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Onboarding refers to the process of integrating new employees into your company, preparing them to succeed at their jobs, and setting up strategies for new employees to become fully engaged and productive. Benefits of Onboarding: Drives productivity Significantly improves talent retention Builds shared culture Reduces anxiety Employees feel welcomed, valued and prepared to contribute Develops realistic job expectations, positive attitudes and job satisfaction Avoid experiences that evoke: Confusion Frustration Overload Annoyance Anxiety Insecurity Disappointment Regret Design the new employee experience to feel: Welcomed Comfortable Secure (as in I know if I have a question, I know where to get the answer, and I know enough to not feel in the dark. ) Valued Important Proud Excited Confident When creating or reviewing your current orientation process, envision the experience your new employees will have as they get acquainted with your company. What experiences will your employees have with the orientation process? How welcome will your new hires feel? How are they introduced to their team members and the company as a whole?
Do you make your new hires feel welcome? If your new employees feel like a number, they will act that way. Do you inspire pride? Talk about your company s mission and what that means in everyday work life. Share stories of the company s practices, events, and values that illustrate what makes your organization great. Do you help new hires see the BIG picture? Explain how the company works and how the various parts work together to make the company function well. Do you show how employees matter? Employees want to know their work matters to help create greatness for the company. Tapping into the human drive to matter is one of the most powerful ways to engage employees. Do you make your orientation program interesting and interactive? Making orientation more interactive not only makes learning more enjoyable but it mirrors how humans learn. Do you help your supervisors/ managers do their part well? It is well documented in various surveys and Gallup research that employees supervisors play the most significant role in employees performance, engagement, and morale. Provide your supervisors/ managers training and guidance to support employees onboarding experience. Do not assume they will know how to do it on their own. Onboarding is the process of Aligning, Acquiring, Accommodating, Assimilating and Accelerating new team members. For onboarding to be successful, a company must plan this process before engaging new employees and align positions within the overall company.
ALIGN Make sure your organization agrees on the need for new team members. If there is disagreement, try to resolve before hiring. New employees can receive negative support from the staff who did not want to hire. Review and define job duties and outcomes so you clearly understand the roles you seek to fill. Inform your team of the positions to be hired. Usually the hiring manager owns the Onboarding of new team members. TIP: If existing positions, review job duties to update for efficiencies and lean thinking. What can be streamlined before new employees start? ACQUIRE Contact Humanix for your recruiting needs. Humanix is the recruiting center where everyone s employment goals come together. We re experts at connecting businesses with valuable people resources to quickly fill any position or workload need. Whether temporary or permanent, our placements are successful the first time, every time, or we make it right. We also maintain a network of consultants and contractors who offer advanced knowledge and expertise in areas that help businesses grow without adding permanent labor costs. Meeting everyone s highest expectations is our goal, no matter what the job. Humanix works hard for you. We will identify, recruit, select the top talent candidates to interview for your teams. Our recruiting will incorporate key messages about the position and your organization. We will convey real-life experiences of your current employees, as well as the way the organization values its workers. Help you make the right offer and close the hiring deal, the right way. TIP: Humanix employees are guaranteed! Hiring the right talent is a huge investment of both time and money. Call Humanix, save your time, and make a guaranteed investment with your hiring dollars.
ACCOMMODATE / ORIENTATION Now that your new employees have been hired, focus on their orientation and assure they receive the training and tools they need to do their work. Break the orientation into bite sized chunks. Complete hiring documents prior to employees start date (I-9, W-4, Background and Drug Screening) and communicate company s benefits. Continual connection with employees within the first 100 days. Make the orientation to your company fun, interesting, and as painless as possible. New employees will feel valued, wanted, and want to do great work and add great value to your company. Go over the employees orientation plan, training schedules, and provide a copy to employees. Don t make new employees learn The Hard Way. Every workplace comes with its own set of rules and regulations, nuances, and traditions. So for example, if your company has a Casual Friday rule, make sure you inform your new employees before they show up to work on that first Friday. Schedule meetings and introductions to ensure fast integration and connectedness. TIPS: Send an agenda to new employees with the offer letter so the employees know what to expect. Stay in touch after they have accepted the position to answer questions. A phone call from direct supervisors to new employees prior to starting to welcome them and let them know you look forward to working together. Post new employee orientation schedules, materials, benefit forms, and FAQ about the company on an intranet that is accessible to new hires from a link in a welcome email before their first day on the job. Computers, email, security, business cards, and other essentials items are in place before the new employees start. Include a who s who with photos and titles of your company. Use company s intranet or simple bulletin board. Welcome email from President and look forward to meeting you. Rather then reading through a large 3-ring binder of information, employees gather information on the company s intranet searching for information such as career development plans, the training calendar, and important numbers. Interview employees who have been with your organization from a month to a year and ask them for feedback and suggestions for improvements in your orientation. Ask them what information they would have appreciated getting, but didn t. Find out what information is easy to access and what is not.
