What’s the first thing new hire look for in an office? A new laptop, a cabin or something fancy. No, what they prefer is a seamless onboarding experience that helps them get settled into the office.
Most companies overlook this process as they get exhausted from the time-taking hiring process. It is the first mistake an employer can make, leaving the new employee on their own. Therefore, putting effort into the onboarding process helps increase the performance of the employees and perform well for the company.
Let us first quickly understand what gets the onboarding process.
The onboarding process is more than signing on papers for the new hire. It is about planning activities to help the new hire settle down. Onboarding starts with the hiring process, and when you do it right, it can do wonders for your employees.
Ways to overcome the onboarding process
#1. Send Some Merchandise
Sending some good old-fashioned company-branded merchandise is a simple way to improve the employee onboarding experience. While it may seem cheesy, having a branded water bottle, notepad, pen, or hoodie to make someone feel like part of the family is a nice touch.
It is especially true when working from home, where the office environment's identity isn't present to set the tone. With a full-on welcome pack, you can turn the sending of merchandise into a personalised experience if you are creative. A handwritten note from the new employee's line manager or even a senior leader within your organisation gets included.
It is a small detail like that that can make a big difference in a new employee's onboarding experience in just a few minutes.
#2. Assign a Buddy
While it is not a groundbreaking new employee onboarding concept, it is all too easy for businesses to get wrong. Assigning a buddy is a great way to give a new starter someone to talk to who is not in their direct chain of command.
You should try to pair your new starter with a buddy who is as similar to them as possible. This is so they can connect and be honest with one another in a way that is more informal and honest than a direct team member's relationship.
Remember that a buddy shouldn't be on the same team as you and shouldn't be any higher or lower in rank than you. If you get that wrong, it creates barriers to open the conversation by making people afraid of being judged incompetent or asking "silly questions."
When working remotely, friends are just as important, if not more so, because some of the day-to-day camaraderie’s of the office environment can be more difficult to maintain.
3. Create An Onboarding Plan
Having an onboarding plan is necessary for the seamless integration of employees. A lot of companies mostly fail their onboarding process because of not having a proper onboarding plan.
Instead, they rely on new things as picking things up, and they don’t provide the structure to help employees work seamlessly.
Onboarding plans' purpose is to provide new hires with everything they require to do their job effectively. It can include a presentation about the company culture, making employees familiar with the goals. Here are some steps to keep in mind before creating an onboarding plan:
- Determine effective ways to teach them
- Lookout what employees need to know
- Include social integration
- Plan for regular check-ins
#4. Social Activities
The main reason for working is getting to know people, and the ideal way to know teammates is away from the desks. A welcome via social media is a proven way to meet people in a completely relaxed way.
Here the welcome socially doesn’t mean going out for a party. It means taking part in various activities for employee engagement. The talent acquisition head needs to implement the activities via the general channel of communication. It could be a quiz or a guess 2-3 qualities about the new hire. The possibilities are endless.
5. Use Gamification Onboarding
Many employees tend to leave within the first six months of joining. The reasons could be lack of fun at work or training. So, to overcome this problem, one needs to use gamification. One of the ways gamification gets used is with rewards and incentives in an onboarding process.
You can use a variety of reward programmes in your onboarding programmes. At the end of the onboarding programme, a common strategy is to award certificates. Employees may not be motivated to work harder during the onboarding stage if they get rewarded for completing a learning program. However, rewarding employees throughout the onboarding process is effective.
It gets accomplished by awarding points and badges for completing assessments and tasks as part of the onboarding programme.
Conclusion
A lot of organizations put plenty of effort into the hiring process that they forget the most important thing which is onboarding. Companies often have one chance to make it seamless for the candidates and the onboarding process is the way to go.
You can opt for fun ways to make a great experience for the new hires. The options are endless, you can opt for fun activities for onboarding or using leaderboards to make traction among the new hires. There is no excuse for not making your new joiners feel at home.
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