Congratulations!
After an intensive interview process, you finally found the perfect person to add to your team.
They show up to their first day at work bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, grateful for the opportunity to work at your company.
But, as you hand over their computer full of instruction manuals and send them off to their desk, you see the spark in their eyes slowly dim.
You remember that feeling from your own first day at work: it’s like being in open water without a life ring in sight.
If only there was a gentler way to get new hires acclimated to their new professional environment.
Oh, wait — there is!
Nowadays, many employers rely on onboarding practices when welcoming new team members.
But, before we share what makes a great onboarding experience, let’s start by defining the process of employee onboarding.
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What is employee onboarding?
Employee onboarding is the process of integrating new hires into the company culture and familiarizing them with their roles and responsibilities.
The onboarding process includes, among other things:
- Supplying new employees with company-issued equipment,
- Introducing them to their teams,
- Providing ongoing education, and even
- Tracking the effectiveness of the program.
According to Gallup’s report on this topic, the onboarding process is also the employer’s way of fulfilling promises made during the recruitment stage.
However, the same report noted that only:
- 29% of new hires would say that they feel fully prepared and supported in their new roles, and
- 12% of employees can confidently claim that their company does a great job of onboarding new staff.
Yet, according to Lisa M. Sanchez, the Vice President of Employee Experience and Engagement of the ArtCenter College of Design, integrating new hires well is a crucial part of the recruitment process:
“Employee onboarding is one of the most important first steps when introducing new hires to the organization. After investing so much in the recruitment process, employers should invest just as much time and effort in onboarding so that new hires are informed, prepared, and ready to work.”
But, why should organizations put that extra effort and resources towards onboarding new employees?
Let’s get into the benefits of setting up an effective onboarding procedure.
The benefits of having an effective employee onboarding process
Standardizing your employee onboarding process can have many benefits for your company and its culture.
In addition to ensuring that all employees receive the same quality of training at the beginning of their employment, onboarding also:
- Expedites the integration of new hires into the company culture,
- Increases employee retention, engagement, and job satisfaction, and
- Prevents the company from wasting money on training more employees due to employee turnover.
Let’s take a closer look at those 3 benefits.
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Benefit #1: Faster integration of new hires
One of the main goals of the employee onboarding process is to expedite the integration of new hires into the company.
According to Katarina Gligorin, a Human Resources Generalist who’s been placed in charge of onboarding new hires at CAKE.com, that goal also functions as one of the main benefits of the process:
“A good onboarding process is crucial for the successful integration of new employees into the company. It helps new hires fit into the new environment faster and understand what is expected of them, which significantly reduces the stress that naturally accompanies any change.”
If done correctly, the onboarding process should make new hires feel welcomed and excited to take on their new roles, as Mary Schroeder, a Vice President of HR Operations with over 20 years of experience, noted:
“Having an onboarding process in place helps the new hire feel welcome and show we are excited for them to be joining the company. It helps them feel more comfortable and less anxious to start their new role. With an onboarding process in place, the new hire learns company policies and understands their role within the company and what the company culture is.”
This benefit is particularly important for companies that employ remote workers, who tend to find complete assimilation into the company culture more difficult.
Luckily, employee onboarding can still be done using a team communication app like Pumble, as shown in the example below.
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For more ways to make new remote hires feel welcome, check out this article:
Benefit #2: Increased employee retention
According to a report from Bamboo HR, as many as 70% of newly hired employees decide whether a job is a good fit for them within the first month of getting hired — with 29% of them knowing within the first week.
Since most people don’t feel much loyalty to their employer in the early stages of their employment, that first month can be a real “make it or break it” period for your new hires.
But, as it happens, having a strong onboarding process has been shown to increase retention rates for new team members.
According to a report from Paychex, only 7% of employees who report feeling well-trained plan on quitting.
The same report found that 80% of people who feel undertrained due to a poor onboarding experience plan to leave their job.
