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Virtual Onboarding Ideas For HR

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The benefits of onboarding can’t be overstated. Propelling your new hires to productivity, reducing employee turnover, and promoting a positive company culture are all a boon to your bottom line.

Chances are your company understands the importance of introducing a new hire to the organization. You probably already had an effective onboarding program in place before 2020. When COVID hit, you may have hastily reworked your current onboarding process into a virtual plan. It probably included ad hoc Zoom meetings and email blasts with links to scattered documents.

The dust has settled, so to speak, but the pandemic rages on. Meanwhile, nearly two-thirds of employees who have been working from their home prefer to continue doing so after the pandemic ends. And yours may be one of the many companies that are realizing the benefits of a more productive workforce and less rent for office space.

If your company is embracing remote work for at least some of your employees, it’s time to build a virtual-first onboarding experience.

Build a Virtual Onboarding Experience

COVID has given you a sampling of the difficulties around virtual onboarding and the new hire experience.

Working from home means missing out on the benefits of casual, in-person interactions. New hires have an even more difficult time bonding with their team members. Your virtual onboarding experience needs to help your new hire feel like part of the team.

Virtual onboarding during COVID may have left you disappointed with your new hires’ rate of productivity. It’s just tougher to get the new person up to speed when no one is near to see how things are going. You need to plan for more support for your virtual onboarding process.

One of the benefits of virtual onboarding is that you can steer your company’s culture in a more positive direction. Remote employees won’t have run-ins with the complainers or gossips at the water cooler. And you can facilitate virtual lunches and coffee breaks with the people who have upbeat outlooks.

Making your new employee feel welcomed, getting that person productive, and managing your company’s culture are all possible when you put together the right virtual onboarding checklist.

Best Practices for Virtual Employee Onboarding Process

Putting together a virtual onboarding process that accomplishes all of your goals may seem nearly impossible now. But since constraint is the key to creativity, you may find your best onboarding ideas in 2021.

One of the first things you should do is create a virtual onboarding email template that includes a quick rundown of important information and links to important documents. Onboarding software can help you organize all of your new employee forms. You can even include in your welcome email a link to training modules in the onboarding software.

When it comes to virtual onboarding, the best practices facilitate bonding between co-workers as effectively as in-person interactions. Virtual onboarding ideas that will strengthen your team include assigning multiple “onboarding buddies” to your new hire and planning virtual lunches for them. The virtual lunch gives employees an opportunity to get to know the new hire and offer to help orient them. Often, the casual feel of a lunch lends itself better to positive interaction among employees.

As mentioned, the idea behind these virtual employee onboarding examples is to encourage interaction. Assigning multiple onboarding buddies to your new hire connects her with helpful, relevant resources that will help her become productive more quickly. Remember also to task your buddies with checking in on the new hire and setting up virtual coffee breaks or lunches.

Giving your new hire several people to lean on for support spreads the weight. Introducing your new hire to people from different, but related, areas of the company will help her understand the big picture. And finally, assigning multiple onboarding buddies will increase the odds that one of them will be a good personality fit with the new employee.

Virtual New Hire Orientation

Your virtual new hire orientation is a chance for new employees to learn about the company and their role within it. Orientation is often a more formal process than some of the fun virtual onboarding activities we’ve discussed, however you can still make it memorable.

Consider sending a welcome mail package to the new employee. Company swag will help your new hire feel like part of the team. Include printed copies of the handbook, benefits information and organizational chart. Your new hire will often remember information better if she can take notes on printed materials.

A virtual welcome email from the new hire’s manager can get the relationship off to a good start. Encourage team members to send a “welcome onboard” email too. They can offer assistance for questions, set up a virtual get-to-know you meeting, or come up with their own unique onboarding ideas. In fact, getting employees involved in the creation of new hire orientation ideas is the best way to create a process that complements your company culture.

When brainstorming virtual new hire orientation ideas, you should aim to create activities that are fresh and engaging. There are plenty of creative new hire orientation ideas that acclimate your new hire to his role without putting him to sleep. Some engaging virtual new hire orientation ideas include creating a scavenger hunt that will have your new hire delving into information found on the employee portal and company website.

ExactHire has created an onboarding guide with 77 ideas to get you started!

You can rework standard new employee orientation games for a virtual world. Ice breaker games such as Two Truths, One Lie still work well on Zoom. Create a trivia game that pulls information from the printed information your new hires receive in the welcome package. A Door Dash gift card prize is both easy and suitable for social distancing.

Finally, send a new employee introduction email to team members with a bio that includes personal facts such as hobbies and pets to discover shared interests. Make it a group email including the new hire and encourage employees to respond with information about themselves. Again, it’s all about positive interaction–even if that interaction is virtual.

Conclusion

Effective onboarding can help your new hires become productive, long-term employees. It creates a better company culture. Lower employee turnover and a stronger team will reduce costs and increase profits.

At least some of the workplace changes the pandemic brought are here to stay. Done correctly, a virtual onboarding process for remote employees can be every bit as effective as an in-office orientation. Download our in-depth guide for more ideas on how to improve your onboarding process.

Photo by Arnel Hasanovic on Unsplash

What is the Best Employee Onboarding Process

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The benefits of effective employee onboarding are often overlooked. But, done correctly, onboarding will contribute to your organization’s financial health. When you make the effort to acclimate your new employees to their new roles, they will become productive more quickly and will stay longer.

Finding and training the right people is expensive, and you risk wasting financial resources if you don’t do everything you can to make your new hires successful. By creating an effective onboarding plan, you’re also shaping your company’s culture into an environment that bolsters teamwork.

Onboarding acclimates your new hires to the company and their position within it. The best employee onboarding process will steer new hires toward success in their roles and create alignment with the company’s culture and values.

New Employees and Getting Started

It’s easy to be overwhelmed when considering how to onboard a new employee. You’ll need to create an onboarding schedule that’s unique for each role, even though many tasks will be the same for all new hires. For example, every employee will need to know and understand your harassment policies, but those in management will require further training.

Additionally, there’s pressure to come up with creative new ways to onboard employees. Like most employers, you’re probably experiencing a shortage of qualified applicants. You don’t want to risk losing your new superstar under piles of employment forms and reels of outdated videos.  

COVID-19 has created yet another series of challenges as many human resource professionals wonder how to onboard new employees remotely. You can get started by breaking down the steps to onboard a new employee.

First, consider your onboarding goals. These goals will vary for each position. In general, the onboarding process should transform a new hire into a productive team member.

Determine the metrics you’ll use to measure how long it does take for a new employee to be productive. These metrics will become goals for the new hire. Determine the support your new hire will need to achieve each goal. Armed with this information, you’re ready to create an onboarding process flow chart.

