Employee onboarding is the biggest missed opportunity at most companies. That’s a pretty bold claim, isn’t it? But onboarding sets the stage for the rest of the employee experience, and we’re statistically awful at it. Here’s the sad truth about onboarding:
The good news is that we can turn things around. The best way to improve employee onboarding is to focus on our internal communication. Let’s dive in.
Employee onboarding is the process of bringing a new hire into a company. This includes integrating them into the culture and teaching them the systems, processes, and rules of working at the company.
Typically, the employee onboarding experience is led at a high level by the human resources team. They share the employee handbook, and new hire paperwork, and get the employee set up on the human resources information system (HRIS). HR may also have the employee complete necessary training and compliance courses, such as HIPPA for healthcare, sexual harassment, data security and privacy, etc.
But people managers also play a big part in the onboarding process. Managers are responsible for integrating their new hires into the micro-culture of their team and are responsible for training that employee on the specific knowledge, skills, and systems they will need to do their job.
Onboarding employees sets the stage for the rest of their employment. And you don’t get a second chance at that first impression.
And unfortunately, only 12% of employees think their employer does a good job with onboarding.
To understand why employee onboarding is so important, we need to talk about the costs of poor onboarding and the benefits when it’s done well.
When we fail to onboard employees successfully, there are many negative impacts, including:
On the flip side, when we get onboarding right, there is a huge, positive impact:
Given the risks of messing up employee onboarding…what does bad onboarding look like?
Well, honestly, a lot can ruin the new hire experience. Even the most well-meaning companies and teams often get a lot wrong in the onboarding process. Here are a few big things you shouldn’t do when onboarding a new employee:
Your onboarding process might look different depending on your business. But all onboarding plans have some common goals:
Because the goals of a successful onboarding program are the same, there are a few steps that have to happen.
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The most important thing to remember is that the employee experience starts before an employee’s first day. Their experience during the hiring process and the time leading up to their first day is all part of that critical first impression. Keep that in mind and follow these steps:
Obviously, you need to share when they are supposed to start. But there is more you can communicate to set clear expectations for their first day, which is key to a successful onboarding program. This may include sharing their first day schedule, who they’ll be meeting with, and even introducing them to their new team (if they haven’t already met) via email.
Responsible Party: Recruiting
Share exactly what the onboarding program entails and what the end goals are with new hires. Too often, employees feel aimless and lost in their first days or weeks on a job. You want to avoid that by having a clear orientation, welcome, and training program, and sharing that plan with them.
Responsible Party: Human Resources
Paperwork is a necessary part of the onboarding process. Get this done promptly so the new hire can focus on other things. But also remember that onboarding does not stop with paperwork. A study found that 58% of companies have an onboarding program that focuses on process and paperwork (HCI). This ignores things like culture, values, development, team building, and other critical components of a successful onboarding.
Responsible Party: Human Resources
If you have an effective interview process, hopefully your new hires have already met a good portion of their direct team. But it’s important for that team to be ready to welcome and invite a new hire on their first day.
We’ve probably all experienced a first day on the job where it feels like everyone was too busy to take time to talk to you. And then you end up feeling a bit like an outsider as you go through virtual training and onboarding.
Onboarding should not be a solitary activity! So make sure the team is prepped to spend a little time with your new hire during their first few days at the company.
Responsible Party: Human Resources + Manager
When a new employee joins your team, they may or may not be familiar with the technology you use. Getting them access early on will help them start to familiarize themselves with the technology and how your team uses it.
Responsible Party: Human Resources + Manager
A big part of improving feelings of belonging in the workplace is to prevent your employees from feeling like they’re on an island. When you’re new to a job, you don’t know what you don’t know. So, it’s important to schedule meetings with other teams that they will be working with. This helps them socially integrate, but it will also improve productivity once they’re getting down to work.
Responsible Party: Manager
Even though a new employee might be familiar with the actual work they’ll be doing, that doesn’t mean they’re used to your team and company norms. Introduce your new team member on how you do things and welcome their insight into other ways of working.
We really like the “watch one, do one, teach one” method. Here’s how it works:
Responsible Party: Manager
No employee onboarding program should be complete without a new hire experience survey. Despite our best efforts welcoming new teammates onboard, we might not always get everything right.
Ask these questions and more so you can continuously improve your onboarding experience. And get this: just asking for feedback can improve the employee-employer relationship by 91%.
Responsible Party: Human Resources
So, what does internal communication have to do with onboarding? In a word: everything.
Communication is a critical part of every step in the employee onboarding process. And bad communication is a source of a lot of onboarding woes.
Every step of the way, clear, timely communication is key to the success of your program. And this communication is the verbal communication between colleagues as well as the written plans, training materials, and information you share.
We’d even say that onboarding cannot be successful without effective communication.
Even if you think you have great communication—and a great onboarding experience—make sure you look at all the types of workers in your organization.
Make sure you evaluate the challenges for successfully onboarding all types of employees and adjust for their unique needs as needed.
You might have noticed that for each step in our employee onboarding checklist, we shared who is mainly responsible for that step in the process. The truth is, onboarding is a team sport. You need recruiting, HR, managers, a new hire’s peers, and more to create a good onboarding experience.
But the most important partnership is between the HR and internal communication teams. Why? Because people managers aren’t necessarily onboarding and employee communication experts. Even though it’s part of their job, they might not have the proper training and experience to welcome new employees to their teams effectively.
That’s where internal comms and HR come in. You are the experts! You’re the ones who can drive the company onboarding strategy and create a more positive employee experience.
But most importantly, HR and internal comms need to support their people managers. Give them an onboarding roadmap, important FAQs, communication tips, and a strategy to effectively bring on a new direct report. This can go a long way to creating a more unified and positive onboarding experience.
Just as it takes a village to effectively welcome new employees to our companies, it also takes a variety of internal communications channels.
Because you want to make sure that all your new hires can access important company information, it’s important to have a variety of channels they can use:
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