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Onboarding Strategies for New Hires in 2023 and Beyond

While onboarding is a crucial part of new employee orientation and directly impacts engagement, retention, and employee experience, only 12% of employees feel their company needs better job onboarding strategies, with 88% reporting less-than-ideal onboarding experiences, according to a Gallup report

Once you’ve hired the right team, you must ensure they’re set up for success. Employees are most productive in their first six months of employment – but it is also where they are most likely to leave. Because of this, a formal onboarding and mentorship program is critical to helping new employees thrive well into their employment. Here are some onboarding strategies to help you best integrate now team members.

Make Sure New Employees Have Everything They Need

According to Gallup’s onboarding report, employees with a positive onboarding experience are almost three times as likely to feel prepared and supported. If new employees don’t have everything they need to complete their tasks, they may do them incorrectly or not. Make sure requisition forms are submitted for anything your new employees may need so that they feel comfortable and confident in their tasks before their first day.

In addition to the requisition forms, ensure all other paperwork is completed on or by their first day. They can achieve this even faster if you have a paperless onboarding process. If all the paperwork the employee needs to sign is prepared and ready for them on their first day, the entire process is less confusing and streamlined. A checklist of tasks and paperwork to complete for onboarding can be beneficial.

Have Available Documentation and Resources

Aside from physical items, ensure the employee has all the instructions and resources they need to complete their job. Ensure that your new employees have access to well-documented sources of information. Documents that have information like frequently asked questions, step-by-step tutorials, and reminders are essential to make sure that your employees have everything they need to do their job. Employees can go back to this information if they have any questions.

Documentation about the company’s policies and processes is also essential to have easily accessible. You may cover all of this at orientation, but employees should always have access to this information.

A packet of all the necessary information, including company policies, paperwork, company information, and a contact list, could be handy to the employees. You should provide this info on their first day.

Set up a Mentorship Program

The onboarding process should involve multiple upper-level team members, but a mentorship program is a great way to involve these team members directly.

A mentorship program is when new employees are paired with senior employees to learn about the company, ask questions, take notes, and foster a community. Mentees can build rapport with their mentors, and they will feel they have someone to fall back on if they are ever struggling with a task or confused about something that isn’t covered in your documentation.

The mentorship program is also a great reason to announce the arrival of new hires, not only to the mentors but also to any other departments or senior employees. This can help the employees feel welcome and boost morale.

Check-In and Set Goals

You should have one-on-one check-in meetings with your new hires throughout the first several months of their employment. These meetings can be used to clear up anything confusing and ensure the employee feels comfortable about their tasks and level of work.

You can also use this time to set goals with your employee. Small, easy-to-do goals can help your employee feel like they’re advancing and settling in without throwing too much on their plate.

These check-ins can happen simultaneously as performance evaluations. However, a casual face-to-face meeting can make employees feel more comfortable discussing their onboarding process and any questions.

Survey and Final Check-in

Feedback is vital for fostering an effective onboarding process and work environment. Have the new hires fill out a questionnaire that asks them questions about their orientation, if it was effective in increasing their knowledge of the company and confidence in their tasks, if they wish there were something more in onboarding, etc. This will help you improve your onboarding process for the future. You can also include questions about the company atmosphere and morale. These questionnaires should be anonymous.

The final check-in should happen after the few months of onboarding have ended. After this point, the employee can be considered a regular employee (not a new hire), and frequent check-ins can cease. Be sure to ask the employee if they have any questions or need further mentoring.

Using these onboarding strategies, you can build a well-rounded, cohesive team that feels both prepared and supported. We hope these tips help!