It would be an outstanding experience, not to mention an incredible boost to efficiency if all new-hires would immediately “get on-board”, and settle into the community with ease right from the start. Imagine getting that result the first time from the new employee manual, new hire training, and orientation. Well, keep dreaming, because this is something that rarely (if ever) happens, even with the best training, and the most resourceful new employees.
There are even some locations in the world, where having specific, employee skill training is required by law such as the Emergency First-Aid training required in the U.K.. As an employer, one is bound by human nature to expect that there will be some hang-ups due to confusion, or even the perfectionists you might hire who want to be certain about every detail before they proceed to the next step of getting to work.
Organizational socialization, known more commonly as on-boarding are just a few of the terms used by organizations referring to programs in which they initiate new employees into their inner workings. Some of the goals are to improve the success of hiring by increasing satisfaction on the job, improving productivity, and reducing attrition, turn-over, quitting, firing, and other unfavorable outcomes due to poor acclimation.
The reality of acquiring new employees is that they are often needed to fill vacancies, replace an outgoing employee, or assume key roles much more quickly than there is time for adequate training to get them ready for the job. Most of the time, this has less to do with “competence” than it has to do with “culture”.
A newly hired staff writer may be a word-wizard and composition magician, yet be completely out of step with the workflow of the organization she has been hired to write for. It may go without saying that this is because most organizations, even franchises have inner-workings as different as the personalities of the people who work there.
However, there are plenty of things employers can do to more effectively integrate and retain new team members. The internal programs used to create the best human resources intake process, and to nurture organizational harmony fall under the domain of onboarding. Following are some of the top tips for this workforce relationship, cultivation process.
3 Top Tips For On-Boarding New Employees
Tip # 1: Employers must dedicate at least one year to new employee cultivation. This process should be titrated appropriately over this time period, with adjustments being made in accordance with an interactive progress and feedback system.
One of the biggest mistakes most employers make is in being too conservative with the resources dedicated to their freshmen workforce. Many experts point out that the process should take no less than a year to fully integrate new workers. In actual practice, a few days to a few weeks are given to employees to get used to the new work environment.
More frequently, nothing more than a few documents and face to face meetings are allotted to this end. If there is any long-term training, it is solely skill centered, having little or nothing to do with the familiarization of the organization’s existing culture. Avoid this oversight and create an outline that can be played out over the course of a new employee’s first year in the job.
Tip # 2: Assign a dedicated group, team, or at the very least, a partner that will be the go-to point for the duration of the onboarding journey. If there is a group or team, then there should be a designated lead, being an individual who is the initial contact for the support group.
A second pitfall to avoid is in the sole reliance upon systems in the onboarding program. Whether it be a high-tech online system, a low-tech system of hard files, or anything in between. The program will fail to meet expectations if it is left up to a set of instructions to follow, documents to read, videos, and audios to consume.
While all of the pre-produced media may be very helpful, and some people thrive on being proactive; there still needs to be a more intimate human element always present and available throughout. It may seem like it is more cost effective or efficient to rely only on documents and instructions, but the long-term results will always fare much better with a coordinated, human touch.
Tip # 3: Maintain a culture of upward mobility. There are certainly different types of onboarding like technical, organizational, and social. However, within each variation, your employees should feel like there are opportunities to advance. Even if there are not any positions to be promoted to within your organization, either because of size, or a stable workforce, there are many ways to promote a sense of advancement.
Very often, the simplest incentives are the best. This is because they are highly appreciated, easy to implement, and budget-friendly. Certificates of appreciation, accomplishment, mini celebrations, and other forms of high visibility acknowledgment are just a few good examples.
Conclusion
Onboarding elevates the overall mood, productivity, accomplishments, and longevity of everyone working together in an organization at all levels. It is a way of demonstrating that while you obviously care about the well-being of your business, you care about and recognize your greatest assets – the people getting the job done.