The do and don't of the onboarding process

A company who implements an effective onboarding program can expect 70% of their employees stay with the company for about 3 years or more. However, in some cases, the wrong approach in this process will lead to some adversely negative effects. So what an HR professional should and shouldn't do during the employee onboarding process? Let's find out the answers through this post.
 
What you should do

1.    Prepare colleagues for the new recruits
It’s crucial that all employees in your company acknowledge the appearance of a new hire prior to the new employee's first day. You can send an announcement either via email, group chat or in – person, which tell them the new employee's role, a bit about their experience, some of their characteristics and encourage people to welcome them. Hence, your people can be prepared to assist them on their first day and the new employee feels welcomed as well.

2.    Plan a team lunch
Arranging a lunch meeting or after-work gathering within the first week will help break the ice and allow the new employee and their immediate team members to get to know each other in a relaxed environment. This is also a chance for you to learn a little bit about your new employee outside of the interview process and evaluate some of his characteristics (whether he is an introvert or an extrovert). Then, your new hires will feel like their part of the team right away and stick around for the long haul.

3.    Follow-up
This step is often overlooked by employers. Even when your employees do well and you don't need to evaluate their performance, meet with them. It's crucial as you can assess the onboarding process from an employee's perspective. As a result, you will find out the weakness of this program and how to change to make it fit with your people.

What you should not do:

Wait until a rookie's first day to begin their onboarding program:
As there are a number of things you have to do, begin the onboarding process before your new hires step foot in the office is the right approach. That's to say, you should prepare a number of the document like health care information, tax forms, labor insurance, non-disclosure agreements, and the like. Make sure that you have had a thorough discussion with the recruit so that he knows what's expected of the employee in his new position. Then, you need to pass along some documents or resources that an employee can read to prepare for their first day.

Additionally, some of the platforms, software, electronic files or technological tools your organization relies on might not be familiar to rookies and they may need some assistance in figuring it out. Therefore, it’s critical that there will be a mentor who makes sure your new hires learn how to use the tools that power your company and fit with your organization as quickly as they possibly can.

Onboarding is a crucial aspect of your company. At Faro, we have a solid employee onboarding plan that reduces employee churn and focus on growing your business.