Starting a new job might not be quite as daunting as your first day at school, but it can feel pretty similar. New team members need to get grips with unfamiliar software, learn their roles, connect with colleagues, and integrate themselves into the culture of their new workplace. All at the same time.
It is tricky enough when a new hire joins a site-based team. But with offices increasingly moving hybrid and remote working, there are even more challenges to consider when it comes to getting your latest team members up to speed.
Whether based in the office or working from home, new hires need proper support in the early months to help them settle in and become happy, productive members of the team. A well-thought-through and structured onboarding process can make all the difference.
According to research by Brandon Hall, a great onboarding process is vital to keeping employees for the long term. They discovered organizations that invest in onboarding in the first weeks and months see an 82% improvement in staff retention and increase their productivity by 70%.
Unfortunately, many companies simply aren’t getting the onboarding process right. Survey data published by Gallup shows that only 12% of employees strongly agree that their company offers a great onboarding experience.
Although the onboarding process may fall mainly under the responsibility of HR, managers and other colleagues need to get involved too. If you are welcoming new members to your team, these tips should help you create an effective onboarding experience to smooth their first month with your company.
1. Get the Practicalities Out of the Way Early
For many of us, the first day with a new organization is filled with paperwork and other admin. Although a necessary part of starting a job, these practicalities aren’t part of the onboarding process. They should be thought of as orientation instead of onboarding.
Many of these tasks can take place in the week or two before the new hire starts their role. Ask new starters to complete as much paperwork as possible electronically before their first day. This frees up time for them to meet their new colleagues and start to learn about the company’s working culture.
Emails, logins, and workspaces should also be set up and ready for your employee before they start, so they can jump in right away. With these practicalities out of the way, their first few days will go much more smoothly.
2. Send a Welcome Email (or Two)
When you’ve found a great new hire, you want them to feel excited about their new role with your organization. Sending a welcome email or two before their first day helps to get the relationship off to the right start.
Your first welcome email might go out a couple of weeks before your hire is due to start with you. As well as sending them all the paperwork they need to fill out, you might give them access to your employee handbook, induction portal, or internal wiki so that they can begin to learn more about your company’s culture and what is expected of them.
The second welcome email should go out the week before they join and should give them all the practical information they’ll need on their first day. Where to go, who they’ll be meeting, when you are expecting them, a schedule for their first day, etc.
Information like the office dress code, arrangements for lunch breaks, and whether refreshments like tea and coffee are available in the office are also useful to include and will help your employee feel at ease.
Don’t limit your emails to just basics though. You chose this person for a reason, so make sure it is clear from the tone of your email that you are excited to welcome them to the team. These first contacts may be the first impressions your new employee has of you as their leader. Make sure to set the tone and paradigm you want to convey, as these will last well into the future.
3. Plan Social Opportunities
A well-bonded and cohesive team is vital to strong performance, so the sooner a new hire feels like part of the group, the happier and more productive they will be.
If you have established social opportunities, like team lunches, informal Zoom chats, or regular coffee breaks, make sure you involve your new colleague from the start. If you’ll be their direct manager, taking them out to lunch on the first day is often a good idea to make them feel welcome. During this lunch, try to get to know them, learn a bit about them, and paint the vision you have for their future at the company. It will pay dividends later on.
Creating social meetups is particularly important (and challenging) when onboarding remote colleagues. If your entire hiring process has also been online, it might be some time before you meet them face-to-face, which means you’ll need to be very intentional about integrating them with their colleagues.
We have some tips on keeping teams connected when working remotely that will help.
As well as these informal socializing opportunities, new hires need to get to know the people they’ll be working with most closely. Setting up short one-to-one meetings with their colleagues helps them put faces to names, learn who does what in the company, and begin to build strong working relationships.
4. Assign a Buddy or Mentor
Although a new hire will have formal support from HR and their leader, having a nominated peer to act as a buddy or a mentor gives them an additional person to go to with questions about the specifics of their role and the company culture.
