Now more than ever, people join businesses that they believe in – identifying with the core values, vision and culture.
Most organisations understand the value of a good recruitment process to get the perfect candidate, but then forget about the onboarding stage once a new employee is offered the job.
There’s a tonne of research out there to say onboarding shouldn’t be forgotten. Putting effort into an onboarding program reaps rewards in terms of new employee’s time to productivity, their engagement with the organisation, and therefore, employee retention.
You might not have a lot of money to invest in induction programs and onboarding software – so what are some simple, quick changes any company can make to their onboarding process?
Don’t delay on sending the formal offer
Failing to send the formal offer promptly after the verbal confirmation of a job is an avoidable rookie onboarding mistake.
There’s a couple of potential problems that can come up when you delay sending out the formal offer.
First, you’re leaving the candidate hanging after the excitement and engagement of the recruitment process potentially frustrating them as they juggle other offers, give notice and delay other interviews.
Also the chances increase that you’ll miss that candidate because another company sends them a formal offer that they sign in the meantime.
Sending the formal offer without delay is really important and not a hard process to fix.
To do this, make sure the offer pack is templated and really easy to prepare, containing tailored contract, policies and company information.
Resist sending a bunch of paperwork in the mail. Send the offer pack electronically, thereby shortening that waiting period. Make that process as easy as possible for your new employee to accept and send that offer back.
Prepare for the new starters arrival
Imagine walking in the door on Day 1 of your dream job and nothing is ready.
There’s no desk to sit at, no computer or access pass.
This poor first impression marks the start of plummeting employee engagement. New hire lost productivity is a major problem.
Take the time to invest in a new hire provisioning processing in your organisation. Look at the different job types and map out what needs to be setup for each of these types of roles.
Use task management and to-do tools (like Trello) that allow you to allocate out tasks and responsibilities.
Plan the first day
Ideally, onboarding new starters means mapping out a whole sequence of information, activities and experiences over the course of their first six months to year (what we call a Welcome Program).
But for most businesses that’s not a reality, so the bare minimum you can do is ensuring their first day is a great one.
Here’s some suggestions for the first day:
Assign the new hire a buddy. Someone who can show them the little quirks and info that’s not included anywhere else – like where the supplies are, best coffee place etc
Introduce them to the team. Building lasting relationships is key for retention, so get the new hire to meet as many people as possible in their direct orbit. Bonus points if you can intro senior leaders and the CEO.
Avoid information overload. It’s pretty overwhelming starting a new job, meeting people and being in a new environment. Don’t overwhelm people with lots of content on their first day, it’s unlikely they’ll retain it.
Improving the onboarding experience takes time, but these simple hacks will ensure your recruitment dollars are not wasted and new employees feel like they’re starting with a company that cares about their new people.
Are there any other simple onboarding hacks you’ve done? Let me know in the comments.