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  • Employee Management

Welcome aboard! Benefits of an employee onboarding process

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Frank Mittag

Hiring new workers is part of running a firm. But how do you ease them into their roles? Here are 5 important benefits of having an onboarding process:

  • Increased talent acquisition
  • Less stress
  • Better company culture
  • Reduced turnover
  • Ensuring success in your onboarding process

Hiring employees is an essential part of a business. But without a structured onboarding program, many companies risk losing these employees.

The employee onboarding process is an attempt to follow a set of standards that help to organise new employees while integrating them into your workforce. Those first few days of filling out paperwork and training can be alienating, unproductive, and stressful. In fact, with 20% of staff turnover within the first 45 days of employment, there is no doubt onboarding is essential for employee retention. 

Onboarding is important but don't confuse it with training. Onboarding is the process of helping the employee better adapt to the environment and company culture, whereas training deals directly with adapting to job duties and company policies. This is crucial in helping adjust to new management, peers, and putting new employees at ease in their new workplace. When you've made the onboarding process easier, you've used the momentum that a new hire comes with and allowed them to see what you have to offer.

But what are some other benefits of onboarding? Let's look at some of the common benefits you can expect to see from having an onboarding process and why your company needs it. 

For more information on how to adapt to virtual onboarding in pandemic times, check this article.

Increased talent acquisition

Your employees are your greatest asset. They keep your business running, are key to success and the way they talk about you can make or break your company. You can help ensure a positive experience from the very start, when the new hire is still in the probation period, by having a structured onboarding process. 

Onboarding helps not just to attract new talents but also to retain your top talents. It should be a strategic process and it is crucial to ensuring high retention. It does this by reducing any uncertainty a new hire may be feeling and by showing employees that they are valued and have a support system. 

People talk and so do new hires. When they have a positive onboarding experience, they will let their peers know. This will increase your company’s positive reputation in the industry and will encourage people to want to work for your company. 

A great onboarding process builds a strong foundation for an unbeatable work culture that will not only attract new talent but make them want to stick around.  

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Less stress 

Starting a new job is an exciting and stressful time and this ties into the importance of onboarding. You're essentially walking into a new environment that you are not familiar with. This is enough to keep people up at night worrying about their new position. The youngest hires are most at risk when it comes to stress.

Onboarding helps new hires adapt to their new work environment by introducing them to colleagues and building a sense of belonging through activities like cross-company networking or a welcome lunch. Little things can make a big difference at the start of an employee's career. 

Companies can boost their employees' confidence through proper training and by providing the resources they need to start hitting targets and meet their job goals. This, in turn, reduces anxiety by answering all their burning questions and giving them the confidence needed to do their job effectively.

An idea for the HR team to help new hires to incorporate the company’s culture are the use of these questions:

  • When will the onboarding process start and how long will it last?
  • What is the view you want the new employees to have of your company?
  • What do you want your new hires to achieve and by when? Set goals.
  • How are you getting feedback from the new hires about the onboarding process?

Faster productivity

Another benefit of an onboarding process is decreased time to productivity. An effective onboarding process gets new hires aligned with processes and company culture faster so they can start contributing to company success immediately.

In fact, 54% of organisations with an onboarding process report an increase in new hire productivity, whereas 16% of HR managers said not having an onboarding process lowers their company's productivity

Once your employees are onboarded, they get the chance to look at their productivity and progress inside of your human resources system. If you offer them time and attendance software, they get the chance to see their productivity and measure it day by day.

By giving a good employee orientation and supplying the new hires with everything they need to succeed, they are better able to become engaged in their work, resulting in greater productivity and efficiency. 

feedback-talk

Better company culture

The relationships that new hires build with the other team members are a major benefit of an effective onboarding process. 66% of companies with an onboarding process see more success in new hires adapting to company culture.

This step begins as soon as a new hire accepts the position. Communication is critical from the very beginning of an employee's relationship with your company.

You can fight communication problems from day one with the right kind of onboarding. Prevent lag time as this can signal to a new hire that there is a lack of interest on your part. The moment someone has signed on to work for your company, ensure they are treated as an employee before they arrive on their first day. 

With this in mind, better company culture is undoubtedly achieved by onboarding. A good onboarding process makes new hires feel like part of the company immediately and helps forge lasting connections between managers and coworkers, promoting an environment of trust. It goes hand in hand with our next point, reducing employee turnover.

Reduced turnover

Whenever an employee quits, it costs the company money, time as well as other resources. It's also expensive to replace those employees and you'll be faced with the cost of advertising for the position, interviewing as well as the screening process.  With this in mind, keeping employees happy should be a top concern of any company. 

The happier an employee is at work, the higher the chances of them staying. A good onboarding process keeps employees engaged and interested in their job duties. The lack of effective onboarding is a major reason why companies lose 17 percent of their new hires within the first 90 days.

If you can keep your employees engaged and interested in the work they're doing, the chances of them continuing in their position are higher, and companies with an onboarding process see an increase in employee retention. You should also keep in mind the need to constantly invest in your staff with continuing professional development (CPD).

Ensuring success in your onboarding process  

Employee onboarding is a vital part of the hiring process when you're focused on expanding your company. However, you need to make sure that your growth isn't chaotic. An effective onboarding process will help new employees more easily adapt to a new work environment and feel more at ease with their peers and managers. It's an essential part of any company and can make the difference between a company with a revolving door of new employees and one that makes people want to stay. 

Onboarding benefits like the ones mentioned above are critical to employee satisfaction. However, you’ll need an onboarding tool to successfully onboard. If you don’t think it’s necessary, think again.

Thirty-six percent of HR professionals blame insufficient technology for their inability to automate and better organise the onboarding experience which prevents them from properly training managers in proper onboarding techniques.

By digitising a lot of the process, you get to lend access to more people all while working out of a centralised resource management system. You'll be able to work from anywhere and make any necessary changes on the fly. You can even take a look at an onboarding checklist.

Try our HR system with a free trial and see how we can improve your onboarding process today. 

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