they may have.

This is important in an office setting and just as so in a virtual role. Because the proverbial “water cooler” chat isn’t possible when your employees are working from home, you need to make sure they can be connected and feel welcomed to your organization.

6. Create a Mentor Network

For many people, mentors come about organically. They meet someone who they admire, who they have something in common with, or who is in a role that they aspire to. This is fine, but make sure your employees can easily access a network of potential mentors in your organization.

You should also assign someone to act as their onboarding coordinator or partner. This person’s role is to work very closely with the new employee during the first few weeks of employment. They should be the go-to person for any questions and should remain accessible even after the first few weeks on the job.

Onboard Your New Employees So They Stay

Use these tips to onboard your new employees to increase the chances that they stay with your organization. A strong onboarding program makes your employees much more likely to continue working for you, and given the high cost of recruiting and hiring new employees, you want to retain the ones that you have.

If you found these tips useful, be sure to check out some of our other human resources-related articles before you go.

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