Employee onboarding can be a challenging task but is one of the most crucial stages of the hiring process. Onboarding has many facets to cover and different organizations require a customized onboarding plan. By focusing on a structured onboarding process and carrying it out efficiently you can increase 69% of the likelihood of employees staying for 3 years with your organization. However, not all onboarding can succeed as it is not a random process. You need to be aware of the things you need to add to your onboarding checklist.
In this blog, you will learn about the onboarding checklist essentials that you can use in your onboarding process for successful and long-lasting employee tenure in your organization.
What Is Employee Onboarding?
Employee onboarding is the process of introducing employees to the professional and social settings of the workplace. It familiarizes employees with their colleagues, organization, and jobs. It is not a small chit-chat session with the managers but much more than that. With onboarding employees learn about your organizational culture, values, policies, dos, and the don’ts. Organizations that have a structured onboarding program help their employees begin work from day one and employees feel welcomed and wanted. You can also train your employees through onboarding portals and send out a personalized welcome message to them, to begin with.
Onboarding Checklist For Managers
Onboarding can be very tricky but is necessary to prevent losing employees and restarting the hiring process. As a manager, while you have many other tasks to handle, onboarding can be overwhelming. You might miss out on some steps or create short-lasting positive impacts on your employees. Here is a checklist on that you can compare your onboarding program essentials. This checklist is a generalized one and you need to customize it according to your organizational requirements.
1. Basic organizational information
It is very easy for your candidates to learn basic organizational information from your website. So then, what is the point of adding this content to your onboarding process? First and foremost, all the basic organizational information like hierarchy, policies, dress code, etc. are most of the time not available on your website. Information such as who the employees need to report is not for the general public to be displayed on your website. Secondly, by adding this information to your onboarding program, you are bringing all the scattered information to one place which is a lot easier for your new hires to read through than look for information everywhere. Lastly, employees would not know which information they need to go through so it helps them out. This is one of the most important parts of your onboarding checklist.
2. Team meet-up
You need to introduce your new hire to the existing employees. This starts building a rapport and new hires feel recognized. This way everyone gets ready to welcome the new workers which help them overcome their first-day anxiety. The team meet-up can help in introductions so the new hire would know who to go to in times of any problems. Did you know? When you introduce new hires to the team and communicate well with them, their willingness to refer you to other candidates increases by 93%. This can help build your positive brand image too.
3. Training
Another essential of the onboarding checklist is training. You need to train your new hires for their jobs by providing them with the right training tools and learning materials. This way, employees get a hands-on experience with their jobs even before they get started. They would know what to do and how. You can prevent them from going in the wrong direction when performing the real job. You can train them through gamification or just test their knowledge with situational training. Each job requires a different type of training. It might seem difficult to create a personalized training program for each job role but it is not. Unless you have multiple job openings at the same time it will be challenging but again, as a manager, you can assign someone to prepare training for the new hire and monitor it yourself.
4. Prepare a plan
Include a plan preparation in your employee onboarding checklist. This is important for your employees to know what they will be doing from their first day onwards. If you start telling them their goals and target on the first day they will waste time figuring out how to carry out the work. You must prepare a 1-week plan before their first day. This way they will be quick and efficient to finish their job goals before due dates and you can assign them further tasks for the following weeks. Tell them what you expect them to do and how they need to carry out their duties. Once they know, they can put their best efforts into the job and preparation can never go wrong.
5. Workplace tour
Once you are done with the initial onboarding process it is time for your employees to join the office. Do not forget to include a workplace tour as the foremost priority in your new hire onboarding checklist. When employees join your organization tell them about different designations and their offices. Give them a tour so they would not be lost in your organization and keep disturbing others to let them know about your office. A workplace tour will prevent them from wasting time searching for canteens, cabins, and even washrooms. Moreover, if not anything else, they will have a reason to like your office. The ambiance and setting will add to their positive experience and they will gain interest in working at your office.
6. Assign a mentor
A mentor is all a new hire needs at a new workplace. A mentor is a human guide that helps employees come out of difficult situations and deal with challenges. As a manager, you cannot assist the employees every time they are in trouble. For this purpose, allocate them a mentor from the same department who is knowledgeable and knows how to deal with new hire anxiety. This mentor should be a person and must have a welcoming nature so new hires do not hesitate in sharing their experiences and asking for help and support. Assigning a mentor is a crucial point in onboarding a new hire checklist. Do not miss this part or else the employees will feel confused and might do the job wrong.
Advantages of a New Hire Onboarding Checklist
Onboarding itself has many benefits but here we will discuss the benefits of an onboarding checklist.
1. Tallying the essentials
A checklist is necessary so you can tally what needs to be added to your onboarding program with what is already there. This prevents you from skipping any important part that needs to be in your program. For instance, if you forget to send introductory messages to your employees and begin with sending them their tasks and job roles then it is likely the employees will feel strange. When you have a checklist, you remember all the important details that have long-lasting impacts on your new hires. Onboarding checklists also give you a direction for your onboarding program following which you can garner successful onboarding outcomes.
2. Consistency
When you have an onboarding checklist, you become consistent. All new hires go through the same onboarding program with customized plans according to their job roles. When you have an onboarding checklist, you become consistent with the onboarding stages. You know all the steps for successful onboarding and carry out the same process for all. This way you groom all your new hires in similar ways and if your onboarding program was previously a hit it will continue to be the same. Moreover, when you need to update your onboarding program the checklist will help you analyze your strengths and gaps.
3. Reducing stress
As a hiring manager, you have a lot of responsibilities on your shoulder. When you have an onboarding checklist you know your onboarding stages and the steps you need to take for successful onboarding. This reduces the stress of forming onboarding plans from the scratch every time there is a new hire. If you plan a fresh onboarding program every time you might skip some important details so to reduce your stress onboarding checklist is a powerful tool for you. An onboarding checklist for new hires is the best way to reduce unnecessary stress of quality onboarding by your end.
Summing Up
Onboarding is a very crucial stage of hiring and it does not end when the candidate joins the office. Onboarding is a continuous process for up to 1 year. Generally, HR professionals say that onboarding should last up to 3 months but now more believe it should extend to the first year of the new hire. The content of the onboarding programs should be informational and helpful. An onboarding checklist helps you in creating a standard onboarding program that gains you many benefits like consistency, quality, and stress reduction.
As a hiring manager, you need to take care of all the uncertainties that come your way, and losing a new hire in the first six months because of poor onboarding is the last uncertainty that you need. Ensure a quality onboarding program with an onboarding process checklist to enjoy the perks of higher employee retention. If you still are confused about what to include in your onboarding checklist check out the onboarding checklist template for free.
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