Employee Joining Process Flow Chart

An employee onboarding process flow chart is a powerful visual tool because it creates benchmark deadlines. Your onboarding flow chart should take your onboarding processing from the preboarding stage through to the employee’s first annual review.

A team member should be assigned to each phase of the flow chart and a deadline should be assigned. Goals should be clearly communicated for each item. You can use onboarding software to manage communications and organize important documents.

Onboarding software can help you create a flow chart for the new hire training process. The flow chart you create with onboarding software can assign tasks to your onboarding team. The customized workflow can automate assignments and trigger reminders. Team members will be able to access files and reports from within the system.

Software can help you organize your onboarding process and save you time. Using software, you can easily create an onboarding process flow chart template for every position in your organization. New hires will be able to fill out their employment forms digitally and their information can seamlessly merge with your human resources system. Everyone on your team will spend less time inputting data and managing records.

New Employee Orientation

The best orientation practice will help your new employee understand how his role fits with the company’s larger picture. Orientation is your opportunity to present your company’s mission. This crucial introduction will help rally your employees around the company’s values. It’s a key component to creating a strong team.

Many organizations create games to make new employee orientation fun and memorable. You can create a mock game show using questions about the employee handbook. Or you can create an office scavenger hunt for new employees. To help new hires get to know their coworkers, give them an autograph book. Tell current employees to initiate a short get-to-know you conversation when they sign the book.

The best practices for employee onboarding will incorporate a technology perspective. You can use onboarding software to create training modules for your new hires. Use the triggering feature to avoid overwhelming employees. You can even send automatic reminders to gently nudge employees to complete training modules.

Onboarding software will come with free templates and checklists to make new employee orientation easier to manage. You can create new hire packets quickly and easily.

Virtual New Hire Orientation Ideas

COVID-19 has upended the onboarding process for many companies. If your organization operates in a state that has mandated work-at-home policies, you may be concerned about providing your new employees with the support they need. Even if your employees are able to work onsite, masks and social distancing policies may undercut your efforts at team building.

Now it’s even more critical to make sure new employees are able to build rapport with their coworkers. Advise supervisors and team members to check in with new employees while they learn to navigate their role in a pandemic world.

Many organizations have turned to creative ideas for new hire orientation during the pandemic. Make the most of virtual meetings. You can avoid “Zoom fatigue” by utilizing breakout rooms and doing interactive activities.

Team members can also create a welcome video for new hires. You can also encourage team members to have a virtual “coffee break” during which they can chat and get to know each other. You can use these techniques and others to encourage the socializing and relationship-building that happens naturally in the office.

Ideas for orientation can include a presentation for new hires during which the team can get to know each other with ice breaker questions. These ideas include employee orientation videos and PowerPoint slides that new hires can view remotely.

New Employee Welcome Packet PDF

You can send the digital portion of the welcome pack to the new hire’s email. Include welcome messages from the new hire’s manager and team members. Also include a link to the online benefits portal as well as their digital employment forms.

The welcome pack should include the things all new employees need to know. Include the company’s mission statement and organizational chart with the employee welcome booklet. The new employee welcome packet PDF should also include the company handbook and policies.

The welcome packet is also an opportunity for your new hire to get to know your brand. Throw in some company swag such as a t-shirt or a hat. Mix in professional items with fun items. A personal development book with something fun like a mini basketball net to go over the waste basket will foster productivity and creativity.

Your new employee will grow as she moves through the stages of the onboarding process. The welcome packet, orientation, training, productivity goals and ultimately the first year performance review should all be structured to support your employee’s success.

Employee Onboarding Process Flow

The key to a smooth onboarding process is a checklist. Software can help you easily create and customize a checklist for each position. You’ll be able to assign tasks and deadlines from within the application. Each stakeholder will be able to access the checklist and communicate from within the software.

The employee onboarding process should flow seamlessly from the preparation stage all the way to the first annual review. When you use onboarding software, you can track your progress and data so you can improve the onboarding checklist over time. You can create a questionnaire for new hire’s to complete at the end of their first year to find ways to improve your onboarding process.

If you’re wondering what the phases of the onboarding process are, we’ve broken it down for you here.

Employee Onboarding Process Summary

Strong job growth over the past decade and, more recently, the pandemic have forced organizations to get creative with their employee onboarding process. The talent shortage of the past few years has made hiring more difficult. COVID-19 has made it difficult for new hires to build relationships and acclimate within their new organizations.

The unique challenges companies face going into 2021 mean the employee onboarding process is more important than ever. By using digital tools to foster community and putting extra effort into team building, you can increase employee retention and build a stronger team.

Companies are finding it takes more than converting their welcome packet into a PDF file to meet the digital challenges during the pandemic era. As it becomes more difficult to find and keep talent, more companies are asking what is the best employee onboarding process that will reduce turnover.

But the best onboarding process hasn’t changed in these stormy times. A new set of challenges simply helps you see the solution more clearly. By seeing the onboarding process as an opportunity to support your employee’s success and develop a dynamic company culture, you can bolster your organization’s financial health. 

 

Want to learn more about onboarding software?

Schedule a live demo today!

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What are the Phases of Onboarding?

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Onboarding is your secret weapon for attaining all sorts of goals for your business. For example, taking the time to make the best impression for new hires can help increase employee retention. Having a well-rounded training plan in place can catapult your new employee from lumbering novice to an agent of productive wizardry. The onboarding process can help you take the helm of your company’s culture to increase collaboration and reduce petty grumblings.

Small to medium-sized businesses often neglect the onboarding process at their peril. But realizing the potential of onboarding requires thoughtful planning. Taking new hires on the journey from clumsy newcomer to accomplished contributor calls for a phased onboarding plan.

Employee Onboarding Process Stages

You may find yourself saying “I hate the term onboarding” once you really take a deep dive into how you can make this process better. But I assure you, if you don’t take control of your new employees’ experience, your organization will suffer.

A good onboarding definition is simply the process of introducing your new employee into the organization. Employee onboarding can help your organization reach its financial goals, and that prospect is maximized when you create a phased plan for this important process.

Employee Onboarding Process Phases

There are six stages to employee onboarding. The first is project management, during which you plan and break down the steps for onboarding your new hire.

The second is preparation and pre-boarding. During this phase, you complete your background checks and brief the staff who will be taking part in the onboarding process. You’ll also communicate with your new hire to help ease lingering doubts about his new position.

Next is the tedious, yet necessary step, that you’re already familiar with: new hire paperwork. Employee onboarding software can help you easily crank out this administrative detail while saving time and reducing errors.

The fourth step is new employee orientation, followed by new employee training. During this phase, your new hire will be introduced to your organization’s structure and will learn how he fits in.

Finally, the last step, reviewing productivity and performance, will help you assess the success of the previous steps.

