Top 5 Tips to Onboard New Hires the Right Way In 2019

A lot of conversations amongst management nowadays are targeted towards brainstorming ways to improve their onboarding processes. Challenges revolving around high employee turnover and low morales are gaining significance, and businesses are left wondering what is holding them back from building a world class team of top performers.

A pivotal piece of the puzzle that is being highlighted is room for improvement in the onboarding processes being used to help fresh joiners transition to the new environment. To help you start off 2019 with the right game plan to build momentum that will last through the year, here’s our 5 top tips to ace attract, retain and motivate talent without a hitch:

1) Make automation your strongest ally:

Manual administrative workflows and email threads between departments such as HR and IT seeking resource approvals for new joiners have historically worked, but at a pace that leaves a lot to be desired. Compromising productivity, operational efficiency, and opening doors for bottlenecks to come in way of successful onboarding- new employees are not always left with a positive impression of all the behind the scenes action they see after being hired.

This is where automation emerges as an instrumental need of the hour. Using an onboarding software solution systematically secures all approvals, information, training resources and equipment needed for the new joiner to excel at their job without redundant emails, and panic due to unnecessary delays. Having everything in place the minute your new employee walks into the door without exception is the achievement to unlock this upcoming year.

2) Personalize the onboarding experience:

With 54% greater new hire productivity up for grabs, making your new hires feel welcomed as a valuable resource is an onboarding step too many companies overlook unfortunately. Instead of simply guiding the employees to their desk, businesses should find unique ways to express their excitement by sharing a personalized gift such as a coffee mug, a company wide introduction email, handwritten note from executive management, or perhaps a branded piece of the company’s clothing item.

3) Highlight the most crucial success factors:

Every business has a different way of measuring success, and new employees should have a clear understanding of their KPIs right from the start. Mentor and help them by providing a defined set of expectations to remove need for guesswork by sharing priorities including individuals performance targets, team goals, management style, and even mobile-friendly learning resources (it’s 2019 after all) available to consistently improve their skill proficiencies.

4) Plan an interactive orientation:

Planning a fun orientation plan to give new employees a taste of their typical work week at the office can help orient them with their responsibilities, ensure fruitful team introductions, and build their knowledge of the company’s products and services. Incorporating team building activities and using short training modules (avoid overwhelming your audience) focused on the internal company systems can also be used here to improve employee onboarding effectiveness.

5) Use feedback from existing employees:

Who better to ask for advice than your own current employees regarding avenues for improvement in the onboarding process? These are the people that have personally gone through the steps, and are in the best position to identify the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities available for revamping in your onboarding strategy.

Crowd sourcing solutions to add more fun, conversation, clarity and interactive sessions are some of the ways to give your new employees an onboarding experience more impactful, engaging and efficient than the ones they may have seen in the past.

Key Takeaways:

Employee onboarding doesn’t have to be source of administrative woes or a dull set of instructions that employees need to get a get a grasp of independently. Successful onboarding should promote an inspiring company culture, dedication to automation, performance oriented environment, and deliver a memorable welcome bound to boost staff retention and commitment to business’s bottom line growth.