Once a recruitment and selection process is complete, HR needs to put in place an extremely important step for talent management and engagement: employee onboarding.
Also known as onboarding, this phase is essential for new employees to feel part of the company from day one and, thus, be able to perform their duties more smoothly.
Knowing this, we prepared a complete content about onboarding and all the particularities of this strategy.
If you want to create your company’s onboarding but don’t know where to start, then this post is for you. Throughout it, you will learn:
- What is employee onboarding
- How important is employee onboarding?
- Examples of onboarding to put into practice
- How to adopt digital onboarding in times of home office
Ready to learn all about this HR mission? So let’s start!
What is employee onboarding?
There’s nothing worse than arriving at a company and feeling completely lost, right? Well, it’s to avoid situations like this that onboarding exists.
This term in English, well known in the corporate world, can be translated as “on board” or “embark”.
When we talk about onboarding in HR, we are referring to the process of introducing and adapting newly hired professionals, so that they can “embark” in the context of the company they will become part of as soon as possible.
By awakening, the feeling of belonging at the beginning of this journey, and providing an immersion in the culture, values, and purposes of the organization, employee onboarding helps new professionals feel more prepared to perform their activities.
Consequently, the tendency is for them to contribute more effectively to the success of the organization.
How important is employee onboarding?
Now that you understand what employee onboarding is, how about knowing some indicators that reaffirm the real importance of this strategy for good talent management?
For starters, data released by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) showed that new hires are 58% more likely to still be with the company three years later if they have completed a structured onboarding process.
In addition, a study conducted by Glassdoor, in partnership with Brandon Hall Group, reinforced that first impressions are really impressive.
According to the survey, organizations that have a strong onboarding process tend to improve the retention of new hires by 82% and productivity by more than 70%.
Companies with weak onboarding programs, on the other hand, lose the trust of their candidates and are more likely to lose these individuals in the first year.
In general, we can say that, when well structured, employee Onboarding can improve employee engagement and motivation, reduce turnover rates, improve the company’s climate and strengthen the organizational culture.
In other words: if you still don’t have an onboarding strategy in your company, it’s time to reverse this scenario! In the next chapter, we will bring you some tips that can help you in this mission.
Examples of employee onboarding to put into practice
According to SHRM, an employee onboarding needs to go through four main pillars, known as the four C’s, to be successful. Are they:
- Compliance: This is the lowest level, which includes teaching employees rules, legal regulations, and basic policies;
- Clarification: This refers to ensuring that employees understand new jobs and all expectations related to them.
- Culture: is a broad category, which involves providing employees with a sense of organizational norms, both formal and informal, such as team habits.
- Connection: refers to the vital interpersonal relationships and information networks that newcomers must establish.
Taking the four C’s into consideration, here are three examples of actions that can be included in your onboarding:
1 – Create a welcome policy for onboarding
When creating a welcome policy, your mission will be to establish a kind of roadmap for how new employees will be welcomed once they arrive for their first day on the job.
Some companies choose to deliver a kit with personalized items, such as a t-shirt, calendar, and message from the company’s leader or CEO. Although it seems simple, this care helps the newcomer to begin to “get into the atmosphere” of the organization and feel welcomed.
In addition, it is also possible to take advantage of this moment to present more about the company’s history and convey all the information that the employee needs to know in this initial contact, either through a standardized guide or even a video.
It is worth remembering that the welcome policy can also include actions to be carried out before the first day, such as for example, sending an email with important guidelines on the arrival of the new professional at the company.
2 – Provide all necessary resources and tools
When welcoming a new employee, it is important to make sure that he will have all the necessary resources to carry out his activities.
This includes offering a complete workstation, configured e-mail, log in and password to access the company’s systems, and basic office supplies, among others.
This premise even applies to employees who are hired to work remotely. After all, for this model to be successful, it is essential that they have a good structure at its disposal.
In these cases, it is highly recommended that the company also provide equipment such as a computer, software, and even an ergonomic chair and table.
3 – Align the responsibilities of the new employee
Throughout employee Onboarding, it is important to take a moment to clarify all the responsibilities that employees will have.
Together, HR and the area manager must provide all the details about the role of this new professional, what activities he will carry out and what results and goals will be demanded by the company.
Remember: before the new hire starts his activities, align expectations clearly and be prepared to clarify any doubts that may arise.
In addition to these three actions, we have another golden tip for you: evaluating the success of your company’s onboarding, through consistent metrics, is the best way to improve processes and stay on the right track.
If you want to know how to do this, we recommend that you click here and check out the content we created on the subject.
4 – How to adopt a digital Onboarding in times of home office
We can’t end today’s post without talking about remote onboarding first. After all, with the Covid-19 pandemic, many organizations adopted the home office as the official work model and had to reinvent themselves to follow up with integration strategies.
If this is the case for your company, the first thing you should know is that the actions listed in the chapter above also apply to digital onboarding. What changes, of course, are the means used to make them happen.
The good news is that there are numerous tools that can be great allies at this time, such as real-time communication platforms or video conferences.
To further enhance your remote onboarding, it is also possible to bet on personalized platforms, in which all the information new employees need to know, and gamified training will be included.
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