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The onboarding experience can be a bewildering time for a new employee, and it can leave a person disoriented and anxious for days, if not handled properly. Your Human Resources department should take the lead in making the onboarding process as painless as possible for a newcomer, so they can begin to fit in with the existing corporate culture, and so they can become productive as soon as possible.
For starters, the new employee should be shown that he/she is expected by your organisation, for instance by having a desk set up with name plate, having a connected phone in place, and by establishing a specific location in the office set aside. Probably one of the worst ways of welcoming someone new to the company is to bury them with a whole collection of forms to fill out, and entire volumes of documentation to read.
Onboarding over several days
Rather than trying to accomplish the entire onboarding process in a day, it’s usually best to spread it out over several days. In that period of time, the newhire can be gradually introduced to company values and expectations, and whatever paperwork must be handled can be done incrementally, instead of in one long, continuous session.
This multi-day approach will also demonstrate to the employee that your company truly cares about the onboarding experience, and that it has value to both your organisation and the employee. The new person should also be introduced to his/her supervisor during the onboarding process, so as to eliminate any confusion on that score, and an overview of the organisation chart should be provided, so as to convey a clear concept of the business hierarchy.
Introduce team-building
As soon as it’s practical, the new employee should be exposed to a team-building project within your organisation. This isn’t so much to get the newhire productive right away in the new surroundings, as it is to introduce the person to all those individuals that will be colleagues and co-workers. A team project is also a great way to convey company values to the new employee, since many of those can be imparted over the course of a project that several team members are involved with.
Assign a mentor
One of the best ways of helping a new person get acclimated to your company is to assign a friendly face like a mentor to help out during the first week or two. That will give your newhire someone to turn to for all the questions which are sure to pop up, and someone to help guide the new person through the process of learning and understanding new duties and responsibilities. A good mentor can also offer tips and advice on how to get things done in the most efficient manner, while also complying with company values and requirements.
Automate the process
If yours is an organisation which frequently welcomes newhires into the fold, you should consider automating the entire process of onboarding, especially if you’re in the retail or hospitality industries. A process such as that provided by Flare can provide a simple interface which allows you to add employees easily, and integrate them with your existing Employee Information System, without having to go through a long, involved manual process.
Templates made available by this automated system can create employee documents which are ready for the employee to sign, and it can have them completed much more quickly than any manual system could hope to achieve. There is also an online interface available which newhires can use to provide information needed by your company, sign any contracts which may be necessary, and even to upload important documents and certifications.
Not only is this automated process a boon to your organisation, in terms of efficiency and accuracy, but your new employees will appreciate the smooth and well-organised approach to onboarding.