Therefore, it’s safe to say that onboarding decreases employee turnover, which is a well-known fact among those in charge of onboarding, like Katarina Gligorin:
“Well-conducted onboarding increases the chances that employees will stay in the company for a longer period, because it creates a sense of belonging and trust from the start.
In addition, it makes it easier for them to master tools and procedures, thus increasing their productivity. For the company, this means consistency in standards and greater efficiency in work.”
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Creating a great onboarding experience is only the first step in creating a work environment employees don’t want to leave. To learn more about creating a fantastic employee experience, check out this article:
Benefit #3: Cost savings
Ultimately, businesses need to consider the financial impact of every decision — including the one to institute onboarding best practices.
If you happen to work for a particularly conservative employer, convincing your superiors of the benefits of having a solid plan for onboarding new staff may be difficult.
Yet, according to the Director of HR Advisory Services, Margaret Cowx, good onboarding practices do have cost-saving effects:
“When onboarding is done well, the return on investment is significant. Successful onboarding not only enhances organizational success but also positively impacts the bottom line. Effective onboarding leads to higher retention rates, cost savings, operational efficiencies, and improved employee engagement, all of which lead to improved organizational performance.”
In other words, spending that extra time and effort on onboarding and training your new hires correctly should save the company money in the long run.
Besides, according to Gallup’s report on employee onboarding, new hires typically take around a year to settle into their roles and start performing at their full potential.
So, losing employees before they’ve reached their full potential certainly won’t help you maximize profits.
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What does the process of onboarding look like?
Different HR professionals would provide various answers to the question of what their company’s onboarding process looks like.
After all, not everyone uses the same onboarding framework to train their new hires, as Lisa M. Sanchez pointed out:
“There is not a one-size-fits-all approach to new hire onboarding. Engaging in a variety of methods, whether the 4 phases or the 5 C’s, is necessary for an effective transition.”
Still, as the above quote shows, some frameworks are more standardized than others, such as:
- The 4 phases of onboarding,
- The 5 C’s of onboarding, and
- The 30-60-90 onboarding program.
With that in mind, let’s go over the main schools of thought on the subject of employee onboarding.
The 4 phases of onboarding
As far onboarding frameworks go, the 4 phases of onboarding are somewhat of a fan favorite model among HR professionals.
According to Katarina Gligorin, these phases include pre-onboarding, welcoming, training, and transitioning new hires to their roles:
- “Pre-onboarding: It all starts with preparation. When a new employee receives basic information in advance about the company, their team, and the first day of work, they enter the process much more easily.
- Welcoming: The first impression is key. Small gestures of attention, such as an organized welcome or a gift package, can go a long way in making an employee feel accepted right away.
- Training: Employees are provided with concrete knowledge about their tasks, tools, and ways of working, which allows them to be more confident in their contribution.
- Transition: After training, it is important that employees have support as they gradually become independent. Regular feedback and mentoring help them navigate the first challenges more easily.”
Mary Schroeder has a similarly positive opinion of this onboarding framework.
During the first 2 phases, Schroeder makes sure employees understand what their first week will look like, in addition to explaining what they can expect from the company in terms of PTO, payroll schedule, and benefits. Then, they go over the training schedule:
“[During the welcoming phase], I supply the new hire with the 3-week training program we have in place for all new hires, so they have an opportunity to see what their first few weeks will look like before their first day.
Once training starts, the process of transitioning the new hire into their role begins. We assign a mentor to the new hire to help transition them into the position. This helps them with feeling like part of the team.”
The 5 C’s of onboarding
The 5 C’s of employee onboarding is another method of integrating new hires.
Not to be confused with the 5 C’s of employee engagement, the 5 C’s of employee onboarding highlight the most important features of any onboarding process:
- Clarity of communication allows employees to have a better understanding of their roles and what they can expect from their employer,
- Compliance with local laws and company policies,
- Culture, or familiarizing new hires with the company’s mission and values,
- Connection, which increases feelings of belonging by providing new hires with a network of other employees they can lean on, and
- Check-ins, an often overlooked step, which prompts us to keep track of the efficacy of our onboarding process based on feedback.