ASSIMILATE Go beyond the orientation process and examine the different aspects of the job experience, the company s culture, and the managerial practices to see if they contribute to new employees having a This is a great place to work! experience. Help new employees join with others so they can work together. Have other departments present information so employees learn how the business works. Show workers the link between their actions and the company s success. Explain from the outset the importance of their contribution and give examples of how employees make valuable contributions. Start your orientation with What you will be doing here matters tremendously, and let the company rules, policies and technical aspects of their jobs follow. New hires get the message from the beginning: To our customers, you ARE the company what you do matters a lot. Provide easy access to information, forms, and processes. TIPS: Have team members join new employees for lunch. Create a ME File where employees are encouraged to fill their file with thank you notes from customers, appreciation notes from supervisors and co-workers, and learning experiences they ve received. This not only communicates You Matter and You are the voice of the company to new hires, it also communicates, We notice and celebrate excellence. Conduct Entrance Interviews at the 90-day mark How is your job going? Any surprises? Is it what you expected when hired? Do you have all the work tools you need? How is your relationship with your supervisor? Was the New Employee Orientation helpful? What would you do differently? Do you visit our company s intranet to find information? Anything you need that you don t have access to?
ACCELERATE This is the real value of Onboarding in that you get new team members up to speed and delivering results faster. Supervisors and co-workers offer their assistance and convey to employees they want them to succeed. Assign a mentor or buddy, to show employees around and make introductions. The mentoring relationships should continue for at least 90 days. QUOTES: One of the things I appreciate most about the department in which I work is that the Senior Reps not only offered their assistance, but I feel like they genuinely want me to succeed. I can go to any of them with a question, at anytime. In addition, if I haven t called/contacted them with a question in a while, they actually come by desk, just to check on me, and see how I m doing, if there s anything they can help me with, etc. It s a very supportive environment. MORE TIPS: Welcome goodie bags with company promo items (pens, shirt, water bottle, etc). Create a poster with welcoming messages from the supervisor and team members. Scavenger Hunt & Tour on employees first day of orientation. Create a list of items, people to locate, and a map for new hires to search the facility for said items and individuals. Game Show by creating teams of new employees who receive company information and then are quizzed by a facilitator/game show host. The first team to buzz in and answer correctly receives points; the team with the most points win. Rather than overloading employees with information they won t remember the next day provide them information weeks or months later when they need it; teach them how to access the information on their own. Provide employees with a user-friendly, easy-access medium for finding information they need. This also helps reduce the anxiety about not knowing everything. Keep your employee manuals online. Just as a company s intranet helps new employees access information just when they need it, so does having a mentor. When we know it will be easy to find answers, we re not as concerned about what we don t know. Also for the employees, fears of looking dumb or appearing to be high maintenance by their boss, are overcome by having an alternative source for information.
Onboarding is an investment in: Employee productivity Employee retention Employee morale STATS: A survey done at Corning Glass Works: employees who attended a structured orientation program were 69% more likely to remain with the company after three years than those who did not go through the same program. 90% of employees decide within the first six month on the job whether they will stay at an organization or look for a new position. SOURCES Workforce Management Onboarding for Greater Engagement HumanRources.com Employee Orientation Keeping New Employees on Board Successful Onboarding David Lee, Principal HumanNature@Work How to Get Your New Employees Started Off Right Onboarding Wikipedia About.Com Human Resources Employee Onboarding: One Chance for a Positive New Employee Experience Getting On Board Booz Allen Hamilton
Effectiveness of our current employee orientation / Onboarding process Please rate our company s Onboarding process in these five key areas. Place a in the box that most closely describes our company s current orientation experience. We appreciate your input! Making new employees feel welcome Excellent Very Good Good Fair Very Poor Unable to Rate Connecting new hires to others quickly and proactively Excellent Very Good Good Fair Very Poor Unable to Rate Making it easy for new hires to ask for and find the resources they need Excellent Very Good Good Fair Very Poor Unable to Rate Proactively assisting new employees to be productive quickly Excellent Very Good Good Fair Very Poor Unable to Rate Showing workers the link between their actions and the company s Success Excellent Very Good Good Fair Very Poor Unable to Rate