Joining a new organization can be a nerve-wracking experience. Even the most confident people in the world could feel jittery at the thought of uncertainty – “Will this new team be welcoming? Will my boss be terrifying? Will I get the work-life balance I was promised?”
This is why the employee onboarding process can be critical. It’s more than just setting expectations and meeting new people. It has so much impact that an efficient onboarding process can improve employee retention by 82%!
When new hires feel at home the moment they join an organization, it sets the foundation for a positive and productive experience. It immediately tells them that this is one place that could potentially help them grow as individuals and professionals.
Welcoming new employees is not just about being nice – it’s about setting the stage for a positive and thriving work environment. If you’re in the process of coming up with new ideas on how to improve your employee onboarding process, this article is for you.
Preparing for the Arrival of New Employees
Even before the new employees’ first day, it is critical to have everything in place. Preparation goes a long way if you want the new employees to feel right at home the moment they start the onboarding process.
There are three key things that could lay a strong foundation and would make any new employee feel that they made the right decision to join your organization:
- Set up the necessary tools and equipment they’ll need
- Send any documentation and resources that they can review before their first day
- Assign a buddy or mentor and give the mentor guidelines on how they can best guide the new hire
It’s best to prepare documentation that the new employee could browse through to give them a good idea of what the company is about and how your product or service works.
It’s also ideal to have all of the tools and equipment set up before the employee’s first day. This may include log-in information, access to shared files, and the like.
Having a buddy or mentor ready to receive your new hire could ease some of the apprehensions that your new hire might have on their first few days. This will be their go-to person for any questions about the tasks they’ll be working on, so, ideally, this person should be a subject matter expert.
A mentor is critical in virtual setups, knowing that people can quickly feel isolated. When you have the right mentoring system, you can set up every new employee for success.
New hires that feel comfortable and supported from the get-go are more likely to hit the ground running and will more likely want to build strong bonds with their teammates right away. It can ensure a smooth transition, which helps them grasp the ins and outs immediately.
Introducing the Company’s Mission, Values, and Culture
Just as your new hires had to give a good impression during the hiring process, it’s also best to make them feel that this is a great place to work especially if you want to avoid high turnover rates.
Giving an effective introduction to the company’s mission, values and culture is key to achieving the following:
- A sense of purpose
By filling newbies in on the company's mission and vision, they’ll have a good understanding of what everyone’s trying to achieve. It helps them see how their work fits into the grand scheme of things, giving them a sense of purpose and motivation.
Every company also has its own unique culture, dictating its vibe and the way people do things. When you introduce new employees to your culture, it makes it easier for them to figure out everything from how people communicate to how teams achieve goals together. It keeps everyone on the same wavelength.
- A sense of belonging
Sharing your mission, vision, and culture with newbies brings the team together. When everyone is on board with the company's goals and values, it builds camaraderie and a sense of belonging.
This then paves the way for easier collaboration and teamwork. Can you imagine how easier things will be when everyone feels that they belong? No matter how many roadblocks they face, there’s a huge chance that everyone put their heads together to come up with the right solutions.
- Supercharged engagement
When employees feel connected to the company's mission and vision, they become more engaged at work. Knowing how their efforts contribute to the big picture makes them fired up, proactive, and completely invested in making things happen.
Here at CoffeePals, for example, we emphasize the importance of fun. We even have Spotify playlists that everyone contributes to regularly so that we get to hear what kind of music everyone else on the team listens to while working.
Highly-engaged employees become the very definition of happy campers who know that they’ve found the perfect fit. This means that they’re more likely to stick around for the long term even when the work becomes challenging.
So if you’re looking for the glue that could bring the entire organization together (new hires and tenured people alike), putting in an effort on making your mission, values, and culture as solid as possible is one of the first things to focus on.
Perfecting the Onboarding Process
You’ve prepared everything needed for a seamless pre-boarding process, and you’ve welcomed the new hires to the organization by giving them everything they need to know about the company.
Now, it’s time to get on with the onboarding process.
At this point, we’re assuming that you’ve already:
- Gathered the necessary paperwork and ensured that all required documentation is ready for the new hires
- Set up everything they need to do the job well including their tools, supplies, and any other necessary technology or software
- Communicated important information in advance, such as the first-day schedule and other additional instructions
- Given them a comprehensive intro to the company including the organization’s mission, values, and culture
Now, here are other things that you should add to your checklist:
- Introduce new hires to the team they’ll be working with
- Give a clear overview of who they’ll be reporting to and what their tasks and responsibilities look like
- Make sure they are familiar with company policies, procedures, and benefits
- Give training sessions on essential tools, software, and systems they will be using
- Ensure that their mentors do regular check-ins, offer guidance, and create a safe space for questions and concerns
A solid onboarding process sets the tone for new employees, helping them feel welcomed, informed, and prepared for their roles. It also helps them dive into their role more smoothly, ultimately leading to higher job satisfaction, improved retention rates, and enhanced organizational performance.
