Getting the most from your new employees can require patience, persistence, and often a significant financial outlay. However skilled and experienced your latest hire might be, they might struggle to get to grips with your business and its unique way of doing things. (Disclaimer: This article contains spons0red content, meaning we may receive compensation from the products or services mentioned.)
This is where onboarding comes in. But what is onboarding, and why should businesses be taking it seriously?
Understanding Employee Onboarding
An onboarding process is what will allow your new hires to hit the ground running. It’s a structured training process aimed specifically at integrating a new recruit. It will minimise the time it takes for the new recruit to get up to speed, and thereby drive up productivity. It can also have a morale-bolstering effect. Some studies claim that effective onboarding can drive up retention rates for new hires by as much as 82%. This would make sense; after all, workers starting a new job want to feel as though they’re being integrated effectively.
Key Components of an Effective Onboarding Programme
So, what does good onboarding really look like? The best programmes tend to be highly structured. It begins with so-called ‘pre-boarding’, which involves sending out instructions and welcoming materials.
The expectations of the employer will need to be clearly outlined. There should be no doubt as to what the job entails, and what good performance looks like. Getting an employee acquainted with the social environment, as well as the company culture, is also critical.
Employees might also benefit from regular feedback throughout the first few weeks and months of their time with the business. By telling employees where they’re going wrong, you can drive up confidence, and drive down staff turnover rates.
Common Onboarding Challenges for Small Businesses
For large businesses, onboarding might be a simple matter of setting up the right personel and procedures within a human resources department. But smaller businesses might lack the resources and expertise to do this. This is where outsourcing to skilled HR freelancers, and leveraging the right technologies can be enormously beneficial. By putting the right HR software in place, you can keep track of, and streamline, your onboarding efforts. In this way, you can ultimately make them more effective.
Best Practices for Successful Onboarding
Onboarding is at its best when it is bespoke. Talk to the employee in question, and get a feel for their unique needs. It might be that they can benefit from a few small tweaks to your approach. Assigning mentors can be an invaluable way to get information across, especially for recruits who prefer to learn by example.
It’s highly unlikely that you’ll arrive at the perfect onboarding strategy on the very first try. Look at your onboarding process as an ongoing work in progress. Try to seek feedback from the new recruits themselves, as well as the mentors who guide them. By refining your onboarding efforts over time, you can ultimately make them much more effective.