Employee Onboarding: Are You Doing It Right?

Is your company experiencing high turnover? Are employees leaving and you don’t know why? Do you have very few long-term employees? It may be time to take a look at your onboarding process and make some changes.

What is onboarding?

on·board·ing

noun

1. the action or process of integrating a new employee into an organization or familiarizing a new customer or client with one’s products or services.

Let’s talk about the employee onboarding process and why it is so important.

Benefits of a strong onboarding process include:

• Employee retention
• Speeds up the learning process
• More employee engagement
• Stronger company culture
• Money saved (it could take up to two times an employee’s salary to find their replacement)
• More interaction with the new employee creating a greater sense of belonging and loyalty

Onboarding a new employee is more than showing them to their desk, giving them passwords and teaching them the programs or technology they need to use.

It can look very different from one company to the next; however, there are some items that are the same across the board. There is the typical paperwork that needs to be filled out, a tour of the office or workplace, instructions given, introductions to co-workers, a rundown of basic job duties and more. But it doesn’t stop there.

Onboarding should be an ongoing process and how companies approach this process can make all the difference for a new employee and their first impression.

Do you give the new employee all the paperwork at once along with overloading them with new information? Do you go over the handbook and benefits explaining the most important items and become a resource to answer questions? Do you train or have someone designated to coach the new employee, or is it a “figure it out as you go” kind of expectation? Do you discuss company structure, values and culture, or is the new employee left to find out for themselves?

In a recent study done by Gallup, Inc., the polling company found that “Only 12% of employees strongly agree their organization does a great job of onboarding new employees.”

At Kinetic, our motto is “Every Day Greater,” and we really take that to heart. We are always looking for ways to improve and grow. Here are some things we have done to improve our employee onboarding process.

• Created a simplified document explaining our benefits with examples to provide a quick reference as well as all the detailed documents.
• Review all paperwork and benefits with the new employee and highlight the more important items in the employee handbook. We then give the employee time to digest all of the information and let them come back with questions or concerns.
• Take time to go over the structure of our company as well as our company culture.
• Welcome new employees to sit in on meetings with other account directors and project managers to watch and learn.
• Have a new employee lunch where we spend time together as a team getting to know our newest teammate.
• Check-in between 3-6 months with an evaluation and opportunity to give feedback to the employee and receive feedback from the new team member.
• Create a Job Opportunity Agreement (JOA) with roles, goals and expectations of both the employee and the supervisor.
• Continue to look for additional training and opportunities for a new employee to learn and grow.

Onboarding isn’t done in a day. It is an ongoing process to fully engage your new employee to help them reach their fullest potential. What can you do to make onboarding a strength in your company?