Process Project Management

In many ways, bringing in new hires and helping them evolve into productive and contributing members of the organization is no different than any other project. You can use the principles of project management to create your employee onboarding process flow. In this first phase, you consider your goals for the onboarding process and develop the basics, such as a timeline.

The goals you set for your new employee will help determine your metrics for the onboarding process. Make the goals specific with clear standards for success.

You want new hires to feel comfortable with how things are done at your company. You can do this by identifying what new hires need to know about the company’s culture and work environment. Consider assigning a coworker to mentor the new hire in the subtleties of staff interactions.

Remember that onboarding is a key factor in employee retention. Consider each onboarding stage from your new hire’s perspective. Consider what impression you want your new hires to have throughout each phase of the onboarding process.

The project management phase for the onboarding process workflow is also when you determine your timeline. Most employee turnover happens in the first year of employment. Incorporate support for that entire first year into your onboarding plan.

The project management phase is also a good time to rally your onboarding team. These are the people who will play a role in helping the new hire acclimate to her new role. Make sure each of these people understand their role in welcoming the new employee.

At the end of this stage, you’ll be able to create an onboarding process checklist. While many of the tasks on this checklist will apply to all new hires, you want to create a detailed checklist unique to each new hire’s position.

Download ExactHire's Employee Onboarding Checklist

Employee Onboarding Preparation And Pre-Boarding

The following onboarding process steps include everything on your checklist that happens before the new hire’s first day.

Don’t forget to think about the onboarding process project from the point of view of your new employee. In this sense, bringing on a new hire is much like your customer onboarding process. In other words, extend as much consideration to your new hire as you do your new customers.

Consider sending him a welcome email with photos and welcome messages from co-workers with whom he’ll be working closely. Include information about parking. Let them know which door they should enter through and who his first point of contact will be.

During the preparation phase, the new hire’s workstation should be set up with the relevant equipment and supplies. Don’t forget some company swag. It’s also a good time for the hiring manager or supervisor to send an email invitation to lunch.

This step in your employee onboarding process is also when you coordinate with security and the IT team to make sure the employee is outfitted with appropriate user IDs and access. Don’t forget to add the new hire to calendar invites and email distribution lists.

New Hire Paperwork

While business has seen a lot of changes in 2020, the content of new hire paperwork has stayed largely the same. From tax forms to payroll forms, the data gathered from paperwork keeps your company rolling and in compliance with important government guidelines.

The most tedious part of the new hire checklist, paperwork, is prone to mindless errors. Onboarding software can automate employment paperwork to save time and reduce errors. New hires will need to enter information only once to populate multiple forms. And the data they enter can cross over to your other human resources software.

After the new hire digitally signs her paperwork, paperless onboarding software can automatically direct her to the orientation checklist and training modules.

New Employee Orientation Checklist

Orientation is your opportunity to help your new hire acclimate to your company’s culture and conform to procedures. Your employee onboarding checklist will include all the items to go over during orientation. You can automate this portion of the new employee checklist with onboarding software. 

During this time, introduce your new hire to the company’s mission and its organizational chart. Your new hire checklist wouldn’t be complete without a review of the employee handbook and safety policies. Your new employee orientation checklist should also include benefits documents and basic administrative procedures from security to the telephone systems.

Your new employee onboarding checklist should include activities and/or content to help the new hire better understand your organization’s culture. Schedule lunch outings with key employees. Personal fact sheets are a great way for coworkers to learn about each other. Invite your new hire to complete one and give her access to her coworkers’ fact sheets.

Onboarding software is a great way to manage your new employee orientation checklist templates. You can find a free checklist here if you need ideas for what to include during orientation.  

Employee Training

Employee training is when your new hire learns the nuts and bolts of his new position. How long it takes to learn a new job depends on many factors. Your onboarding process should be thorough enough to encourage success, yet succinct enough for your new hire to get up to speed quickly. 

How long it does take for a new employee to be productive really depends on a comprehensive onboarding process. You should give your new employee access to training modules. Onboarding software can make the distribution and tracking of these modules easy.

New employee training should also be collaborative. Assign knowledgeable staff members to teach the new hire how to do various tasks. If you incorporate these tutorials as items on your onboarding software, you’ll be able to track their completion and coordinate communication between the stakeholders.

Throughout the training process, you should give your new employee clear standards by which they can gauge their own success. Help them feel comfortable and encourage them to ask questions. Their productivity and performance will depend on how well they grasp key information during the training phase.

New Hire Time to Productivity and Performance

Hopefully, these onboarding steps will lead to success in the last phase: productivity and performance. All of your goals for onboarding hinge on making sure your new hire graduates into a productive employee.

Once your new hire is trained, you can continue your onboarding efforts with support and feedback. Schedule meetings to provide feedback on the new hire’s performance. This is also a good time to introduce your new hire to additional training opportunities.

Let your new hire know his input is important, too. Ask him to provide feedback about the onboarding process. Encourage him to ask questions and address concerns.

From time to time, you’ll need to part ways with a recently hired employee. You can use onboarding software to manage your offboarding checklist. The data you acquire can be incorporated to give you a clearer picture of how to increase employee retention.

If you’re using onboarding software, you can effortlessly measure your onboarding success. Over time, you’ll collect enough data to know the average time it takes to onboard a new employee. You’ll be able to use that data to measure the time it takes that employee to reach the position’s expected level of productivity and competence.

A great onboarding process will help your organization develop effective, long-term employees. By reducing turnover and reducing the time it takes new hires to be fully productive employees, you’ll have a healthier bottom-line.

 

Want to learn more about onboarding software?

Schedule a live demo today!

Schedule Demo

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How Is Onboarding Related To Employee Retention?

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Employers are facing more challenges than ever as they march into 2021. The pandemic, social unrest, and the general chaos of the past year have brought otherwise healthy companies to the brink, while decimating others that were unstable in the best of times. Our turbulent and uncertain era has illustrated one truth: the corporations that succeed will be the ones that don’t waste their financial resources.

Yet, decision makers often ignore a hidden siphon draining their financial reservoirs: high employee turnover. In terms of lost time, productivity, and resources, every employee that voluntarily leaves costs the company about 15 percent of their annual salary. That means a company loses $7,500 when an employee with a $50,000 salary quits. That percentage goes up when that employee has been with the company for less than a year. When the average company loses a third of such new hires, the losses eat away at the margins needed to weather unforeseen forces such as a pandemic.

You can’t change the news headlines. Luckily, there is plenty you can do to reduce unwanted employee turnover. The best place to start is with a robust and comprehensive employee onboarding process.

Importance Of Employee Onboarding

Onboarding in the workplace, whether positive or negative, creates a powerful impression in the minds of new hires. During those critical first days and months, new hires decide whether they will remain committed to their role or regret taking the position.