If it has not been emphasized enough, the first few days and weeks that your employees spend with you are critical. Surveys reveal that 20% of resignations happen on an employee’s first 45 days. You can avoid being part of this statistic if you get your employees started the right way.
Ensuring Long-Term Success for New Employees
The onboarding process is just the beginning. Paving each employee’s long-term success will mean having a long-term plan in place so that your onboarding efforts are not wasted.
This doesn’t mean that everything should be perfect and smooth sailing for everyone – there probably won’t be any business in the world that could guarantee that there won’t be any challenges along the way.
But if you play your cards right, your employees will still stay despite these challenges.
How can you set your employees up for long-term success?
- Establish clear channels of communication
A lot of problems stem from miscommunication. With clear lines of communication, potential issues would reach the right people right away, making them easier to resolve. Especially in a virtual setup, make sure that everyone is aligned on what process to follow each time a vital piece of information needs to be passed along.
Regular team check-ins also help solve some of the common communication challenges in virtual teams. Should there be potential blockers that could eventually turn into bigger problems, everyone can be prepared to tackle them head-on.
- Provide opportunities for upskilling and professional development
Everybody wants to work at a place where they can enjoy constant growth. A strong organization allows employees to stay ahead of the game and keep up with all the crazy changes happening in their jobs and industries.
This also shows employees that you have full confidence in their potential. In the long run, your organization enjoys better productivity and better innovation because everyone is equipped enough to bring their A-game to the table.
- Regularly gauge progress and satisfaction
Never assume that your employees are happy unless they say so. No matter how much money you throw at them, it is not the only thing that keeps them motivated enough to perform their best.
Regularly ask employees how they’re doing. Are they happy where they are? Are they getting along with their colleagues well enough? Do they have recommendations on how to improve the current processes?
Employee satisfaction surveys can make employees feel that they’re important parts of the organization.
Establishing channels for feedback and addressing concerns also allows their trust in the company to grow.
- Continue to improve processes as needed
Every industry evolves. Just a few years ago, employee engagement wasn’t even given much attention. But now, employers everywhere have discovered the value of keeping their employees happy. After all, happy employees produce better results.
This means that just as the world involves, so should your processes. Always be on the lookout for opportunities to make the workplace as enjoyable as possible. There are always innovations that HR professionals can use to make this happen.
- Organize social events and encourage informal interactions
It can’t be all about work, work, work all the time! Focusing too much on the deliverables and seeing your employees as just statistics on a graph would be the fastest way to push people to burnout.
Find ways to liven up the workplace! Plan team-building events and provide opportunities for everyone to socialize and talk about things that are not work-related.
Some organizations create wellness programs or form clubs that throw people who have the same interests together. You can host game nights and karaoke nights.
You can even subscribe to apps like CoffeePals. Using this tool, you can regularly match people and have them start conversations over coffee.
Setting employees up for success is crucial because it lays the foundation for fulfillment in the workplace. No matter how many disadvantages people might see in a virtual setup, having the right strategies in place will always allow you to surpass those challenges and get the results you want, organization-wide.
How CoffeePals Can Help with Employee Onboarding
There’s no better way to make the new hire onboarding process interesting than by showing them right off the bat that you have every tool and resource in place to make the transition easier.
CoffeePals can help with that.
By randomly matching new hires into pairs or groups, they get the chance to meet people from different parts of the organization and gain new friends. Even the Coffee Maker feature – where team members get to answer fun questions every week – could help them see what other people in the team are like while also giving others a peek at their own personality.
Plus, you can also use the same tool to bring mentors and mentees together and let them get to know each other through a random virtual coffee break. This builds better trust, making your mentoring program even more effective.
Not sure whether employees will be on board? Providing them with the right tools and resources is key. For example, you can give them some guide coffee chat questions to help them have a more meaningful experience.
It All Goes Back to Culture
At the end of the day, it all goes back to the kind of culture that you’ve set for your organization. A new employee will naturally feel at home if you’ve established the right foundation throughout the entire company.
It all comes down to how your HR team and the other key decision-makers in the organization align with the kind of culture that creates an ideal workplace. This isn’t the kind of thing you can fake – if the head of the organization genuinely values every employee, it all trickles down the chain of command.
So start creating a workplace that makes everyone feel at home right off the bat. Eventually, you’ll see that people won’t ever want to leave.
