Effective Employee Onboarding Program

Employee onboarding is the most significant process of employee experience. Employee onboarding starts the moment candidate accepts the job offer. If you want new hires to “hit the ground running”, it’s important to reduce “first day” stress even before they start work to get new hires fully engaged with the company. As research says most of the attrition happens in the initial 60 days of the joining. A pleasant onboarding experience helps in employer branding as well.

Stages of Effective Onboarding

1. Pre-hire
2. First Day@Work
3. New hire orientation
4. New hire training
5. Performance Stage for New joiners

Key People to be part of Employee Orientation

• HR COE- Responsible for orientation program &training
• IT- Responsible for managing System/equipment
• Manager- Responsible for arranging work station
• Other stakeholders responsible for facilitating other orientations. It varies from an organization point of view. Each organization has their own policy of conducting the program.

Designing an Effective on-boarding Experience

Pre-Hire

Once an employee accepts the job offer, it is best way to send them link for all the documentation. Hence on the first day employee do not get much bothered with all paper work formalities.

Following things can be sent to an employee before an employee joins 

1. Offer letter
2. On-boarding Forms
3. Employee Handbook
4. Welcome kit
5. Legal Papers
6. Brief overview about onboarding schedule and what to expect on Day 1

Planning for the first Day

• As they have already completed paper work, they can directly jump to the orientation. Every company has different pattern of conducting orientation. Some companies gather all the new joiners and do classroom training, some of them do it through Webinar or over zoom call, some companies may conduct at different locations.
• Orientation includes a brief overview of Company culture, vision, mission, values, Organization message, Leadership Team introduction, Basic rules & Policies overview, Organization presence(Locations), Orientation/training of various processes/tools require to outperform a particular Job.
• Office tour is equally an important part too of orientation program. It gives a welcoming feeling to a new employee and also they feel motivated to be part of the such organization.
• To make it more warm, Lunch with the manager on first day is also an effective way for ice breakers.
• Few activities/games can be arranged to make session less boring and more fascinating.

Employee Training

Once an employee gets insights of an organization overview policies and process, it becomes more important to engage them in process training which can be called role related training as well. Certain tools training which are necessary to perform the job. Process/Manuals to understand the job role. 

Meeting with key people associated with the process is part of employee training.

Performance Stage

• Progress check can be done by Mentor or direct supervisor to understand that employee has understood all the processes and is ready to put on the job.
• Lastly Orientation feedback from all the trainees who have taken the training helps in analyzing opinions and suggestions to improve the process.

Major points of an or-boarding program are highlighted in this article. However, there are so many different concepts which can be put in to practice for effective experience.