You invested time, energy, and money into wooing the perfect candidate. But if your onboarding process is chaotic, overwhelming, and disorganized, your dazzling new hire will be browsing online job boards before he has completed his W-4.

As you probably experienced during the hiring process, finding the right talent is a growing challenge. Eighty-three percent of companies agree: desirable, qualified applicants are harder to come by. There simply aren’t enough workers with the right education and skill set. The talent shortage is three times higher than it was just ten years ago, according to CNBC.

According to the Work Institute, “the escalating competition for workers and a shrinking talent pool are coming together, intensifying an employee-in-control marketplace.” With the job market tipped in favor of applicants, the last thing you want to do is send your lucky catch back to the job pool where you’ll be forced to cast your net again. Onboarding statistics show that the work of retaining valuable new hires begins on their first day.

The importance of employee onboarding becomes clear when you recognize its ability to dramatically reduce the stream of unhappy employees heading to the exit door. Done correctly, onboarding can reinforce your company’s image as being a well-managed employer with clear expectations that empowers employees and provides them with the support they need to succeed.

Employee Onboarding Statistics

Estimates vary as to what employee turnover costs companies. The Work Institute uses a modest estimate of 33 percent of an employee’s salary. When a recently hired employee decides to leave, the company loses thousands of dollars.

But a high turnover rate doesn’t just affect the costs associated with that one position. Organizations that habitually lose talent experience lower performance across the company. Low retention rates adversely affect morale and undermine the cohesiveness of the team. Your best employees often pay the price as their frustrations mount with an increasing workload.

Given the cascading effects of high employee turnover, it isn’t surprising that, since 2010, there has been a 46 percent increase in voluntary employee resignations. A third of these resignations happen before the employee’s first anniversary. First-year resignations are not only the most common contributors to turnover, they are also the most costly. It takes several months for employees to be productive enough to begin to offset the cost of their hiring and training.

Employee onboarding statistics 2020 show onboarding is your best chance to inspire new hires to stick around past their first anniversary, when their retention rate will dramatically increase. Your new hires feel understandably anxious about their new job. Not only do they want to do well, they want to be reassured that they’ve chosen the right company in which to excel. A well-designed onboarding process will let them know how they fit into their new role and how your organization fits into their long-term goals.

Despite the crucial role of those first days and weeks in a new employee’s longevity, Gallup onboarding statistics show that only 12 percent of employees feel their employer nails the onboarding process. Perhaps that is why, as employees plan their future, employee onboarding statistics tell us that 51 percent of those currently employed are looking for a new job.

Benefits Of Employee Onboarding

The benefits of onboarding don’t stop with employee retention. With the right process in place, your new hires will know more quickly what is expected of them. The early investment you make in their career within your company will pay dividends when they become independent and productive. Committed and motivated employees work harder, are more efficient, and have lower absenteeism.

When it comes to improving the employee onboarding process, the benefits of onboarding checklists can’t be ignored. Automating your checklist can be done within onboarding software so you make sure all of your new hires receive the information and training they need to be successful. You’ll finally be able to customize your onboarding packets for each position and its corresponding location. Your new hires won’t be bombarded with information that is irrelevant to their role.

Well-organized employee onboarding will help you ensure that you’re following all federally mandated regulations for new hires. Digitized paperwork means fewer errors and it is more easily retrieved. Security protocols will ensure only the right staff can assess sensitive records.

The advantages of onboarding also include setting the bar high in terms of expectations for new hires. You’ll increase their confidence in the management of the company. They’ll also see your company as a place where they can learn and grow.

The work of putting together new hire packets for all of your potential open positions that take advantage of the many strategies to reduce employee turnover may seem like one of the disadvantages of onboarding. But when considering the benefits of onboarding, survey how your current retention rates may be hurting your organization’s goals.

Employee Onboarding Reduces Employee Turnover

Once you realize its financial impact, you can begin thinking about how to reduce employee turnover through robust retention strategies.

Understanding why employees leave is the first step in managing employee turnover and retention. When employers wonder how to reduce employee turnover in industries as different as manufacturing and healthcare, the Work Institute found that the answers are similar.

The top four reasons employees leave a company are career development, work environment, management behavior, and job characteristics. Employees get their first taste of all four areas of concern during the onboarding process. Strategies to reduce employee turnover begin with onboarding.

Concern over career development is the most cited reason employees give for leaving their jobs. With employee onboarding software, you can present new hires with digitized training and online video tutorials at just the right moment to support them as they learn their new roles. You can create a checklist or schedule of training. You can even use triggers so that a training video won’t appear until the right time so that your new hires aren’t overwhelmed. When new employees are provided the information they need to succeed, they’ll feel that your company will meet their career development needs.

Employee onboarding is the perfect time to take control of your company’s culture and work environment. Task a new hire’s coworkers with various aspects of her orientation. You can even do this during the pandemic by having coworkers record a welcome video or schedule a virtual get-to-know-you meeting with their new colleague. By taking the helm of your company’s culture, you’ll create a pleasant work environment for your new hires and strengthen your team’s cohesiveness.

A comprehensive onboarding process helps managers understand what is expected of them as they welcome a new employee. Now is the time for managers to get to know their new team member. Knowing a bit about the new hire’s home life can help the management team mitigate another reason for employee turnover: work-life balance. Managers can also use employee onboarding to clearly set forth the expectations they have for the new hire and identify ways to help the new hire succeed.

Employee onboarding software will allow you to easily create customized new hire packets for each position. Armed with a packet that contains comprehensive and relevant information, your new employee can be comfortable in his or her new role.

The right employee onboarding process will create a good first impression in those retention areas: career development, work environment, management behavior, and job characteristics. Getting the impression right from the start will reduce employee turnover.

Impact Of Employee Onboarding

The travails of 2020 may have been unpredictable, but employers have always had to contend with external circumstances when making hiring decisions. The silver lining of this past year may very well be the enduring lesson that employees should be valued like customers. The financial impact for treating them like cogs in the wheel can be devastating when the world’s chaos starts circling your business.

You can avoid the often hidden, though significant, financial losses of high employee turnover. Done correctly, onboarding can lead to reduced employee turnover, meaning better margins and productivity. The best time to double-down your efforts to keep your talent is on their first day at work. Onboarding reduces turnover, increases your employees’ loyalty to your company, and inspires them to excel.

 

Download ExactHire's Employee Onboarding Checklist

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5 Pro Tips for Quickly Pivoting to a Virtual Employee Onboarding Process

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The new normal of living amidst the COVID-19 global pandemic is causing many employers to adopt new business processes…and to adopt them quite quickly.

For those organizations who are fortunate enough to continue hiring new employees, one of those business processes is to learn how to correctly onboard remote employees in a distributed workforce.

