Discover the processes behind implementing a successful onboarding

Onboarding turns your newly hired employees into up-and-coming talent for the company from day one on the job. But do you know how to onboard a new employee? This process is designed to welcome, familiarize and prepare new employees to reach their full potential as quickly as possible.

The arrival of new employees within a company is one of the most important moments for organizations and for everyone involved. This is because a successful introduction will be critical for new workers to understand how processes work and help them adapt more quickly.

What is the onboarding process?

The onboarding process consists in a series of actions organized by companies for newly-hired employees to be welcomed and integrated among colleagues and the working environment.

This process is made up of several tasks that involve all areas, with an emphasis on the company’s personnel department – and typically makes use of a wide range of tools to facilitate activities, which can include a diagram creator.

It’s important to understand that this process goes beyond the first week of contact with new employees. Their integration and onboarding starts from the day the hiring announcement is made, and continues until they are established in their role.

The bureaucratic side of hiring, from requesting documents to signing contracts, is a common step in any company, whether or not the onboarding process is implemented in its culture.

Implementing a series of steps in this process as early as possible is essential to help each new member get started. Companies with a comprehensive onboarding process tend to retain talent for longer, while contributing to a healthier organizational climate.

How important is the integration of new employees?

Once a professional is hired, they need to be inserted  into the company’s routine and made to feel integrated. This contributes to a positive organizational climate and reduces the turnover of new hires, so it should be one of the major concerns of HR management.

Onboarding offers several benefits for both the company and the employee. Here are some of the main ones:

1 – Talent retention: attracting and retaining high-performing talent should be a priority for any company, but it is not an easy task.

Offering attractive benefits and salaries is one thing, but defining abstract elements like a good relationship with managers, or alignment with organizational values, is more complicated.

Establishing a strategy is key here; after all, these are the attributes that will make candidates inclined to favor one institution over the other.

Onboarding creates a solid foundation for the intangible characteristics that differentiate an organization’s culture, which can then be used to attract and retain talented professionals.

2 – Increased engagement: when compared to one another, the values ​​and culture of each company are quite different.

The most relevant point is the candidate’s engagement, and whether they feel ready as soon as they begin performing their activities. Integrating new professionals into the onboarding program makes it easier for companies to stimulate engagement and keep them in the role for longer.

3 – Business growth: engagement and motivation are the main goals of any onboarding action. However, in addition to these visible benefits, onboarding can contribute to the organizational culture and strengthens relationships in the work environment.

Professionals who are highly involved with their business goals are much more productive, and profitable, than those who aren’t.

4 – Alignment with proposals: onboarding educates new employees about organizational measures, often meeting with leadership in order to receive direct instructions on how to act to avoid common initial mistakes, and carry out the relevant tasks for their roles in a more agile way.

The advantages of applying the onboarding process

In addition to maintaining focus on retaining employees and talents within your organization, the onboarding process leads to other advantages, such as:

• Employees being better prepared for the company’s routine;
• Understanding the company culture before starting their tasks;
• Promoting a healthy organizational culture;
• Employees being extra-motivated to play their part;
• Aligning expectations between company and employee;
• Decrease in turnover;
• Better integration between new and older employees.

Step-by-step guide for implementing an efficient onboarding process

1 – Be clear during the hiring process: important information such as salary, benefits, probation period and start date should be clearly specified at the time of hiring preferably via email.

To ensure a smooth integration, schedule the new employee’s start date on a Monday – you’ll then have an uninterrupted period of one week to invest in their insertion into the company’s culture and values.

2 – Prepare for their arrival: let new employees see that they are expected, by leaving everything planned for their arrival at the company. It is essential that they feel valued and socially integrated.

In the days before they are due to start , send a message or email that lets them know how anxious and happy the company is to have them as a member of the team.

The team should also be prepared to welcome their new colleague, so consider sending them an email to introduce the employee who is about to arrive. Tell them a little about their profile, so that current employees are familiar with the new member before they begin their professional journey in the company.

Make sure to plan in advance the training to be applied during the trial period and carry out a survey of all sectors, so that all relevant content is appropriately updated.

3 – Create an event or meeting to welcome the new employee: Set a date with other departments and invite members of your team to introduce themselves to the new hire.

This is the time to tell the employee everything they need to know about the company. Even if they already have some information, take advantage of this initial contact to explore the history of the company, its values, its founders and its objectives for the future in further detail.

You may also wish to go over timelines and the general structure of the company together, in order to help them to better understand their new place of work. This overview will make your hire understand exactly which sectors or employees they can address to resolve an issue, or seek information.

4 – Introduce the work area: within this process of integrating new hires, consider not just the company as a whole, but also the sector in which they will work.

At this stage, Human Resources and the manager responsible for this new hire’s team should work together to pass on all relevant information about this team, its challenges, specificities, goals and projects.

5 – Apply personalized training: every company and sector needs specific basic knowledge to carry out its activities. But word-of-mouth is no  guarantee of rapid content absorption or return on investment.

To ensure training is effective, invest in the individual monitoring of each hired professional’s needs. Depending on their previous experience, they may find certain activities to be easy or difficult, and this can be identified and solved through training.

Provide extra training in certain areas where necessary to eliminate difficulties, and encourage new employees to be as open as possible about their learning needs.

Knowing how to onboard a new employee is important for achieving the result expected by every company which takes on new employees – namely, the satisfaction of joining a team and doing a good job.