First impressions mean everything to your business – particularly for the new employee showing up on the first day. It is vitally important that the organisation puts its best foot forward when it comes to welcoming a new member to their team. Not only are there legal requirements that need to be fulfilled, but this is a great opportunity to showcase your business and encourage the new person to buy in to your company.
Nothing is worse for an employee than to arrive on their first day to find that they’ve not been set up in the system, or not have their financial details submitted ready for their first pay. This work is seen by most as menial, routine work, but so often it can be delayed or missed due to the ad hoc processes in many organisations. Having a structured onboarding plan for gathering and inputting information for a new starter can alleviate this concern, and ensure that your new employee feels like you’ve been waiting for them to start, as opposed to feeling like you forgot they were starting.
Putting in place a mechanism to ensure that all the required information for the new employee is collected, inputted and disseminated to all parties involved in starting a new employee is the easiest way to improve your onboarding experience. Of course, making this process as automated as possible will lead to fewer gaps, and the HR software world is now starting to come to the party in this regards with new products being released regularly.
It is easy to disengage a new employee by not having the basics in place when they start. An onboarding process is a great way to ensure optimal engagement. Before someone starts is the ideal point to engage and ensure that the new starter feels like they’ve made the right next career move. This could be through making them feel like part of the team from the moment they accept the position, or even giving them as much information about the company and the part they will play in it so they feel like they know what they’re there to do from day one. Potential elements to be included in your onboarding process can be meet and greets with the team (or at least names/LinkedIn pages of the members); an invite to a gathering with the organisation; or the supply of videos and written material from the organisation to introduce your business and your mission.
Keeping in touch during the transition period out of their previous employer is key to ensuring that your new recruit doesn’t get tempted to take a counter offer, or even continue looking for a better opportunity. Counter offers are the worst thing for any recruiter or hiring manager, and can easily cloud the new employee’s confidence in their choice. By maintaining communication following their resignation from their previous position, you will (hopefully) get the opportunity to discuss and ward off any acceptance of counter offers if one is to occur.
Onboarding is not only a process that covers everything up to day one in the new position. The best organisations will have an onboarding process that is designed to get the new employee working at full potential as quickly as possible, increasing their Employee Lifetime Value. ‘Post-Day 1’ processes will allow the new employee to understand their role and company as soon as possible, and make them feel like they can concentrate on getting their job done quicker than if they have been left alone after being shown to their desk on the first day. These activities can include introductions to other parts of the organisation and providing them a contact point within other teams in case they ever need anything from that team. Regular and open discussions between managers and employees are a great way to ensure that the first couple of months are going smoothly for the new hire, and gives them the opportunity to bring up any troubles they’re having that might be hindering their integration into the organisation.
A thorough onboarding process is a sign of an organisation that is striving to achieve the most out of the team – not only will it increase the integration of a new employee; in time, it will reduce the amount of time and money that the organisation needs to spend hiring new people. As numerous research projects have found, a good onboarding program will reduce turnover amongst new starters. Great gains can be had from quite a low investment in an onboarding process, and as such, most organisations are starting to implement these programs so they can win the war on talent.
Aurion has recently launched Onboarding that aims to eliminate paperwork saving new hires and payroll teams time. Watch the video here, or Contact us to find out more about Onboarding as well as other Aurion solutions that make work life easy for hundreds of businesses.
