Developing a Comprehensive Onboarding Process for New Employees
Onboarding is one of the most ignored (but vitally important) components of building a high-performing team. It's the foundation for retention, and it can make or break the likelihood of new employees sticking around. Without a good onboarding process, all of that recruiting effort is wasted time and money.
Let's face it, most business owners are missing a key point here. Onboarding done right is zero-cost to improve, extremely easy to implement, and can make an instant difference to the performance and retention of new employees.
In this article, you'll discover:
Why onboarding matters more than ever
The 5 Components of successful onboarding
Building your onboarding Framework
Common onboarding Mistakes that make new hires quit
Why Onboarding Is More Important Than Ever
Statistics show why onboarding is one of the most valuable initiatives you can invest in. Research by the Brandon Hall Group demonstrated that strong onboarding improves retention by 82%. It also showed a boost in new hire productivity of over 70%. That is some serious bang for your buck, and it doesn't cost a cent to build or expensive tools or systems to operate.
Scalable businesses will have to put time and effort into sourcing new talent, and it's difficult to hire when you have vacancies for key roles. Finding talent for your growing business requires the right approach, so visit www.somewhere.com to understand the full scope of what's needed when scaling teams effectively. No matter how many people you bring on board, they are little help if they don't last long enough to make an impact. The entire recruitment process takes time and resources. To then watch those new hires walk out the door is a complete waste of the process.
Picture what it's like when onboarding fails. New employees are lost, disconnected, and feel unsupported. They question their decision in taking the job and before you know it, they are polishing up the resume and looking elsewhere. Gallup research has shown only 12% of employees believe their company does onboarding well. That's 12% in a good way, which means 88% of companies are dropping the ball at the most critical window.
The 5 Components of a Solid Onboarding Program
Let's look at the components that separate a solid onboarding program from the flakey things. These elements interlock to create an onboarding process that actually works. The problem is that most owners don't know what needs to be in place until they are building the framework.
Preboarding communication starts before day 1 and involves setting expectations and creating some excitement for the role. It's also about sending information in advance, getting technology access ready, and so on. If it's on day one that the new employee realizes that you've not prepared, then it kills the momentum.
Structured training is all about the knowledge employees need to succeed in their role. It's not just company orientation but rather what skills, tools, and processes they need to perform the job. Effective training is comprehensive, but not overwhelming, and is spread over a few weeks, not done all in one day.
The mentors and support available to the new employee help to get questions answered and guidance as they navigate the company culture. Connecting the new employee to an identified point person is invaluable when you get stuck or don't understand.
Defining what success looks like from the beginning is key to high performance. When an employee knows what is expected and how their performance will be measured, they know where to direct their efforts. As soon as people know what success looks like, then they are more likely to be successful.
Building Your Own Onboarding Framework
You don't need to spend big on consultants or on software packages. What you need to do is create an effective onboarding framework. This should span the first 90 days minimum and in some cases, the first year.
Map out what needs to be learned, covered, and done in that first three-month window. Break that out into weekly goals and milestones, which then build on each other. Week 1 is getting the tools, technology, and setup ready and basic company orientation. Weeks 2-4 would be about job-specific training and initiating first projects, and so on.
The other key to success is documentation. Everything the new employee needs to know should be documented. This should include processes, policies, and procedures to act as a knowledge base. This prevents the problem of information sitting in someone's head and not shared widely.
Feedback loops are critical and have a regular cadence of feedback sessions. These are days 30, 60, and 90 check-ins with the new employee on the onboarding experience.
Common Onboarding Mistakes That Drive New Employees Away
There are some common mistakes that derail onboarding programs, and while well intended, frustrate new hires. Let's look at these and then use them as warning flags for what to avoid.
Information overload on day one is all too common and assumes that a new hire will retain most of it all the orientation is done on day one. New employees can only process so much information, and then they get set up and assigned to a manager or team. The result is that most of it is forgotten.
Role clarity is something that onboarding covers in part, but it's easy to make assumptions about responsibilities and goals. Job descriptions don't always get updated to reflect the actual work and the new employee can easily feel they don't know what they are doing or why. This is a quick route to disengagement and job hunting.
The social aspects of onboarding are not usually covered formally, but it's about more than processes and knowledge transfer. Onboarding should help new employees connect with other people, become team players, and fit into the company culture. Humans are social animals, and employees are no different.
Onboarding as a one-off rather than an ongoing process. It makes sense to have a first week or two of deep support and then think the new employee is OK. However, it takes a long time for an employee to fully understand their role and be able to perform it. New employee support should be spread out across the 90 days.
The Bottom Line
Building a comprehensive onboarding process is one of the most effective investments in a growing business. Onboarding can make an immediate difference in all retention, productivity, culture, and employer reputation.
The approach needn't be complex or expensive. Focus on the key elements which include things like communication, training, mentoring, and clarity of success. The framework should be 90 days and is even better if it's over a year in total. Use feedback to make continuous improvements to the program.
Businesses that get onboarding right will have lower turnover, reduced time to productivity, and higher team cohesion. Businesses that don't are spinning their wheels on recruitment and wondering why they can't build teams.