After the candidate goes through the recruiting process – which is quite an endeavor in and of itself – you then have to warmly welcome the new recruit and tell them all that they need to know about being a part of your company and what actually will be like working for your company.
Many new joiners want to jump right in and start working right away from their very first day. However, there are a few introductions and formalities that must be taken care of before anything else. While a lot of it may not be exciting to an eager new recruit who is gunning to get started, onboarding (or preboarding) is a very important function in any organization. The employee needs to meet his new team, get acquainted with his work area, see the entire workplace, fill out important documentation or paperwork, learn how the company actually operates in a day to day life, and be given the proper tools required to do the job. Then they can hit the ground running.
What is Onboarding?
Onboarding refers to a process in which new employees acquire the essential skills and knowledge to become effective members of the organization. Onboarding is an essential part of the recruitment process in which a candidate transforms into an employee. Formalized onboarding practices deliver proper set-up, procedural based policies, newly hired candidates training, and solicit feedback from both the new hire and hiring manager. An automated and organized mechanism for doing so will make the new candidates feel welcomed and valued. From the perspective of the new hire who would probably be feeling confused and nervous. So, a better onboarding program will help them to settle down and acquaint themselves with both the physical layout and working culture of the organization.
Creating, executing, and maintaining an efficient onboarding program takes the commitment of the entire organization. An organization that shows a commitment to their onboarding uses tactical and strategic initiatives, a structured approach, in addition to the latest technology throughout the onboarding process. These efforts pay quick results by working to protect an investment in recruiting and employing high performing candidates, helping to provide magnified revenue performance; improved client experience; and protecting organization brand reputation. Leading B2B organizations today embrace this approach, which uses online tools to enhance their onboarding program and enable new hires to hit their targets, faster.
Conversely, a poor onboarding program implies a confounded fresh recruited employee who is less inclined to stay extremely long with your organization and will probably be considerably less productive. Remote work has grown by 173 percent since 2005, 11 percent faster than the remainder of the workforce. Over half of the workforce holds an occupation that could possibly be done, from home—and employers are progressively permitting work from home to employees as COVID-19 keeps on spreading. In addition to diminishing the health risks, remote work has appeared to build productivity, decline in absenteeism, decline in turnover, and save money as well. As more managers understand these advantages, many anticipate that remote work should turn out to be progressively normal after the dust settles from COVID-19.
Importance Of Onboarding:
Reduced Employee Retention:
In a research conducted by the Wynhurst Group in the year 2007, it was found that the new employees who had a pleasant experience and a systematic onboarding process (58%) were more inclined to stay with the company for at least more than three years in comparison to those who didn’t have a good onboarding experience.
Employee onboarding is so much more than just meeting the new hire at the reception and then just skipping to “here’s your laptop, and here’s your workstation,” but actually it is a crucial transition period where you imbibe the organizational values, culture, and systems to the new recruit. It is the initial and most important step to keep the talented individuals excited, happy, and engaged for long.
Every new person who joins your organization should be set up for nothing shorter than success from the very beginning. Your employee onboarding process should not just teach the new joiners about their job role and duties, it should also draw a clear picture about the company culture and how they can contribute to the organizational growth and thrive within the company. Don’t take any shortcut in this initial process: the kind of tone you set in the onboarding, orientation and the training procedure on the day one can set the tone of the employee’s expectations in his/ her entire tenure at the organization.
Improved Employee Engagement:
Employee Engagement is much more than just a program; it involves a social shift — an improvement in how things are done and how the communication flows from the highest level to the bottom of the organization. Engagement cannot just be a two-minute activity in each meeting, where it will have a higher possibility of being ignored by the employees. It’s not a per-person activity; it is a part of an ongoing business. Also, if you think in a broader perspective, once you start your journey on strategic employee engagement, there is no finishing line, it is a continuous process, a journey without a final destination.
Employee engagement is a majorly a workplace describing the correct work conditions for all members from an organization to give of their best every day, focused on their organization’s objectives and goals, motivated to add to the overall organizational achievement, with their very own improved feeling of well-being.
Improved Employee Performance:
In research from the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM), it has been found that employee turnover during the first 18 months of an employee on the job can be as high as 50 percent. Now organizations are understanding that they must move way ahead the standard procedure followed during a new hire orientation and create an effective onboarding process. This is very critical to improve employee performance, engagement, and retention.
An effective onboarding process will help your new recruits feel more important, valued, better understand their role, and increase their work performance and productivity, this will result in increased employee engagement. The onboarding process begins as soon as the candidate accepts an offer and typically it lasts through the first year of the new recruit’s employment, at a minimum. Since onboarding is very similar to creating a strategic plan, you should begin by mapping out critical touchpoints early while creating your recruitment plan.
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