Ideally, this will be someone who does the same role or is at least at a similar level within the same team. Instead of being in a position of authority, the buddy or mentor is there as a peer to answer questions the new hire might not want to bring to someone higher up.
Depending on the structure of your organization, you might want both a buddy and a mentor, or one or the other. A buddy is someone who is there to answer questions like where the kitchen is and who deals with purchase orders. A mentor has a more formal role and will support the person as they get used to their new responsibilities. In some cases, a buddy may also be a mentor as well.
5. Make Training a Collaborative Process
During their first few months, your new hire will need to get to grips with everything from existing processes and procedures to software and other tools. Training is vital to get them up to speed. According to a survey by BambooHR, 76% of new starters want on-the-job training.
However, there’s a fine balance to strike between giving people the training they need as soon as possible and overwhelming them with too much information. Finding that balance will depend on the person’s existing knowledge and skills, so it is best to design the exact training plan in collaboration with the new hire during their first week.
Extending the onboarding process beyond the first month takes some of the pressure off. If they know they’ll continue to be supported with training and other resources throughout their first year, your new team member can take the time they need to build their skills and knowledge properly.
Ideally, offer training resources in a variety of formats. Everyone has their own unique learning style. Having access to different training options can help them get up to speed more easily. An online learning portal is useful for people to work through at their own pace, but some will also want to talk through certain tasks with a human being.
6. Schedule Regular Check-Ins
When you welcome a new employee, you should expect to schedule more regular “keep-in-touch” meetings than you do with your established team members. Setting aside time to check in with their progress and identify any gaps in their training or possible concerns means you’ll catch any issues early. These meetings go beyond the regular informal touch bases (i.e. “seeing how things are going”) leaders should do will all team members.
Regular more formal meetings also reassure your new hire that they have your support and give them the opportunity to ask questions and share ideas. At the end of their first month, you’ll want to make this a more formal time to review progress so far and get feedback. Then additional check-ins should be scheduled for three and six months at the minimum to maintain momentum.
But not every check-in needs to be (or should be) a full performance review. You can also agree on short, informal calls or meetings every week or so to make sure everything is going smoothly, and that the new team member is getting settled in.
7. Put Managers in the Driving Seat
The HR team has a vital role to play in designing effective onboarding programs. But research from BambooHR shows that the majority of people want their direct line manager to be the one who actually shows them the ropes.
Since they’ll be working closely with the new hire, it is essential that managers start to build a great relationship with them from the start. Taking an active role in the onboarding process shows their interest and support in their new team member.
8. Focus on Development from the Outset
Onboarding is often a “hit or miss” experience. This is one of the primary reasons many hires feel like their onboarding was lacking – and why managers often feel the new hire fails to live up to their expectations. The key to success is in quality development. Beyond training on the “essentials”, development is what takes your new team member to the next level of performance.
Development must be tailored to the individual – what strengths they can leverage and what blind spots they may need to avoid. Assessments help to reveal and give insight into these areas. By collecting actionable data on the individual, you can see “who they are” in the new role, and fast track their onboarding experience. Plus, combined with data about their new team, assessment data helps to strategically and reliably align the hire with their new colleagues.
Many costly missteps can be avoided from the start by having a clear understanding of who you hired and where to focus development efforts. Without clear data, many managers are working in the dark. And that’s not just a waste of manager time. It also leads to many issues down the line that hurt individual performance, create team challenges, and cause disengagement and attrition. That’s why it’s important to focus on development (and have impartial assessment data) from the outset.
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The first month at a new job helps to set the tone for the rest of an employee’s time with your company. Getting the onboarding process right in those early weeks makes a huge difference to retention and productivity.
However, onboarding shouldn’t be limited to just one month. These tips will start you off on the right foot, but the best onboarding programs extend across the first six months, or even the first full year.