This guide also includes an onboarding checklist and a fully customizable template to create your own onboarding plan.
Every member of your organization, from the front desk to the highest office, will experience a first day. For some of us, it’s a gut-wrenching day of simultaneous optimism and dread, for others it’s not intimidating at all. Some companies do very little onboarding at all, they simply throw employees into the water and hope they swim. Other companies have produced hours of video and print materials that seem designed as much to bore employees to sleep as to educate them on policies and processes.
Once you’ve mastered this easily repeatable process, onboarding new hires will be quick and effective.
We’ve spent a ton of time (as we are fond of doing) digging into the onboarding process, examining not just our own clients’ processes but looking to other industries and industrial research as well. We spend a lot of effort streamlining the recruitment process and we came to realize that in order to build strong, lasting teams there was a great amount of work to be done streamlining onboarding as well.
We’ve put together this guide with our manufacturing clients in mind, but the lessons and materials apply to any industry or organization. At the end of this post, you’ll find links to the materials we discussed including a checklist version of the guide and a pre-filled template to schedule and track your own onboarding process. Like every other part of our 5 Step recruiting process, this important step requires a little forethought and planning. Once you’ve mastered this easily repeatable process, onboarding new hires will be quick and effective.
Setting goals for onboarding new hires
The primary goal for onboarding may seem obvious: bringing the new hire onboard. We’ve chosen to dig deeper to unpack how this step, when viewed as part of the recruitment process, can actually contribute to better long-term outcomes. Onboarding in this fashion will improve morale, improve performance, improve communication, and increase employee retention. To achieve these results, we have to set better goals than simply “bring the employee onboard.” Our goals should be logical first steps to integrating the new hire into the company’s larger objectives.
Onboarding goals:
- Employee feels welcome and comfortable in their new environment
- Employee understands and supports the company’s objectives
- Employee and team are integrated and communicative
- Employee receives resources efficiently for productivity
- Employee and company set performance goals together
These five goals are a great place to start when building your onboarding process, though you may prefer to add more or dig in and get more specific about what you want to achieve. In our experience, achieving these simple objectives will begin any working relationship off on the right foot.
Our approach relies mostly on communication and you’ll see that each phase includes critical points of contact between employees and company representatives. We find that this not only strengthens cooperation among teams, it creates opportunities for employers to identify problems before they start.
Methodology: Our process is a combination of our own 15 years of experience as well as academic research from institutions like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Washington School of Business. For more workplace strategies based on research and real-world trials see blog/categories/research.
Before Start Date:
Get as much ready as possible before the employee arrives for their first day. If there’s important paperwork they can read or fill out before they arrive, send it to them the week before.
- Process new hire paperwork
- Call employee to confirm start date, discuss tech needs, give buddy contact info, remind of any pre-start tasks
- Send housewarming email to stakeholders
- Set up critical meetings and add them to employee’s calendar
- Schedule lunch on the first day
- Select and prepare the welcome buddy
- Put together vital company info packet for employee
- Order office keys, computer, parking pass, etc.
- Contact IT to have technology ready
- Arrange necessary training or orientations
First day:
The first day should be dedicated to introducing the new hire and helping them get comfortable with their new work environment. At the end of the first day, the employee would ideally feel confident in their new position and excited about working with you.
- Greet the new hire and introduce them to their buddy and other co-workers
- Buddy takes employee on facility tour and introduces them to project and department leads
- Review the first week’s schedule
- Brief the new hire on their role within the team and the team’s role within the company
- Review work hours and HR policies on sick leave, vacation, and flex time
- Take your new hire out to lunch
- Review checklist and distribute items including keys, employee ID, passcards and parking permits
First week:
During the employee’s first week you should continue to offer guidance on your company’s goals and objectives and solicit feedback to determine if they are integrating well. By the end of the first week, the employee should be comfortable with company policies and understand who to reach out to with questions or concerns. The employee should also have clear next steps for achieving the company’s goals.
- Direct new hire in the completion of a small starting assignment
- Debrief the new hire after meetings, training and assignments
- Touch base once each day
- Continue to elucidate the organization’s goals and processes
- Explain performance review process
- Explain probationary review process
- Double-check that the employee has all necessary tech and resources
- Briefly review company goals and how the employee’s team or department will contribute to them
First month:
The first month is an ideal time to continue integrating the employee into the mission and objectives of the company. They should understand their role in the company’s goals and feel empowered to take initiative on projects. Continue checking in regularly and make sure to follow through on performance or probationary reviews. You should be encouraging the employee to self-evaluate and begin setting personal performance goals.
- Check-in each week
- Provide constructive feedback on tasks and projects
- Solicit feedback from employee
- Discuss organizational and personal goals
- Help employee engage in self-review and goal-setting
- Meet with employee and their buddy at the end of the month to answer any outstanding questions
30 days and beyond:
Review our goals from the beginning of the process to make sure we’ve achieved each of them. Continue to communicate with the employee as they acclimate to the position.
- Employee feels welcome and comfortable in their new environment
- Employee understands and supports the company’s objectives
- Employee and team are integrated and communicative
- Employee receives resources efficiently for productivity
- Employee and company set performance goals together
Communication and support are the keys to morale and productivity
You’ll note that this onboarding process requires regular communication, feedback, and support. These are effective techniques for quickly integrating new hires into the company and will set the stage for a more productive and satisfied employee. This process and variations thereof have been used to great effect in both commercial and academic organizations. Following these steps will produce better long-term outcomes including improved morale, longer employee retention, better performance and more effective communication between team members.
