If you want to check that onboarding is working well in your company, or implement it from the very beginning, start by focusing on the following five areas as recommended by hrdive.com.
1. Goals
Every business programme must be based on a clear goal. First, make sure you know what you want to achieve through onboarding. It will probably be something like making new employees feel part of your company right from day one. You will also probably want to show them how they can contribute to meeting corporate goals and offer support to help them know what to do and enjoy carrying out their work.
The most common onboarding mistakes include inadequate communication and recognition. You also need to beware of overloading newbies with too much information at once, rather like throwing them in at the deep end so they have to learn how to swim themselves.
2. Strategy
The onboarding process consists of four basic parts:
- basic company orientation (company strategy, practical information on the day-to-day operation of the company)
- preparation for work (methods of work, shadowing, mentoring)
- getting to know key people (short meetings to become acquainted with the key people)
- sources of information about where to seek help (who to turn to, how to help oneself)
Onboarding may take two weeks or even a whole year.
3. Personal approach
The company must also decide which part of its onboarding will be the same for everyone and which tailored to each individual. An individual approach is appropriate at the level of departments or teams where new employees should be welcomed and assigned to new colleagues to learn from, as well as invited to personal meetings or joint meals.
4. Corporate culture
New employees should be familiarised with the corporate culture before they start working for you, e.g. during the recruitment phase. What they learn at this stage, however, should correspond to the experience that will follow their start at the company. Your goal is not to show that you are perfect, but to choose new employees who best suit you.
5. Measuring success
How can you know if your onboarding strategy is working? You need to set metrics to follow. Performance measurement is advisable, namely measuring how long it takes a new employee to reach the performance of the average worker in a given position. In addition, you can measure the fluctuation rate of employees leaving you in less than one year. You can also obtain useful data from exit interviews. But note: starting to collect feedback when a new employee is leaving is, of course, too late.
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