A hastily created employee onboarding process will put new hires at risk of feeling disconnected from their work and organization. On the other hand, a productive virtual employee onboarding program will forge a connection between the new teammate and the organization; thereby, positively contributing to employee satisfaction and the goals of the organization despite the uncertainty and hardship attributable to our current coronavirus reality.

Are you ready to pivot to a distributed workforce? Whether virtual employee onboarding is a brand new practice at your company, or you’re just looking for ways to fine tune employee onboarding for distributed workforces, you’ve come to the right place. In this post, I’ll discuss five best practices for quickly pivoting to a virtual employee onboarding process.

1 – Create a “remote-first” pre-boarding experience

With so much uncertainty on everyone’s mind, your new hire’s interactions with your organization in the days leading up to his start date shouldn’t further increase his anxiety. Make a toolkit of digital assets to share with a new teammate to make sure he feels adequately prepared and informed on day one. Here are some ideas:

  • Provide an organizational chart listing all employee names, titles and the hierarchy of the management structure. If you are a part of a very large organization, then a chart of the new employee’s department and/or division may be sufficient.
  • Create a task list or training schedule for the new hire’s first few days on the job. Create this in a shared document (e.g. Google Docs) that can be edited on-the-fly to include additional tasks as time progresses, as well as hyperlinked resource documents. With this approach, the employee can follow links to conduct further research to acquaint himself with your company and its organizational knowledge as his schedule permits.
  • Task relevant co-workers with creating video welcome messages to be shared with the new employee in the days leading up to the first day. We use a variety of tools at ExactHire (ranging from completely free to very affordable) such as video capture on our smartphones, and video applications like Soapbox, Vidyard and Camtasia.
  • Share a short, hyperlinked list of your company’s social media profiles with the new hire, as well as expectations about whether he is likely to be bombarded by social media invitation requests in his first week (as this can be a common way for remote workers to connect with one another).
  • Make it clear what equipment will be provided by the company (and by what date), and/or whether the new hire is responsible for bringing any of his own devices to his remote workstation. Ensure that all devices are accompanied by robust instructions on how to use and/or setup appropriate security protocols for effective work within the organization.

2 – Leverage the unique onboarding resources now available to your organization

While social distancing has caused many of us to approach the work setting in dramatically different ways, it has also led to the installation of a handful of new laws and limited regulations meant to help the American working population and employers cope with this crisis. Aside from new laws such as the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has also recently relaxed its normal requirements for Form I-9 compliance when hiring new employees. This change will help employees who have never hired remote workers to examine and temporarily approve employment eligibility documentation with confidence.

In particular, DHS has “[deferred] the physical presence requirements associated with Employment Eligibility Verification (Form I-9) under Section 274A of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Employers with employees taking physical proximity precautions due to COVID-19 will not be required to review the employee’s identity and employment authorization documents in the employee’s physical presence.”

However, not all employers meet the criteria necessary for taking advantage of the option to initially virtually examine new hire documentation. In fact, only employers who have gone 100% remote for all employees may utilize this temporary flexibility in document examination. For more details on which organizations qualify and what documentation is necessary to participate, check out this recent Forbes article.

3 – Make a short list of near-term new hire expectations

To make this pivot toward remote onboarding manageable and relatively fast, focus on only the absolutely critical expectations that you need all new hires to know right from the start. In doing so, make sure you communicate that the current situation necessitates focusing on the “must-knows” initially, but that icing-on-the-cake knowledge and nurturing will be sure to follow as things calm down a bit.

Your new hire will appreciate your candor, and be more likely to establish trust in the organization early because it is helping to flesh out priorities to ensure the new hire’s success.

Here are some examples of employee expectations that may resonate with your team. Be sure to educate your new hire about each of the items below that may be important for his work.

  • Training prerequisites that must be completed before certain aspects of a job can be endeavored (e.g. safety, password security protocol)
  • Preferred methods for co-workers to communicate with each other (e.g. email, phone, Slack, text, video conference, project management tool comments)
  • Mission-critical reports and metrics that must be updated…and with what frequency

Remember that while your ability to equip your new employee with these essential bits of information can shorten his learning curve and improve outcomes, don’t forget that our normal isn’t so normal right now. In fact, it reminds me of an unidentified quote that my co-worker shared on our Slack channel today…one that very appropriately describes the current plight for many of America’s remote workers:

“You’re not working from home; you are at your home during a crisis trying to work.”

There’s a place for grace right now.

4 – Communicate your culture

While company culture can be somewhat nebulous to describe to others, as it is often something experienced for one’s self in-person, there’s no doubt that remote cultures exist, too.

However, it may take longer to assimilate remote workers to cultural norms if you don’t take strides to help them take seed early. Here are some ways to make your virtual culture more quickly tangible:

  • Facilitate video introductions between a new hire and fellow department members and other key co-workers. Make sure all teammates take a turn to introduce themselves, explain their respective roles, and offer suggestions on how they interface with the new employee in his job.
  • Recognize that your organization likely has a multitude of multimedia approaches for communication in different situations. Create a “cheat sheet” of common scenarios to give your new employees a head start:
    • Protocol for out of office messages
    • Appropriate channels for different types of Slack posts
    • Frequency for co-worker video meet-ups and the purpose of each (e.g. is this a project-related call or a virtual happy hour?)
    • General guidelines on how quickly to respond to different inquiries and requests (make sure to allow for time zone differences between co-workers)
    • Location of a schedule of regular working hours for different employees
    • Protocol on whether to use one’s video camera on conference calls (is it preferred or required by various departments?)
    • Acceptable format for email signatures
    • Preferred software applications for different assignments (e.g. MS Word or Google Docs when both are available?)

5 – Implement employee onboarding software for remote hiring success

Depending on the industry in which you work, you likely use a set of software applications critical to the productivity of your business–it’s your tech stack. From CRMs to POS systems, and project management suites to ticketing portals, these varied forms of technology are essential to different industries because they leverage technology to automate and improve repetitive, and perhaps otherwise manual tasks for different employers.

While health clinics may not need POS systems, and safety equipment manufacturers aren’t desperate for software issue ticketing suites, I will advocate that all employers who are currently hiring should consider employee onboarding software.

Moreover, if you are hiring remote employees, onboarding software gives you a significant competitive advantage as you can improve the new hire user experience (aka first impression) as well as minimize documentation errors.

ExactHire’s OnboardCentric employee onboarding software can be implemented either as a stand-alone solution to meet your urgent onboarding needs; or, as a hiring component integrated with our ExactHire applicant tracking system.

As employers face constantly evolving news related to COVID-19, they are adjusting priorities and re-allocating resources on a daily basis. Our team understands the need for fluidity and responsiveness, and we’re equipped to get you up and running with onboarding software quickly.

To expedite implementation and improve your new hire experience despite the current pandemic, we recommend that you start by implementing required new hire forms (e.g. state tax forms, Form W-4, Form I-9, direct deposit, etc.) and allow us to train supervisors who need access right away.

