Effective employee onboarding is more than making the new hire feel welcome. It can help employees feel highly productive and valuable contributors to your mission and success from the start. Moreover, when employees have a successful onboarding experience, they are more likely to feel like members of your team, and this can contribute to employee retention.
Since the spread of COVID-19, the majority of employers have been forced to shut down, furlough, and layoff their workers. Some companies have had to expand the hiring effort to keep up with demand. Employers are expediting their application to the employment process. As a result, employee onboarding is being drastically reduced. The greatest challenge that comes with hiring at scale is the risk of harming the candidate-to-employee experience. In high-volume onboarding, employees are often viewed as a means to an end. They are given the bare minimum to survive, expected to adapt quickly and make as few errors as possible. A poor onboarding experience is a lose-lose scenario for both the employer and employee.
Things to note before beginning an onboarding process
Onboarding should not be confused with orientation. Orientation focuses on the routine tasks such as HR documents that must be completed to make the new hire’s employment official while onboarding focuses on helping a new hire integrate into their team, culture, and company.
Onboarding, a new hire without a plan is one of the quickest ways to lose a quality employee. When new hires are left to fend for themselves, they feel undervalued and unappreciated.
Onboarding remote workers are going to look different from onboarding in-person ones. Technology is instrumental in both cases. Having the right tools(Organimi, Kissflow, Lessonly, etc.) in place ensures efficiency and effectiveness. The more technology takes on, the more human-to-human interaction, HR and hiring managers are able to give their new employees. The key is understanding where technology fits in and where a human is required.