8 Easy Steps To Build a New Employee Onboarding Process

Without employee onboarding, companies lose 25 percent of all new employees within a year.
– Allied Workforce Mobility Survey (Source)

Both you and your new hires have to go through lengthy and laborious processes to hire and get hired. You have to sort through the long list of candidates and find those whose expectations align with yours. Therefore, it’s crucial that these top talents feel engaged from their first day itself.

Onboarding plans are intended to make new employees familiar with the overall goals of a company and support them as they embark on early projects all in an effort to achieve the perception of success (and productivity) quickly. – Peter Vanden Bos of Inc

What is Employee Onboarding?

Employee onboarding refers to hiring a new employee and making them familiar with the organization’s culture. Effective onboarding is all about planning and thinking from your new employee’s point of view. It is done so that new employees can understand your company culture, their daily tasks, and become contributing members to the organization. A successful onboarding starts from the hiring of your new employee until they get settled in their role.

Let’s identify the following 4 C’s to create a successful onboarding process:

Compliance- Compliance measures typically include an outline of company policies, confidentiality requirements, safety regulations, and more.

Clarification- Clarification ensures that employees understand their new job role and what is expected of them. This step is taken to define performance expectations and responsibilities for both the new hire and the manager.

Culture- Culture is a broad category that includes providing all new employees with a sense of organizational norms— both formal and informal.

Connection- Make new hires feel like they are part of the family now. In this step, employees integrate into their new team and begin contributing to the company’s vision.

Employee Onboarding and Employee Orientation are not the same.

Within orientation, all employees receive a formal introduction to the company’s mission, vision, and values. On the other hand, employee orientation-

• It usually happens in the first few weeks of hiring an employee.
• Company leaders give presentations, narrate stories, and hold question-answer sessions to bring the company culture to life.
• New hires learn about the company’s policies, the benefits they’ll get, and so on.

On the other hand, an employee onboarding process is an in-depth and thorough introduction of an individual employee.

• Successful onboarding is an ongoing and continuous process. It can go on for 90 days or even extend up to an entire year.
• The individual gets assigned to their departments, team members, mentors, and who they’ll report to.
• Orientation falls under an employee onboarding program.

How to Build a New Employee Onboarding Process?

Below we have included an onboarding checklist that will help HR managers to elevate the employee onboarding experience.

1. Hiring Process

A smooth hiring process is the first step towards a successful employee onboarding process. However, hiring and onboarding are two separate stages their edges blur. Your new hires or interviewees get an idea of your company during the hiring process, so to build a good impression, you must:

• You must write a clear and descriptive job description listing out the primary responsibilities your new hires must adhere to.
• List out the number of stages a new hire will go through while interviewing.
• Do not keep your new hires waiting for your response; follow up often.
• Interviewees deserve your undivided attention with regards and to questions and queries.
• Let them know about employee background checks and reference details.

2. Handing Out Offer Letter

Blatantly giving out a job offer without follow-ups seems rude and unprofessional. There needs to be proper planning to hand out offers and intimating start dates for new hires. For a seamless process, you must-

• Instead of email confirmation, opt for a phone call as they are more personal and offer better communication. Check for your new employees’ availability, let them know they are selected, set a date for salary negotiations, and offer letter acceptance.
• New employees expect courteous behavior during salary negotiations. Be flexible enough to understand their commitments and accordingly decide on the remunerations. A well conducted salary negotiation garners respect and encourages advocacy.
• After all negotiations and mutual consensus, it’s time you give away the offer letter to your new hire and let them know about their start date. Be flexible while deciding on the start date, as the new hires might have previous employers’ previous commitments.
• Let the new hire’s team know about their joining date to plan a new team member’s welcome.
• Transfer all the information about your new hire to your Human Resource Information System (HRIS). Instead of asking for their details and documents again, consider keeping a record of the details submitted and transfer them to your onboarding software.