Then, as demands on your schedule decline, our team is happy to work with you to include non-essential nice-to-have new hire forms, discuss onboarding process best practices and conduct more advanced user training with all of your hiring managers. Our responsive team is ready to work as your partner through this crisis.

Demo ExactHire Onboarding Software

Are you ready to improve your employee onboarding experience and respond to the rapidly changing hiring landscape with success? Schedule a demo of OnboardCentric today.

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How to Automate Workflow Within Employee Onboarding Software [VIDEO]

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While web-based solutions that can automate new hire employment forms and documents do exist, very few solutions also empower employers to customize their onboarding software platform to automate all the new hire and existing employee tasks associated with a robust employee onboarding process. The ability to automate workflow is one of the core strengths of the OnboardCentric employee onboarding solution. Two features that are key factors in the ability to accommodate unique client workflows are FlexFields and Roles.

OnboardCentric FlexFields Roles Video

FlexFields at work

FlexFields, as the name implies, are flexible, multiple-choice data fields that store unique information about each employee within an organization. These fields are customized on a per client basis. Examples of different FlexFields might include individual employee attributes such as

  • division,
  • department,
  • exemption status or pay type, and
  • employee level.

The values selected for FlexFields on an employee record drive two primary outcomes within OnboardCentric:

  1. tasks assigned to the new hire, and
  2. follow up tasks assigned to an internal staff member.

New hire tasks

Let’s talk about new hire tasks. We’ll group them into two categories:

  1. tasks assigned to every new hire, and
  2. tasks assigned only to certain new hires.

Tasks assigned to every new hire tend to include the completion of required federal forms such as the I-9 and W4, state tax forms, and policies and procedures specific to a given organization. Please note that FlexFields do not impact those forms or documents assigned to all employees.

However, FlexFields are involved for tasks related to forms and documents that only a subset of employees are required to complete. In fact, the criteria that define this subset of employees are determined by the values of one or more FlexFields.

For example, if new hires in the Compliance Division should be assigned items that other new hires outside the Compliance Division should not be assigned, then “Division” would be setup as a FlexField. Likewise, if new hires at the Executive Level are assigned items that hires at other levels aren’t assigned, then “Employee Level” would be setup as a FlexField. To determine the FlexFields necessary for your business, create a list of all the attributes that differentiate one group’s employee onboarding tasks from another group’s tasks.

Once your FlexFields are created, they’ll be visible as drop-down boxes for each new employee you add to OnboardCentric.

Using the previous examples, there would be a FlexField for “Division” that might have values of “Compliance”, “Information Technology”, “Manufacturing”, and “Marketing.” If “Compliance” is selected, that new hire will be assigned extra tasks that new hires in the other divisions will not. Similarly, there would be a FlexField entitled “Employee Level” that might have values of “Associate”, “Executive”, “Manager”, and “Staff.” If “Executive” is selected, that new hire will have additional tasks that new hires with other values for that field will not.

Roles for existing employees

Next, let’s talk about how Roles work within OnboardCentric.

Think of Roles as the acting parts your existing staff members play in the onboarding process. You may have as few or as many Roles as necessary to handle any follow up actions that must be completed by your staff. These follow ups will always be triggered by a task completed by a new hire.

For instance, once a new hire completes his portion of the I-9 form, that will trigger a follow up for someone within your organization to verify/approve that I-9 form on behalf of the organization. Typically this Role is referred to as an “I-9 Approver.”

Other common examples of Roles include “Countersigner”, “Equipment Provisioner”, or “License Certifier.” In each of these examples, the Role name used may be anything that makes sense within your organization. Instead of “Equipment Provisioner,” you may choose to call that Role “Supply Orderer.” The key point to understand is that the Role refers only to what type of follow up actions you’ll want that person to perform within the OnboardCentric platform.

Accommodating people with similar tasks

The intersection of FlexFields and Roles occurs in situations where you have more than one staff member performing a given type of Role. For example, let’s assume that you have four different staff members who each have the Role of I-9 Approver.

In this scenario, the FlexField values you assign to a given new hire will then be used to determine which of the four I-9 Approvers will be assigned that follow up task once the new hire completes his portion of the I-9.

FlexFields and Roles allow OnboardCentric to accommodate almost any type of workflow necessary for the unique needs of your organization’s onboarding process. We encourage you to take advantage of these capabilities so that you may maximize your onboarding efficiency.

 

Get started on the path to better onboarding.

Contact ExactHire to learn more about OnboardCentric employee onboarding software.

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18 Onboarding Ideas Especially Suited to Part-Time Employees

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In this era of increasing instances of flexible work arrangements, many employers find that an increasingly larger percentage of their workforce is comprised of part-time employees, specifically. In fact, part-time might mean anything from a periodic five to ten hours per week up to thirty hours based on the feedback I receive from peers in HR who strive to compete for talent by offering work schedules that accommodate greater balance between work and personal life.

As we shift to putting a greater emphasis on better serving part-time teammates, don’t forget to account for how their needs may be slightly different than those of full-time employees during the employee onboarding process. In this blog, and with the help of some of my human resources friends, we’ll explore eighteen ideas for rolling out the onboarding red carpet for your newly-hired part-time employees. Some tips will present a solid plan of action for engaging “part-timers” specifically, while others are best practices for onboarding all types of employees.

1 – Avoid overwhelming part-time employees

Don’t make part-time new hires “drink from the firehose” during training by overwhelming them with too much material too early. Remember, they may be on the job only half the time you are (assuming you work full-time) and so will have half as much time to absorb new content.

2 – Be supportive of self-study

Build in blocks of self-study or skills practice time within the first few weeks of the new hire’s employment tenure. Have pre-determined study or hands-on projects ready for them to tackle during the training process.

3 – Take care with time sheets

Since your part-time employees are classified as non-exempt, clearly explain the process for submitting a time sheet and make sure they have reminders scheduled to turn them in promptly.

4 – Prepare with pre-boarding

According to Linda Dausend, Consultant and Account Lead for FlashPoint Leadership Consulting, the “pre-boarding” process is just as important as the onboarding process. Pre-boarding includes:

  • sending a new part-timer a welcome kit at home–perhaps include a flash drive with a welcome video;
  • having a coffee meeting prior to the start date;
  • setting up the new hire’s desk, computer, and ordering business cards;
  • notifying your team of existing employees and asking them to sign a welcome card; and,
  • scheduling a session to officially welcome the new part-time hire during a time frame that falls within his/her work hours.

5 – Set expectations for special events

If your organization occasionally schedules optional learning or social events during lunch or a part-time employee’s regular work hours, make sure to set expectations with that new hire about whether he should consider that event part of his work time. For example, at ExactHire we have a few part-time employees, and we encourage them to join us at events such as our annual lunch outings to the Indiana State Fair or the downtown Indy Strawberry Festival on the Circle.