As we have previously mentioned, Lisa M. Sanchez believes that these frameworks can complement each other quite nicely.
So, even though her department partially relies on the 4 phases of onboarding when inducting new hires, it also pulls from this framework:
“Throughout this process, the 5 C’s come into play because a well-organized onboarding will:
- Provide clarity,
- Cover workplace policies and compliance,
- Introduce new hires to the cultural values that drive employee engagement such as diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, and
- Provide an opportunity to connect not only with immediate co-workers, but also other colleagues across the organization.
Finally, checking in with new hires periodically lets them know that the organization cares about their success.”
Of course, this process shouldn’t only involve members of the HR team. Managers and even other employees should be ready and willing to help their new coworkers out, as shown in the Pumble interaction below.
The 30-60-90 onboarding plan
The 30-60-90 onboarding program lays out the goals we should keep in mind for the first, second, and third month of a new hire’s employment.
At the 30-day mark, new employees should understand:
- Their responsibilities,
- Company’s internal policies,
- The organizational structure, and
- Business model.
By the 60-day mark, employees should be able to put what they’ve learned during the onboarding process into practice.
During this time, most new hires will still make some mistakes. That is to be expected — as long as they are willing to correct their blunders upon receiving feedback.
Lastly, according to this onboarding framework, employees should have fully mastered the tools they need to do their jobs by the 90-day mark.
This framework gets employers to focus on the long-term effects of their onboarding process, even as 52% of onboarding programs take less than a month to complete.
With that being said, you can always extend the length of your onboarding process while also taking a page out of this framework, as Lisa M. Sanchez has done in her practice:
“We have implemented a 30- and 60-day entry interview process whereby new hires voluntarily complete a questionnaire about their:
- Hiring experiences,
- On-the-job training,
- Workplace experiences, and
- Whether they have the tools and resources needed to perform their job or need additional training.
In addition, we have 90- and 180-day introductory performance evaluations to create early communication between new hires and their supervisors to ensure that the employee is successful. In total, our onboarding spans 6 months.”
If you decide to follow in Lisa’s footsteps, here’s how you can schedule that final 6-month check-in with your new hires through the company employee communication app.
Bonus framework: Make your own onboarding process
As we have previously mentioned, your employee onboarding process can be a mix of the methods we’ve discussed — or it can be something completely different.
As an example, let’s take a look at the onboarding model Margaret Cowx and her team came up with:
“[Our] framework for onboarding is: Acclimate -> Guide -> Develop.
The acclimate stage includes the pre-start date onboarding activities and the company-wide orientation and is usually led by HR or People & Culture. The guide and develop stages are primarily the responsibility of the hiring manager, with support and guidance from HR.”
Cowx went on to explain what each stage of her onboarding process entailed:
“Acclimate Stage: Help new hires feel connected to the organization by clearly communicating the mission, vision, values, and the company’s core activities. Provide them with an understanding of the business model, industry landscape, and key competitors. Foster a sense of belonging by creating opportunities for socialization and building a strong support network with their new team members.
Guide Stage: Putting new hires on the path to high performance involves clearly outlining their role within the organization and explaining how their performance will be evaluated.
Develop Stage: Supporting new hires in developing the necessary competencies ensures they receive the experience and training required to become high performers.”
As you can see, though the frameworks we’ve discussed do have unique takes on the process of employee onboarding, they also have many similarities that could be worth adopting.
No matter how you choose to structure your onboarding procedure, though, you should always match them with onboarding best practices.
7 best onboarding practices to incorporate into your framework
Ultimately, your employee onboarding process can only be as good as its basic elements.
But, how should you determine which practices you should incorporate into your onboarding program?
