For sales: Keep The Onboarding Going
Stijn de Groef, CEO & Co-founder at Talmundo
“HR’s job starts way before new hires’ first day and is far from over after the first week. According to Aberdeen Group 90% of employees decide whether to stay or leave during their first year in a new company. It is now up to the organisation to ensure employee retention and provide the framework for consistent feedback and development mechanisms.
The best onboarding practices are based off two factors: excellent pre-boarding (preparations and activities BEFORE day 1) and personalised ongoing activities concerning successful integration and, later on, career development for every new hire.”
Kick Off A Bootcamp
Kristina Martic, Head of Employer Branding at TalentLyft
“Implementing the bootcamp program is a great idea for onboarding new employees in leadership roles. All the new employees who are hired to lead teams, from middle managers to new C-suite level employees, go through a so called bootcamp.
It means that new employees rotate through every team in the organisation. This is a great way for your new leaders to get to know all the teams quickly, learn how they operate and develop strong personal ties with other employees and departments.”
Innovate On Your Training
Kai Uhlig, Managing Director at Userlane
“I really love the examples shown in other answers about the cool swag and tech, and I would like to focus on another very important aspect of onboarding: One of the challenges most companies are facing when hiring new employees is to provide appropriate software training and to manage the time, resources and organisation involved.
A unique and cool idea is to get rid of the often tedious, long and ineffective software training and to replace it with an interactive, step-by-step guiding technology, directly integrated onto the software like a top layer, similar to a GPS system.”
Have A Plan. Follow That Plan.
Gregg Lindberg, Managing Partner of Lighthouse
“Have a plan, and use it. Organisations must invest the time, energy and resources necessary to create an onboarding experience that clearly communicates organisational and role based expectations, introduces organisational culture, and makes the vial interpersonal and organisational connections for an employee to succeed. This strategic approach requires human resource professionals to deliver onboarding experiences, and support managers in doing the same.”
Put Yourself In Their Shoes!
Sarah Pollock, VP ClearCompany
“As a manager, you should put yourself in the shoes of a new hire and appreciate what it’s like for them to start working somewhere new. We often become so engrossed in our own roles that we can barely remember the time when we weren’t deeply acquainted with the people, processes, and products that make our businesses work. We might be so focused on roles and responsibilities that we forget to think about what new employees want from us when they join our team. Remember that your new hire is seeing, hearing, and experiencing everything at your company for the first time — your job is to make them feel comfortable and integrate them into the company so they can start producing. You can also use new hires, as a great way to start a feedback loop and learn what onboarding procedures are working well and if any may be confusing or unappealing to your newest hires.”