6 – Make use of mentors

Bradley Galin, President and Principal Consultant for Allegro HR, advises employers to assign a mentor to newly hired employees so they have someone to ask those questions that they may not want to ask the supervisor. When possible, assign a mentor who is either doing the same job as the new hire or someone who has done the job previously.

Don’t discount the importance of pairing a part-time new hire with a mentor or guide to help him get going. This may be even more important for part-time hires relative to full-timers, since they likely need a longer period of time to get to know other team members. Having a mentor gives them a consistent point of contact while they’re getting familiar with everyone. William Dykstra, Regional Talent Acquisition Consultant III and Officer at a large banking institution, says that most of the departments for which he recruits have a peer mentor paired with a new hire for the first 90 days of employment.

7 – Proactive paperwork

Dykstra also indicates that it’s helpful for employers to have new hires complete traditional employment paperwork prior to the start date. That way they can focus on learning the job on the first day instead of doing tedious paperwork.

 

ExactHire’s OnboardCentric employee onboarding software makes the forms, documents and tasks associated with employee onboarding paperless.

ExactHire OnboardCentric Onboarding Software Video

8 – Be clear about benefits

Bradley Galin also suggests providing a benefits overview to new part-time hires that is customized to their position and full-time equivalency (FTE). After all, your organization may have folks receive different benefits depending on their exact FTE and bargaining unit…so avoid one-size-fits-all communication approaches.

9 – Create opportunities for interaction

If you have other staff members who work flexible shifts and/or work from home certain days of the week, consider varying a new part-time hire’s work schedule over the first week or two so that she has a chance to meet and interact with all members of her new team.

10 – Adjust recurring meeting invitations

Prior to a new PT employee’s start date, evaluate which traditionally all-company or all-department recurring meetings he should or should not attend based on his work hours. For those meetings that are feasible, make sure the new hire’s email address is added to any existing recurring calendar invitations.

11 – Standardize the swag

With experience being a part-time employee herself, Kye Hawkins, Management Consultant and Marketing Specialist for ADVISA, encourages employers to welcome new part-time hires to the team just as you would any full-time employee. Whatever your company does: a gift basket on the desk, company swag, a welcome lunch, etc. Being a part-time employee still means she is fully part of the team!

12 – Share work schedules

Hawkins also emphasizes that one of a new hire’s first orders of business should be having him update his calendar with the days and times he’ll be working. Then, share his schedule with the appropriate people at the company along with a message clarifying his work schedule. Part-time employees’ schedules are more likely to confuse those who work full-time, and keeping track of work days will help all involved.

13 – Don’t underestimate the power of perception

Remember that perception influences employee engagement. By making a new PT employee’s first day as special as a typical full-time hire’s experience, you’re showing that part-timer he is just as valued as full-time staff members.

14 – Help connect the dots

According to Catherine Schmidt, Consulting Manager at Purple Ink, LLC, employers should make sure their new part-time employees understand and connect with the value and meaning of their work by speaking to others in the company about how their positions impact the organization, clients, or the community. Having meaningful work is a large predictor for retaining an employee and in this low-unemployment job market, it’s important for companies to keep good employees regardless of whether they’re full or part-time.

15 – Plan for the potential future

Additionally, JoDee Curtis, the owner of Purple Ink, LLC, cautions organizations to note that even though these individuals work part-time, it doesn’t mean they only need to hear “part” of the orientation. It’s likely that most everything will pertain to them…and what doesn’t (e.g. certain benefits) might be good for them to learn in case they decide to go full-time within the organization down the road.

16 – Introduce employees in similar situations

Especially if you work for a larger employer, make a point to introduce new part-timers to others who may have a similar work schedule early in their employment.

17 – Paint the picture for existing employees, too

Discuss the do’s and don’t’s associated with being part-time, especially for individuals transitioning from full-time positions to part-time roles. It’s easy to place a lot of emphasis on hiring brand new part-time hires, but we can’t forget to address the dynamics associated with existing staff members who reduce hours to adapt to changing life circumstances.

18 – Show and tell

Plan sessions that allow new part-time hires a means to “reverse train” a few weeks into their employment tenure. This gives them the opportunity to share with the manager what they’ve learned and reinforce understanding.

With some thoughtful consideration of how you might incorporate some of the above tips, you’ll be on the right track to welcoming and retaining your part-time employees!

Download ExactHire's Employee Onboarding Checklist

New Hire Onboarding Success with a SWOT Analysis

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The purpose of a SWOT analysis in the business planning process is to make sure you’ve identified all the possible strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to your business.  Only then can you create a business plan taking into consideration all these aspects and setting your business up for it’s best chance at success.  The new hire onboarding process should be no different.

Some aspects of the SWOT analysis are designed to act upon.  For example, you want to make sure you capitalize on and take advantage of your strengths and seize your opportunities.  Other aspects are for you to be aware of.  You must be aware of your weaknesses and competitors in the market place.

If you really think about it, doing the same type of analysis for a new hire should be no different. To a new employee, changing jobs is a “new business” operating in a new environment with different conditions. Extremely savvy job seekers will do their own SWOT analysis on the company before joining.  Why?  They want to make sure they are setting themselves up for the best chance at success.

Your analysis of your new employee should occur over the course of his/her onboarding and should be a critical part of the employee onboarding process.  Ideally you would have done most of this during the hiring process.  However, it’s not an exact science and you may have missed some items. Hopefully, at a minimum, you determined the new hire should have a seat on the bus.  Now you just need to figure out what that correct seat is.

It’s not uncommon for individuals to be hired for a certain position then find themselves in another. This happens quite frequently in organizations that focus their hiring efforts on the type of person and their strengths and abilities, more so than technical knowledge and experience.  You can only gain this much clearer understanding of the best fit for the individual once she is on board and you have had a chance to analyze her capabilities against various positions.

 

Strengths

 

This is the single most important aspect of an individual’s SWOT.  If you do nothing else, make sure you thoroughly assess strengths and figure out how to apply them appropriately. Getting a new hire aligned with his strengths is the best way to set him up for success in his new role.  

To properly identify strengths, you must allocate the proper time and training.  Just immersing someone in a new role will not yield the results you need to identify his core strengths.  Step one would be to have a simple conversation with the individual and see what he thinks his strengths are.  Consider a tool such as the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment to assist in this endeavor. Then have him work through various aspects of his role (and other roles if possible) to see where he naturally excels with the least amount of direction.  By doing this, you can identify where his best opportunity for success may be.

 

Weaknesses

 

Awareness of weaknesses will avoid early failure and miss-steps for a new employee.  It is critical that he be given every opportunity to succeed, build confidence in his new role and gain confidence of his coworkers.  This doesn’t mean you don’t want to challenge him, but you want to make sure you are challenging him utilizing his strengths.