While there’s no one-size fits all answer to that question, here are some suggestions you could add to your onboarding checklist.
Suggestion #1: Communicate expectations early on
In the world of business, effective communication is the key to success.
When it comes to onboarding new employees, it’s always better to overcommunicate rather than risk having your new hires feel like they’ve been left to their own devices.
According to Margaret Cowx, the first thing you should communicate to your new hires is what is expected of them:
“Ensure that, within the first month, the hiring manager has a conversation with their new employee to clarify the roles and responsibilities, expectations and how performance is measured.”
Make sure your expectations are aligned with the job listing your candidates applied for and expressed in measurable terms, such as the number of tasks they complete or support calls they make.
You should also remember that team communication is a two-way street.
Be ready to answer any questions your new hires might have throughout the process, as Mary Schroeder advises:
“Be there to assist with the onboarding process and answer any questions the new hire might have. Communicating early with the new hire helps them feel more comfortable coming to you with questions.”
And, if you want to go all out and impress your new employees, you could even add a message from the CEO into the mix, as Lisa M. Sanchez suggests:
“Include a welcome message from the CEO or president so that new hires hear the expectations for employee engagement and success in their new roles directly from the executive office.”
To take this a step further, you could have the CEO record a video message sharing some words of encouragement, and then share it on a check-in call with new hires, as shown in the image below.
Suggestion #2: Pair new hires with established employees
One of the best onboarding practices you could incorporate into your program is making sure every new hire has an established employee they can talk to, according to Katarina Gligorin:
“Each new employee is assigned a colleague who has been with the company for a long time and knows the culture and processes well. It is important to note that this colleague is not necessarily from the same team. Their role is to help new hires navigate the company, answer informal inquiries, and provide practical advice from an insider’s perspective.”
Getting people from different departments involved in the onboarding process is also a great way to create a more connected workplace and enhance team collaboration, according to Lisa M. Sanchez:
“Bring in speakers from other departments into onboarding so that it’s not just Human Resources facilitating, because it provides an opportunity to meet other employees and learn about other areas of the organization.”
Then again, you could also pair the new team members with colleagues from the same department, and have them play a mentor role, as Mary Schroeder advises:
“Being assigned a mentor gives the new hire someone to go help them learn the particulars of their new position. The mentor can also help the new hire with insight on company policies and culture and help the new hire build relationships with colleagues.”
In any case, having someone they can turn to can make new hires feel more comfortable in the unfamiliar environment they’ve just entered.
If your company mostly relies on internal communication software to keep in touch with its employees, here’s how you can introduce a new hire to their onboarding buddy.
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Suggestion #3: Schedule regular check-ins
Many HR professionals find it difficult to keep track of new hires throughout the onboarding process.
But, according to Lisa M. Sanchez, that’s where regular check-ins come in:
“Implement a check-in practice to see how employees are acclimating to their new job. Doing so will help get ahead of any performance challenges that need attention.”
Some organizations even have pre-determined schedules for these check-ins — CAKE.com hosts casual meetings for new hires every Friday, according to Katarina Gligorin:
“These informal team meetings are organized by our People & Culture team for all the new employees who have joined in the last month. During these sessions, impressions of the past week are summed up; we discuss experiences, relax, and talk about plans for the weekend. This creates a pleasant atmosphere where new employees can bond and feel like a part of the collective.”
However, if weekly check-ins seem too frequent for your liking, you can always stick to the 30-60-90 model, as Margaret Cowx suggests:
“Both the hiring manager and a representative from HR or People and Culture should do short 30-60-90-day check-ins with new hires to assess their level of engagement and address any issues that may surface.”
And, again, if your company has a hybrid or a remote work model, you can have these meetings through a team communication app like Pumble.
Suggestion #4: Request feedback
One of the most important parts of your onboarding process will be gauging its effectiveness.
To do so, you should get in the habit of requesting feedback from new hires, as Katarina Gligorin put it:
“Regular feedback and suggestions from new hires about the onboarding process allow for continuous improvement.”