3. One week before your new employee’s first day

Do not wait for the new employee’s start date to finish paperwork and give away the necessary office items. Set an appointment before joining and getting done with all the essential office legal work and creating office credentials and IDs. Follow these steps for a hassle-free onboarding experience-

• An Employment Agreement.
• A Non-Disclosure Agreement.
• An Employee Invention Agreement.
• An Employee Handbook.
• IRS form W-4.
• IRS form I-9.
• A direct deposit form

Set up your new employee’s online accounts, which includes-

• Company email
• Company instant message (Slack,Skype, etc.)
• Company HRIS software
• Software login credentials

Provide them with necessary tech equipment

• A laptop
• A phone
• A mouse
• A Headset

Other requirements

• Confirm their phone numbers
• Get their Company ID and Nameplates ready.
• Schedule introductory meetings with new employee’s team members
• Plan for a welcome lunch
• Think about the new hire’s first assignment
• Before the new employees can join, send them a welcome mail and company address, maps, and necessary contact details for any kind of assistance.Alternatively, you can create a digital contact card that contains all necessary information.

4. One day before your new hire’s first day

To implement a successful employee onboarding, you must make the employee feel included from the very first day. As an HR manager or a hiring manager, you must prepare their welcome one day prior. Let us show you how you can plan their welcome:

• Make sure your new hire’s desk is cleaned and sanitized.
• Set up their welcome kit that includes- A company T-shirt, company mug, welcome letter, handbook, notebook, other stationery, etc.
• Ensure the newcomer’s email IDs are set up for them to receive regular meeting invites.
• Let the respective teams and managers know about the new employee’s joining.
• Send a warm and well-crafted welcome letter to new employees with all the necessary information attached.

5. First Day of your new employee

It’s time to welcome your new employee and make them feel comfortable. Employee engagement starts from the first day, and if you’ve diligently followed the previous processes, we will tell you the onward process for your newcomer’s onboarding.

• Ensure your new hires are not left alone when they enter your office. Assign someone for their welcome.
• Give them an office tour from restrooms to the kitchen to meeting rooms and their desk.
• Make them aware of their schedule and office timings.
• Arrange an orientation program with their managers and HR for them to understand the product and business.
• Schedule a stipulated time for paperwork.
• If you’ve arranged lunch, accompany them with their team members.
• Allow your new hire’s to set up their desk, laptop, and passwords.
• One-on-one meeting with the HR to help elaborate the code of conduct, leave policies, insurance, rewards and recognition program, diversity and inclusion policy, and other employee benefits.

6. During the first week of joining

By now, your new employee should get introduced to their team members and job role. Once they start adapting to your office culture and ethics, you must:
Set clear goals and objectives for the new employees to achieve their targets for the next month.

• Visualize a 3-month performance project for them to work on.
  Use the procedure of constructive criticism to give feedback on their initial tasks.
• Keep a check on them and their behavior towards other team members and vice versa to eradicate any toxic bothering.
• Mentor them and use your leadership skills to analyze their potential for them to perform best.

7. During your new employee’s first three months

90 days have passed, and by now, your employee shall get used to your work environment, teams, and leaders. After you’ve built a rapport with your new hire, in the next three months, you should:

• Keep track of their progress through regular one-on-one meetings.
• Hold an informal dib check to address immediate concerns.
• Keep giving regular feedback and appraisal opportunities.
• Reverse mentoring can help you to understand your new employees better.
• Ask them to give their feedback on your onboarding process via a questionnaire or a survey.
• Pace the workload to reduce the possibilities of stress and burnout.

8. After a year

A good onboarding process can be monumental in retaining your employees during the first year. But disengagement is highly likely to occur after the end of an employee's first year. As a result, it is critical that employers plan for their employees' future development and show them what their future at the company will look like.

Meanwhile, if you haven't already, now is the perfect time for a human resources leader to evaluate an employee's performance. If you discover that your employee is performing well both individually and as part of a larger team, you know that your onboarding process was a success.

Bottom Line

Therefore, to provide your new hires with a satisfying employee experience, you have to build a comprehensive and effective onboarding program. For your help, you can employ a successful employee onboarding software. It automates the new hire onboarding, saving day to day time and money.

How your hires feel in the initial months of joining will show in their performance and productivity. It will also impact their work ethics and most importantly, their willingness to continue at your organisation.

This article is written by Shreya Dutta who is a content writer and marketer at Vantage Circle. She is passionate about all things literature and entrepreneurship. To get in touch, reach out to editor@vantagecircle.com