Employee onboarding is as important as the recruitment process itself. You have got the right people for the job, yes, but you have to make an effort towards retaining them. Not sure how to go about it? We have included a checklist in this article to help you understand what the entire employee onboarding process entails and how to go about it. We have also included a list of the best employee onboarding software to help make the process a seamless one.
What is Employee Onboarding?
Employee onboarding is defined differently by each organization. While the process is nearly the same, the time frame and duties involved distinguish each onboarding program.
While some HR managers appear to view the employee onboarding process as nothing more than new hire paperwork, more savvy and motivated team members have a different take on what employee onboarding entails. As part of employee onboarding, they consider the entire period from the time an offer is released until the time an employee becomes a productive contributor to the firm.
Onboarding encompasses all processes that occur from the moment you make an offer and the time the person begins truly producing in a role, including the orientation program, training plan, setting up performance benchmarks, and establishing a feedback loop.
The Employee Onboarding Process
Employee onboarding is the systematic and intentional transformation of prospective prospects into high-performing workers.
Companies provide new workers with the information, relationships, and resources they need to feel comfortable and confident enough to execute excellent work by carefully arranging onboarding steps.
The process starts during recruitment when prospects envisage themselves working for your organization. It accelerates when a candidate accepts an offer and becomes an employee for the first time. It culminates in the employee’s crucial initial days and weeks on the job when they (hopefully) form strong ties with their new coworkers.
Most significantly, an employee’s onboarding experience reverberates throughout their term at your organization, potentially setting the tone for their entire career.
Poor customer service can result in early departures and high employee turnover. A positive encounter can set the stage for long-term satisfaction.
What Is The Purpose Of Onboarding?
Employee onboarding is the first interaction an employee has with the company following the lengthy interview process.
If the encounter falls short of expectations, your employee may come to regret accepting the job offer.
A faulty onboarding process may alter their perspectives, give them preconceived notions about the firm, and eventually force them to resign early.
A solid employee onboarding process is required to assist your new hires in settling in, getting to know the organization, obtaining clarity on their job objectives, and forging positive relationships with other employees.
A remarkable onboarding experience not only makes workers feel welcome, but it also helps them integrate more quickly into the existing organizational family.
Thus, optimizing the employee onboarding process not only impresses new employees but also minimizes the HR team’s workload.
Steps In The Employee Onboarding Process
#1. Making the offer public
The employee onboarding process begins immediately following the recruitment phase. When an employee is hired, an HR manager sends a nice welcome email that includes a few important papers such as the offer letter, links to digital onboarding forms, and policy documents. Maintaining transparency in the approach familiarizes the employee with the organization’s culture and lets them know what to expect.
#2. Acceptance of an offer
When an employee accepts an offer, the finest companies will plan a quick call to go through the papers, benefits, and policies, as well as set expectations. Keeping new hires engaged will confirm their decision to accept the offer and form strong emotional bonds with the organization. This is the time to start planning the staff orientation agenda.
#3. Waiting time
Just because an employee accepted the offer does not guarantee that they will show up for the start date. During the waiting time, the employee may be receptive to other possible employers’ proposals as well. As a result, it is vital to establish a positive rapport with the employee. Let the employee know how much you appreciate them. When developing your employee onboarding process, consider including a waiting period.
#4. The date of enrollment
Most new employees experience conflicting emotions on their first day. At the same time, they are apprehensive, delighted, excited, and nervous. As a result, HR managers’ primary responsibility is to make new hires feel welcome and at ease. Instilling a sense of belonging in new hires will increase their commitment and focus on their work.
A helpful employee onboarding checklist will alleviate the stress of HR personnel. Here are a few things to do before the big day:
- Prepare the orientation schedule.
- Assign IT resources (workstation, email access, etc.)
- Purchase all necessary office materials (furniture, keys, access card, etc.)
- Create a salary account.
- Assign a mentor or go-to person to assist the employee in settling down.
