6 Best Practices To Improve Employee Onboarding
Whether new hires thrive in their new roles largely depends on getting employee onboarding right.
Having a well-structured onboarding process in place is essential for fostering employee productivity, and engagement, and directly links to employee retention.
Research shows that 69% of employees are more likely to stay with a company for at least 3 years following a great onboarding experience.
With the competition for top talent higher than ever, refining your employee onboarding process has never been more important.
In this guide, we’re going to cover some of the best practices to improve employee onboarding.
Let’s get started.
How To Improve The Employee Onboarding Process
Best practices to improve the employee onboarding process include, but are not limited to:
Prioritise the employee experience
Keep your onboarding experience simple
Provide comprehensive training
Facilitate connections
Place an emphasis on company culture
Consistently gather feedback
1. Prioritise The Employee Experience
The first best practice to follow to improve employee onboarding is to prioritise the employee experience.
This should begin before your employee begins, as preboarding activities can play an important role in helping new employees feel welcome and informed.
For instance, you could send a welcome package that includes essential information about your business, team introductions, and digital resources so they have a better understanding of what to expect during week 1.
New starters will feel much more comfortable and confident once their first day comes around if you lay the groundwork.
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Sending a welcome package packed with useful information can go a long way with new hires.
2. Keep Your Onboarding Experience Simple
Although every person is different, starting a new job can be an overwhelming and anxiety-inducing experience for many.
A survey showed that ‘25% report that job jitters lasted up to three months before they felt settled and comfortable at their new company’, emphasising how it can be an overwhelming amount of information to absorb. This is why it’s key to keep the onboarding process as simple as possible.
Try to ensure that the onboarding process only contains essential information and is simple to follow, without compromising on quality or effectiveness.
An overly complex onboarding process can give your employees a negative impression of your company, especially if they’re coming into a fast-paced environment and don’t feel adequately supported.
3. Provide Comprehensive Training
The next best practice is to provide comprehensive training for new hires.
Although you will have hired the best person for the job, the importance of comprehensive training cannot be overstated.
Training should not only cover the technical aspects of the role, but also industry-specific knowledge, as well as the soft skills required.
You’ll also want to schedule regular check-ins to address any training related challenges and questions.
Providing comprehensive training is essential because it can have an impact on job satisfaction as well as staff retention.
If you’d like to learn more about staff retention strategies, be sure to read this blog.
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Research shows that 69% of employees are more likely to stay with a company for at least 3 years following a great onboarding experience.
4. Facilitate Connections
Building meaningful relationships is the key to employee satisfaction and retention.
That said, a best practice is to enable new employees to make connections with their colleagues and other departments early on.
Why Is Connection Important In The Workplace?
Strong connections in the workplace are important for many reasons, but in particular, they enable better communication, higher job satisfaction, and effective collaboration.
Moreover, research has found that ‘94% of employees are more productive when they feel connected to their colleagues’, emphasising how important meaningful connections in work are.
Facilitating connections will likely look different depending on your business but might include facilitating networking opportunities internally and externally.
Additionally, you might want to consider mentoring opportunities, such as offering new starters a mentor to help new hires become familiar with the company.
5. Place An Emphasis On Company Culture
Having an understanding and integrating into the company culture is essential for new hires.
Culture fit is known to impact not only employee performance but also satisfaction in their role, which is especially important when you consider research has found that ‘satisfied employees are 12% more productive than the average worker’.
During the onboarding process, be sure to emphasise your company’s values and mission. Moreover, you should make time for social events and team-building activities, all of which will contribute to your new hire feeling part of the community.
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Facilitating strong connections in the workplace is important for many reasons.
6. Consistently Gather Feedback
Lastly, a best practice to improve employee onboarding is to consistently gather feedback.
Every new hire that you take on represents an opportunity for you to learn what works well and what needs to be improved in your onboarding process.
Gathering feedback is an essential tip to refine your onboarding practices. Moreover, it’s good practice to regularly review and update your onboarding programme to ensure it meets the needs of your ever-evolving business.
This way, you can continuously improve your onboarding process and support new team members as best you can. After all, a well structured onboarding process is crucial to setting your new employees up for success.
How We Can Help
At Yolk, we believe in building a culture where everyone feels truly appreciated, which is one of the reasons why we offer a complimentary Post Placement Care package.
Our team will ensure your new hire is settling into their new team and company as effectively as possible and that you’re seeing positive results through several meetings with our recruitment specialists.
By taking measures to make sure your new team member is supported during this period, you can improve employee engagement and improve staff retention, all whilst ensuring you get the best return on employee investment.
If you’d like more information on our Post Placement Care package or other services, be sure to get in touch with a member of our team at info@yolkrecruitment.com or 02920 220078 today.