On top of that, Margaret Cowx also recommends asking the other people involved in the onboarding process about any changes they would make to the framework:
“Seek feedback and input from new hires, hiring managers, and other contributors to onboarding (like IT) to understand pain points and make continuous improvements in the process”
Naturally, if you’re willing to ask for feedback, you should also be willing to actively listen to those responses and adjust your approach accordingly.
In fact, Margaret Cowx notes that HR professionals should pay close attention to the needs of unique employee groups, specifically, in the interest of offering the same onboarding experience to all employees:
“Consider the needs of unique employee groups (for example: remote employees, manufacturing employees, people leaders) and build flexibility into the process”
You’ll find that requesting feedback from new employees doesn’t have to be a formal affair at all — just send them a quick direct message as shown in the image below.
Suggestion #5: Be ready to provide support for up to a year
As we have established, poorly trained employees tend to have a higher turnover rate than the ones that claim to have had a great onboarding experience.
With that in mind, one of the worst things you can do is cut your onboarding program short.
When in doubt, it’s better to provide that support for longer than you think is necessary, as Margaret Cowx recommends:
“Ensure that your onboarding plan goes beyond the initial company orientation; the process takes up to 3–12 months; managers need to be providing support throughout that period.”
So, aim to have the onboarding process last between 3 months and a year, even if the latter half of the program only consists of occasional check-ins with the new employees.
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One way to continue onboarding new hires even after they’ve completed their initial training would be to have teams place a greater emphasis on team-building activities. To get some idea of what that might look like, check out the following article:
Suggestion #6: Create onboarding materials
Now, the best thing you can do for the HR professionals who are in charge of onboarding new staff would be to have onboarding materials they can rely on, whether that’s a short employee onboarding guide, a handbook, or an onboarding checklist.
These materials are going to make sure that all employees receive the same onboarding experience, and are therefore one of the most important tools at your disposal, according to Margaret Cowx:
“Support hiring managers with the tools that make their part of onboarding easy:
- Clear communication, [and]
- A hiring manager’s onboarding guide, handbook or checklist.”
Katarina Gligorin was similarly enthusiastic on the subject of having a well-developed technical onboarding plan:
“A clearly defined and structured plan that covers all technical and procedural aspects of the role ensures that nothing is left unsaid. An onboarding plan should include an in-depth introduction to tools, systems and processes, enabling new hires to quickly and efficiently master their tasks.”
Ultimately, putting your onboarding procedures onto paper will help you train future HR employees to handle the process of onboarding new team members.
Suggestion #7: Update your onboarding program as needed
Even though having some kind of onboarding guide in place is important, being willing to adjust those instructions is arguably even more crucial.
To make sure your methods are up-to-date with the industry standards and your company’s values, remember to examine your training materials every once in a while, as Lisa M. Sanchez advises:
“Review the onboarding program periodically to ensure that the content is up-to-date. As the organization evolves, so should the onboarding program to align with [the company’s] mission, vision, and values.”
After all, this would also be the point of seeking feedback from the people involved in your onboarding process — both the ones going through it and the ones providing the training.
Catching any potential flaws in the process will help you perfect it, leading to happier and more engaged employees.
Integrate new employees seamlessly with Pumble
Whether you work remotely or in an office, partnering with a powerful and secure team communication app is sure to enhance your employee onboarding process.
An app like Pumble will simultaneously help you:
- Welcome new employees through company-wide public channels,
- Host regular video calls to check-in with new team members,
- Share important documents with new hires as well as other HR employees, and
- Coordinate with other coworkers involved with the onboarding process.
Best of all, Pumble is an excellent solution for companies of all sizes, as it doesn’t place any limits on the number of users you can have in your workspace.
The paid version of the app will even grow with your company, adding more storage space to your workspace with every new employee that comes onboard.
Elevate your employee onboarding program — try Pumble today.