Once you’ve identified potential weak points, note them and work to avoid them.  The last thing you want to do is try to change someone or improve his weaknesses.  It’s much easier to focus on the strengths.  There’s also a tough leadership decision in this step of the process.  If it so happens that his weaknesses actually need to be his core strengths for the position, you will have to find this employee another seat on the bus — or another bus.

 

Opportunities

 

This is the fun step.  After your analysis of strengths and weaknesses you should have a pretty good idea of the direction(s) the individual can go within the organization after his onboarding.  These are his opportunities.  By the time you get to this step, the individual has probably started to see his opportunities as well and may have expressed some desire towards those.  

Don’t forget to have this important employee development conversation.  This will likely be the difference maker between an engaged long-term employee or a short-term employee.  Most employees will look for their next opportunity within the organization fairly quickly and if they don’t see one they’ll plan their next move — out of the company.  Your job as a leader is to make sure the opportunities they are seeking within the organization align with their strengths and avoid as many of their weaknesses as possible.

 

Threats

 

Typically addressing threats in a SWOT analysis takes into account competition.  We don’t want to think of competition in terms of an individual’s employment SWOT.  Rather, you want to look at what potential roadblocks stand in the way of his success.  The roadblocks you should try to identify are resource issues, process and procedural issues and potentially other individuals.

Ever wonder why they sweep the ice in front of the stone in Olympic curling?  They are grooming the ice and creating the best possible conditions for the stone to travel further and straighter.  As a leader you must continue to sweep the ice in front of an employee to ensure his optimal onboarding experience and continued success.  What you are doing is eliminating or mitigating the threats you know will stand in the employee’s way.   

 

If you’ve properly integrated a SWOT analysis into the new hire onboarding process you will be setting the stage for initial and continued success for the employee and your team/company.  It takes a little bit of discipline and practice to master, but really isn’t that difficult.  The most difficult part is evolving to the point where you only focus on aligning his strengths within the role, or a different role, and completely avoid any assignments that will draw on his weaknesses.

Done correctly, and applied correctly, a SWOT analysis will ensure a business stays on course, remains competitive in the market and services customers profitably.  This directly correlates with the same success of a new employee, his level of engagement, productivity and length of retention.

Looking for tools to improve your employee onboarding process? Contact ExactHire to learn how our employee onboarding software can automate your new hire paperwork and workflow.

Contact ExactHire

 

The Eagle Has Landed: Employee Onboarding

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Competition for talented employees in today’s job market is fierce. The balance of power has swung in favor of the talented job seeker. And since these job seekers have multiple job opportunities to consider, they’re not just looking for a job that pays the bills; they’re looking for a work experience that enhances their lives.

According to the Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) August 2015 LINE Report, recruiting difficulty reached a 4-year high last July, which also made it 15 consecutive months of increase. In response to this ongoing challenge, many organizations are taking a closer look at their strategy for recruiting, hiring, and retaining top talent.

 

Let Me Fly You To The Moon

Small- to medium-sized businesses are investing in employer brand marketing that attracts applicants and persuades candidates. They are adding “perks” and “fun” to enhance their work culture. They are saying and showing all the right things during the recruitment and hiring phases. And that is all right and good. But too often, new hires are experiencing a disconnect between the marketing (pre-hire) and the reality (post-hire).

Some employers are over-promising, but most are simply too slow in delivering on their promises. Regardless of the cause, the disconnect is driving employee turnover. In the past year, nearly 43% of job turnover consisted of workers with less than 6 months on the job.

Houston, We Have A Problem

If an organization promises the moon to candidates, but then forces new hires to wait a year before getting them there, then that organization has a problem. And that problem most likely lies in new employee onboarding–the period of time between job offer acceptance and a new hire’s complete assimilation into a new organization.

Poor onboarding does not inspire new employees, and it certainly doesn’t enhance their lives. Employers have 90 days to convince new employees that they have accepted a job with the right organization; after that, those new hires will likely begin looking for another opportunity. Examples of ineffective onboarding include:

  • Initial days of work exclusively focused on new hire paperwork 
  • Cold welcome from co-workers
  • Choppy workflow and vague guidance or instructions
  • Heavy, intensive training with little time to socialize with coworkers
  • Role is unclear or widely differs from original description
  • Lack of resources or proactive provisioning
  • No training plan or preliminary goals
  • Miscommunication between stakeholders (those charged with onboarding new hires)

Most of these symptoms of ineffective onboarding can be traced to one of two root causes: the organization does not have enough time to commit to employee onboarding; or the organization does not value onboarding.

Many small- to medium-sized businesses are stretched on time–that’s likely why they’re hiring in the first place. And it’s also likely that these missteps will be corrected as the organizations grow and gain greater efficiency in onboarding. On the other hand, if an organization is ineffectively onboarding employees because it doesn’t find it important, then it’s unlikely improvement will be gained, and the results of that can be devastating.

SHRM places the direct costs of rehiring for a position at 50%-60% of an employee’s salary. Indirect costs can rise to 200% in some cases! Clearly, poor onboarding damages more than an organization’s reputation or employee morale, it impacts the bottom line.

All Hands On Deck

Onboarding is one of the most overlooked and undervalued areas of the employee lifecycle. This is likely because the definition of onboarding–its length, its content, its purpose–has varied between industries, organizations, and even departments within organizations. To improve the onboarding process, an organization’s leaders must first gain a common understanding of the purpose and desired outcomes–a vision–for the onboarding process. From there, it’s a matter of building a plan for employee onboarding process improvement that serves the shared vision.

ExactHire has published a free ebook, All Hands On Deck: A Guide To Employee Onboarding Process Improvement, that offers guidance on the best practices for employee onboarding, including:

  • Expanding your onboarding definition
  • Identifying common problems
  • Making a business case for change
  • Calculating the ROI of onboarding technology
  • Laying the framework
  • Implementing innovative ideas
  • Maintaining a continuous feedback loop
  • Spotting trends in onboarding process automation

This resource is designed to help organizations gain a competitive advantage by realizing the opportunities of best-in-class employee onboarding.

We Have Liftoff

Smart organizations are seeking to improve their employee onboarding processes. With effective stakeholder engagement, documented process milestones, and an infusion of automation technology, these organizations are increasing onboarding efficiency. As a result, employee turnover is reduced and new employees are becoming productive more quickly. All of this positively impacts employer brand, while also driving business outcomes.

ExactHire offers hiring and employee onboarding software to growing small- to medium-sized businesses that are looking to efficiently attract, hire, and retain exceptional talent for continued growth. To learn more about ExactHire’s HR solutions, please submit a brief contact form.

Feature Image Credit: DSC_0699 by Phaedrus (contact)

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