Congratulations! You’ve extended a job offer to a candidate and they’ve accepted! The hard part is over, right? Not exactly. After the recruiting comes onboarding. If you’re not sure how well your company is welcoming new recruits, it might be time to ask the question. According to Business News Daily, underwhelming onboarding has some big consequences, “16% of HR managers said it lowers their company’s productivity, 14% said it brings on greater inefficiencies and 12% said it leads to higher employee turnover.” You might be thinking, “I don’t really have control over how the company is leading onboarding,” but there are five things you can do as a manager to welcome an employee to your team, and hopefully add to or support anything that’s being led on a company level.
Give the new hire a schedule
In larger organizations, human resources oftentimes sends a new hire their “first week” schedule complete with orientation times, pre-scheduled meetings with management and human resources, and doesn’t leave much guesswork for the new hire in terms of where they’ll need to be, and what their first week will entail.
According to Process.st, “Onboarding programs can increase retention by 25% and improve employee performance by 11%.” -Even if your company doesn’t have a formalized onboarding process, that doesn’t mean you can’t create one for your own department.
In smaller organizations, lots of managers have the first day planned out, but the planning doesn’t extend much beyond that. If you can communicate to new hires before they walk in for their first day about things like what they’ll need to bring, parking/ transit instructions, dress code, and start time, that is a good start. If you can go a little more in depth to break up their week into blocks of time with explanations of how they’ll be spending their time, that will allow the new hire to prepare and ask questions. It will also make them feel like you’ve thought and planned for their arrival and want to set them up for success.
Have their space ready
There are fewer things less welcoming than bringing a new hire to an area that still has the old occupant’s name badge in place, or their old files, or worse it hasn’t been cleaned and looks like it was abandoned a year ago in a rush. Here is a handy checklist from workful.com that will give you a nice rundown of all the items you could have prepared and in a new hire’s welcome kit for their first day.
Carve out time
Onboarding and training are generally time consuming, we know. But an investment in time, effort and energy now should pay off later. In order to get your new hire through those very critical first 90 days, he or she will need face time with you and the colleagues that will be depending on your new hire’s success. Make sure your team members know what they’re supposed to cover with the new hire while they’re spending time together. If you have natural born trainers that like their jobs, pick these individuals to lead the training of the new hire on their critical job functions, not just the employee with the most seniority.
Also, carve out time at the end of each day to check in with your new hire and get meaningful feedback. Don’t just ask the surface-y question, “So did everything go well today?” Instead ask things like, “What are you feeling most comfortable with (software, hardware, personalities, environment)?” “What questions do you have? There are no stupid questions.” “What do you think is going to stretch you outside of your comfort zone?” By asking meaningful questions, you’ll get meaningful answers. It should also give you the opportunity to tweak the schedule for the rest of the week to spend time with people who can get the new hire more comfortable with some of the things causing initial anxiety or discomfort.
Meet other recent new hires
Make sure your most recent hire gets an opportunity to spend time with other recent hires. There should be some comraderie built between them almost instantly because your new hire may ask the recent hires things that he or she wouldn’t ask a more seasoned employee. Additionally, other new hires can talk about their challenges as being the “newbie,” and that will likely help your new hire feel more included instead of being the one on the outside looking in.
Get Social
Build in some social team bonding time outside the office. Whether it’s a team lunch off site or a post work happy hour, give your new hire the chance to get to know their new co-workers outside the work environment. According to a study by WorkPlaceTrends.com, “60% of workers would be more inclined to stay with their employer if they had more friends at work.” So give your team the chance to like each other for more reasons than how good they are at responding to emails, or giving presentations, give them chances to get to know each other beyond their professional skills.
The good news? You can change your onboarding process right now! You don’t have to do what you’ve always done and get what you’ve always gotten. Put a couple of these suggestions to work with your next new hire, and you’ll be more likely not to have to replace your latest hire because they quit in the first six months. Happy onboarding!