#5. Collaboration with other departments
It is critical to collaborate with key stakeholders (coworkers and managers) and advise them of the new hire’s start date. HR personnel may seek the assistance of coworkers to decorate the new employee’s cubicle, organize one-on-one welcoming meetings, and schedule an orientation session.
#6. Instruction and orientation
Orientation seminars provide new employees with an overview of the organization’s culture as well as an understanding of the company’s aims. This phase provides new hires with pertinent knowledge about the organization’s teams, team operations, and corporate policies. Setting role-based goals and objectives for the next 30/60/90 days is a good time to demonstrate to new hires what they need to focus on.
Since a big majority of employees require some essential training to get started, most firms arrange the training program to bring their staff up to speed quickly. An assessment of skills will assist businesses in determining the new hire’s knowledge and ability and developing a personalized role-specific training plan tailored to their skill set.
#7. The first three months
The main goal of this period is to assess and ensure that the expectations of the organization and the employee coincide. This stage should be filled with active discussions on the new hire’s success and ongoing efforts to become an integral part of the business.
Employee Onboarding Checklist
Here is an employee onboarding checklist list of to-do actions that HR professionals and managers must complete in order to keep new workers for a long time:
- Examine the employee’s experience to see if it meets their expectations.
- Examine their performance and provide criticism
- Check to see if the employee has any worries or problems.
- Discuss professional advancement and strategy.
- Obtain feedback on onboarding and any suggestions.
- Determine whether they require extra training.
Employee Onboarding Software
The most effective employee onboarding software include
- Trainual: For creating an online playbook library
- Sapling: For facilitating the onboarding process
- Enboarder: For streamlining your onboarding process for support
- Coassemble: For developing a more compelling onboarding experience
- Innform: Known for providing enjoyable, hybrid onboarding experiences.
What Makes A Good Employee Onboarding Software?
There are numerous tools and apps available that include an employee onboarding function. It is standard in most HR platforms, although it frequently lacks depth and interest. Here are some of the features a good employee onboarding software should have:
- Simple to use. Whether you’re onboarding one or hundreds of new employees, the onboarding software must be user-friendly. It should help to streamline and simplify your process rather than introduce complicated procedures, uncomfortable navigation, or difficult processes.
- Automated workflows and processes. By automating some (or all) of your employee onboarding processes, you save time and ensure that everyone receives the same high-quality experience. I’ve looked for onboarding systems that can assist you in creating a system or routine that you can reuse.
- Options for customization Processes are wonderful, but you should also look for methods to make the experience seem unique. These apps provide some wonderful methods to create an impact through customization, from uploading photographs to personalizing your dashboard.
- Self-service options Your new hires should be able to find and upload documents fast and easily, without fuss. I’ve prioritized apps with self-service features to assist them to learn about your organization and through the onboarding process effortlessly.
- Culture and participation are highlights. Going through the digital onboarding process can be isolating. I sought apps with features that allow you to bring some of your corporate cultures to life through presentations, quizzes, and updates during my testing.
Some of these apps appeal to one of the aforementioned criteria more than others. There are apps that are vivid, exciting, and engaging—and others that assist you in perfecting your onboarding routines so that they are a joy to use.
Having seen these features, let’s take an in-depth look into the software options we have earlier mentioned:
#1. Trainual
Trainual includes a training manual on how to create your business playbook. It’s a good approach to get a sense of what the app can do and to lead you through the process of creating your own playbooks. This helpful approach can be found throughout the software, with tooltips for each part providing a quick overview of its purpose. This is really helpful if you’re new to setting up employee onboarding software like I was.
Trainual takes the online learning course approach to the type of onboarding experience your users might expect. You basically create mini-courses (or playbooks) on whatever topic you want, such as your company’s history, culture, team, and job. You may do the same for rules and processes to build your own in-house resource library. These playbooks live inside subject areas and can be pinned as favorites to your users’ dashboards.
#2. Sapling
It’s simple to manage onboarding a single new hire without a solid strategy, but what about hundreds? Sapling makes onboarding team members at scale simple, even across many locations, departments, and roles.
