Effective employee onboarding makes a dramatic, positive impact on a workplace.
In 2017, the journal Open Nursing published a study of a new hire onboarding intervention at a hospital. Before
the intervention, the hospital lost 39.1% of new hires to turnover within a
year. Moreover, the hospital's annual new hire turnover rate ranged from 28% to
almost 50% in the last five years!
After developing and implementing a
ten-point onboarding procedure, new hire losses were halved: the annual
turnover rate dropped from 39.1% to 18.4%.
Whether your goal is to reduce
turnover, improve employee morale and productivity, or strengthen employees'
commitment to the organization, effective onboarding is vital. So, how can you
make onboarding work for your business?
Read on to discover five employee
onboarding ideas that will make your business stronger.
What
Is Employee Onboarding?
Employee onboarding is a set of
processes and procedures that empower new employees to get up to speed, and
integrate effectively into their new workplace. It's essentially new hire
orientation.
The goal of onboarding is to help
new employees understand the company's values, mission, and vision. It also
helps employees understand the ins and outs of their new role, and where that
fits into the company overall.
Ideally, an effective onboarding
process is both about welcoming employees and teaching them.
Hiring employees takes time. It's
not surprising that some organizations try to rush through the onboarding
process. Unfortunately, rushing leads to employees missing key information,
which, in turn, leads to high turnover.
Instead, it's important to develop
an onboarding plan that covers the first 90 days of an employee's work.
1.
Assign a Mentor and Partner
For the first few months, a new
employee will have plenty of questions. It's important that the new hire has
both a mentor *and* a peer coworker they can turn to for guidance.
This can help new employees resolves
questions quickly, and use any references or tutorials adeptly. This helps with
onboarding in terms of enabling fast
productivity. It also facilitates a personal connection, which makes the new
hire feel like they truly belong in the workplace.
2.
Develop an Onboarding Plan With Growth Objectives, Expectations, and
Itineraries
Use an onboarding template or
checklist to develop your 90-day plan. Determine the objectives for each role.
What makes someone successful in that role?
From there, use telescoping
strategies to work backwards.Breakdown the employee's path to reach each goal
into daily and weekly steps.
3.
Automate Onboarding With System, Standard Operating Procedure
To automate onboarding, develop
tutorial content and an employee handbook for reference. Tutorial content can
be instructional videos, interactive assignments, or presentations.
New hires should fall easily into
the system, which transitions them seamlessly into their typical
workflow.
4.
Make Your Employee Onboarding System Customizable
The onboarding process should be
easy to adapt to each new role. It should also allow space for each individual
to cultivate the unique value they bring to the table. This often means
enabling new employees to set their own goals through a collaborative process.
5.
Cultivate Community, Connection, and Vision
Help new employees build connections
by empowering them to adapt to cultural norms in your workplace. This often
includes official meetings with key coworkers and staff for introductions.
Another onboarding goal should be to
help employees envision their future at the company. This taps into their
internal motivation.
Level-Up
Workplace Success
When you're running a business,
employee onboarding isn't intuitive. Fortunately, you can start hiring
employees more successfully - and less often - with five onboarding tips.
Assign a mentor and partner, develop
a thorough plan, automate what you can, personalize and cultivate vision.
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