5 Strategies for Effective Recruitment and Onboarding
Whether it’s a once-a-year occurrence or a constant drive, organisations typically recruit to fill talent gaps. And when you are successful in recruiting new hires, the next step is employee onboarding.
Every organisation will typically have its own new employee onboarding process. This process will likely vary from business to business and industry to industry.
But what makes employee onboarding so important?
What constitutes an effective employee onboarding checklist for your new employees?
As people experts, we at Elston HR are aware of the importance of recruiting, onboarding, inducting, and training your hires. We answer these questions and more in our employee onboarding guide.
Why Do You Need an Onboarding Strategy?
Fun fact - A strong onboarding program can increase new employee retention by 82%.
It is no longer a secret that a good onboarding experience plays a vital role in influencing employee retention. Onboarding is a strong predeterminant of retaining employees in your organisation.
If your onboarding process makes the new hires feel welcome, valued and ready for their role, they are more likely to cultivate a sense of belonging, loyalty and commitment to the company. The employee retention rate also determines the productivity and stability of an organisation.
Some of the best employee onboarding experiences talk about a structured and strategic approach to onboarding. This is quite different from the traditional onboarding approaches that focus on paperwork and processes. At times, these traditional processes can be inconsistent, informal and irrelevant leaving employees confused and lost.
Ever wondered what constitutes a strong employee onboarding strategy?
Let us break it down for you.
5 Strategies for Effective New Employee Onboarding Process
“Well begun is half done”, goes the saying. This holds true for onboarding your employees as well. Getting off to a good start sets the right tone for your new hires.
Take a look at these 5 strategies you can use as an effective employee onboarding guide.
1. Design an Effective Orientation Program
An effective orientation program makes your new recruits feel taken care of while they are transitioning into the organisation.
Your job as a manager is to ensure all necessary orientation material and required documentation is ready to access, well before they arrive. Easy access to material helps new hires familiarise themselves with the company and fill in any necessary paperwork during their free time. It is best not to overcomplicate this step.
An exceptional orientation program needs to have a functional workspace and a mentor for them to reach out to.
2. Infuse Learning and Development into the Onboarding Process
Long hours spent familiarising themselves with your organisation’s procedures and processes can negatively impact your new recruit’s productivity. To ensure they work optimally from the get-go, you can incorporate learning right into the employee onboarding process.
This move can ensure new employees get familiar with the organisation's operations before they officially start their job role.
Learning approaches that help in this are tutorials of software they will be using daily, presentations or videos on company values, SOPs, and face-to-face sessions with team leads or managers.
3. Focus on Relationships
Building good relationships is key to any successful team and your onboarding strategy should include that. One way to do this is by bringing people together and engaging them as teams for a particular task.
This not only lets the new hires know about your organisation’s culture but also gives them an understanding of what successful work practices are. As a manager, it’s recommended you engage your new hire in a one-on-one conversation to understand their career trajectory and professional goals.
4. Ask for Feedback Periodically
Feedback is one of the valuable tools to gauge employee satisfaction and interest. You can ask them to give feedback on their experience right from the start. Take it one step further and nudge them for ideas for improvement. It can help you gain perspective on how they feel about their experience through the onboarding process. At the same time, it gives them a feeling that their ideas matter and opinions are heard, setting the tone for a satisfactory onboarding experience.
5. Include KPIs in Training
Including Key Performance Indicators or KPIs in training is a great way to measure performance. Adequate training using these KPIs will help employees know what is expected of them in terms of performance and how they can perform their roles effectively.
Turn to Elston HR for an Employee Onboarding Strategy Tailor-Made for Your Organisation
Hiring does not end with recruitment and induction. Onboarding plays an instrumental role in not just welcoming employees into the workplace but also successfully equipping them with the knowledge and tools needed for an effective transition.
When it comes to crafting some of the best employee onboarding experiences, Elston HR strategies stand out. Working with Elston as your HR partner ensures your organisation shines in all departments, from training to recruiting, to employee retention.
Not only onboarding, we also offer HR audits, advice on fostering employee relations, menopause training and crafting well-being training modules.
Discover our services and find out more.