The onboarding process plays a crucial role in setting the tone of the overall employment experience for new hires. A well-executed onboarding experience can lead to improved job performance, increased efficiency, and greater satisfaction, all of which contribute to higher engagement and retention rates. If your current approach to bringing on new hires is unstructured and unsuccessful, our onboarding checklist can streamline the process and ensure consistency.
What is Employee Onboarding?
Employee onboarding refers to the process that integrates a new hire into an organization. Personal interactions and administrative tasks are involved in bringing a new employee onboard successfully. Some of the most important elements in a comprehensive process include:
- Completing paperwork: Collect tax forms, contact information, direct deposit details, benefits eligibility, and any required certifications or licenses.
- Planning: Develop an organized, deliberate plan with frequent check-ins.
- Introductions: Introduce the new hire to their team and the full workforce.
- Questions: Provide easy access to channels for asking questions and getting information.
- Shadowing: Facilitate on-the-job training, whether in person or through video-based communications.
- Team building: Offer various opportunities to build rapport.
- Office equipment and software: Ensure all necessary equipment and software are set up.
- Meeting participation: Integrate new hires into communication platforms like Slack, Teams, and calendar systems.
Onboarding Influences the Employee Experience
The quality of the onboarding process can significantly impact the overall employee experience. Effective onboarding aligns with the expectations set during the hiring process and continues to shape the new hire’s journey within the company.
Best practices for onboarding include:
- A structured approach
- Establishing brand loyalty
- Personalization tailored to the new employee
- Enhancing team morale
- Setting the new hire up for success
An unstructured onboarding process can quickly diminish employee engagement. A too-short onboarding period may leave new hires unprepared for their roles. The goal of onboarding should be to ensure new hires succeed and feel comfortable in their new positions as quickly as possible. This requires a strategic approach, particularly with the rise of remote and hybrid work environments.
A Lack of Attention to Onboarding
The Aberdeen Group reports concerning statistics about the current state of onboarding among employers in the U.S.:
- Only 32 percent of employers have a formal onboarding program.
- 31 percent of new employees have left a job within the first six months.
- 53 percent of employees believe they could perform better with enhanced training.
- 5 percent of new hires didn’t understand their job expectations until after 90 days.
Gallup data also shows that only 12 percent of employees strongly agreed that their employer does a great job with onboarding. The study identified five common onboarding issues:
- An unremarkable onboarding experience
- Insufficient duration of onboarding
- Lack of ownership of the process
- Onboarding not reflecting company culture
- New hires not seeing a future with the organization
With a better grasp on the areas of improvement, utilize our onboarding checklist to ensure a consistently positive experience for every new hire.
Basic Onboarding Checklist
- Before Day One
- Send a welcome email and include any new hire paperwork that needs to be completed. Specify which documents need to be signed and returned and due dates. Examples include:
- Share company information
- Company directory
- Notice of upcoming company events
- Set up the email address and provide login information instructions and credentials for company software
- Employee handbook review
- Policies and procedures
- Safety instructions
- Timekeeping instructions
- Set up all necessary equipment
- Computer, mouse, monitor, mobile or desk phone, tablet, access to shared devices and drives, etc.
- Send email with parking and building access info, reminder of dress code (if applicable), and work schedule
- Create schedule so each team member can meet with the new hire during the first week
- Notify all staff of the new employee and their start date
- Assign onboarding tasks to those involved in the process. Use your