Sapling’s approach to onboarding is based on workflows, processes, and activities. Create a process, add tasks, and assign them to someone—the new recruit, their manager, or a colleague. To help you structure your workflow, assign due dates, descriptions, and sub-tasks to each task. What I appreciate about Sapling’s workflow approach is that you can set dates relative to milestones or other dates, so you may arrange a welcome email for your new recruit five days before they start. This facilitates the repetition and automation of workflows.
#3. Enboarder
Onboarding apps are often designed to serve content to new hires, whereas Enboarder focuses on creating procedures that benefit everyone throughout this transitional period.
Enboarder accomplishes this through the use of a novel, highly visual workflow builder. Rather than adding a task within a window, you create a journey that houses several tasks, activities, and assignments. You may delegate duties and responsibilities to new workers and managers, as well as a built-in buddy position that you can assign.
#4. Coassemble
Online learning can be tedious and difficult to complete. Coassemble is not one of them. This employee training and onboarding software breathe new life into creating and distributing onboarding programs to your team members.
The capacity to create online courses that serve as your onboarding program is at the heart of Coassemble. It’s similar to an online playbook, but with far more interactive aspects. Pop quizzes, wheels, flowcharts, flashcards, timelines, and more features are available.
#5. Innform
While many businesses are shifting to remote work, you may want to include in-person meetings or training sessions in your onboarding process. This is something that Innform masterfully accounts for, while also adding a feeling of fun and gamification to the experience.
How Do You Choose the Best Employee Onboarding Software?
Every excellent employee onboarding software should be simple to use, quick to automate, and provide you with more of your most valuable resource: time. Aside from that, we all have distinct requirements. Some HR departments want to add more culture and engagement to the experience, while others require a powerful onboarding platform to assist them in onboarding new recruits globally. Consider which features are most important to you, and then use this guide to help you locate the best solutions for you. Try out a few apps before settling on the one that works best for your team.
What Do New Hires Want From Onboarding?
New hires want to know how to obtain the resources they need to succeed in their new position throughout the onboarding process. No matter what level they are at, new hires will have questions about protocol and practices. Your organization has its own culture.
Who is responsible for conducting the employee onboarding process?
The employee onboarding process is usually led by the new employee’s immediate supervisor or manager, with support from the human resources department.
What types of information are typically covered during the onboarding process?
During the onboarding process, new employees will usually receive information about company policies, procedures, benefits, and expectations. They may also receive training on specific job duties and skills.
Are there any legal requirements for employee onboarding?
There are no federal laws specifically mandating employee onboarding, but certain states and municipalities may have their own laws and regulations regarding onboarding, particularly with regard to providing new hires with information about rights and responsibilities under state and local laws.
How can technology be used to support the employee onboarding process?
Technology can be used to support the employee onboarding process in a variety of ways, such as through online training programs, digital onboarding platforms, and electronic forms and documents.
How can employee onboarding be used to improve employee retention?
Effective employee onboarding can help improve employee retention by making new hires feel welcomed and valued, providing them with the information and resources they need to be successful in their new role, and helping them to quickly become productive members of the team.
Can an employee onboarding process also be used for re-boarding employees who have been away from the company for a period of time?
Yes, the same principles of an employee onboarding process can be applied to re-boarding employees who are returning to the company after a period of absence. This can help to ensure that they are quickly brought up to speed on any changes or updates that have occurred during their time away and to help them re-integrate with the team.
In Conclusion
Employee onboarding is very important for every business, and with an automated onboarding system in place, new recruits can spend less time filling out paperwork and more time learning about the company’s principles, exploring the workplace, and making new friends.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the 5 C's of onboarding?
The five C’s of onboarding are compliance, classification, confidence, connection, and culture.
Who is responsible for onboarding?
The hiring supervisor is usually responsible for onboarding.
What is the differencce between orientation and onboarding?
Onboarding refers to a set of events that teach new workers what they need to know in order to fulfill the responsibilities of their new roles. Orientation, on the other hand, refers to the initial welcome provided by a company to a new hire.
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