Onboarding new employees is more important than ever in 2024. With how popular hybrid, remote, and flexible working has been in recent years, a good onboarding experience is essential to integrating a new hire smoothly. A poor one, however, is possibly the quickest way to run an employee out of your company.
A recent study from Zippa found that 23% of employees who quit within 6 months say that clear guidelines on their responsibilities would have helped them stay at the job. This statistic alone shows how vital adopting a strong onboarding process is.
Benefits of a Strong Onboarding Process
Providing an early clarification of company expectations, job responsibilities, and organisational norms is a great way to increase retention and engagement. Making new hires feel welcomed and engaged will not only benefit their teams but also the company culture.
Businesses will also see strong upsides from a good onboarding process. Organisations will be able to address skill gaps as well as identify and solve common frustrations through discovering employee preferences. On top of this, companies will keep teams happy as they won’t constantly be understaffed and covering extra work.
Finding a Healthy Balance
Throwing new hires in at the deep end may sound effective, but in reality, employees are left feeling isolated. If employees aren’t sure who to ask or which manager they actually report to it can of course lead to a stressful and frustrating experience.
Alternatively, employees aren’t toddlers and shouldn’t need their hand held throughout everything or read every word of every company policy. Few things will dampen enthusiasm for the job than an overload of unnecessary paperwork!
Like many things in life, a streamlined onboarding process relies on a healthy balance. Bombarding employees with excess information is about as helpful as providing them with nothing at all.
How to Succeed in Onboarding
The most important onboarding processes are gradual as new hires can build on the prior knowledge that they’ve assimilated. Covering the basics first, prioritizing clarity, having a human approach, and avoiding organisational jargon are great ways to create a smooth process.
It is important to understand that preparation and setting early, manageable goals are key. “Winging it” will often lead to confused and perhaps even frustrated new hires.
Some tips on how best to integrate new hires are to schedule informal team lunches, entry interviews, running a buddy program, or even a personalized welcome video.
A Final Thought
A bad onboarding process can bring about feelings of exclusion, apprehension, and inadequacy. An effective one however, is crucial for retention and engagement purposes. Implementing onboarding strategies that leave new hires feeling informed without being overwhelmed can ensure employees have space, time, and mental resources available to learn and thrive in their new job. If not, they may fall short in the process.
