Employees that know the big picture of their individual task will have greater motivation and may even have great ideas how to improve the bigger picture. Clarifying a finish line can completely change an employee’s mindset.
What is the onboarding process?
To start with the most basic definition of the onboarding process, it is the process that gets your employees up to speed and turns them into productive employees in your organization. Every company needs onboarding regardless of tasks and regardless of culture. As easy as things seem to be after a few months of doing them, you too were at one stage clueless as to how this company ran. When you hire a new person, you cannot expect them to pick everything up as quickly. But, with a quality onboarding process, they may pick it up even faster than you.
The employee onboarding process is the first impression your new employees have of you outside the recruiting and hiring process. To make a good first impression, you’ll need to establish a good onboarding process that immediately integrates new team members and gives them the tools they need to be successful. Locking your new hires in a dark room to only listen to presentation after presentation and review an employee onboarding process ppt made in 1997 doesn’t cut it anymore.
Forming a successful new employee onboarding process involves thought. On their first day, you’ll likely want to cover the basics. This presentation will give a nice overview of what your company does and the history. Then, you’ll likely want to give new hires and buddy or teammate that they can work with and ask questions. This is a great way to give them a familiar face within the company who can also be a valuable resource.
The new hire onboarding process is a delicate one. Any employee is easily the most malleable at the beginning of their career. Everyone has their own ideal sample onboarding process and looking at samples is a great place to start. But, you must create your own to accurately fit your company. The best onboarding processes feature custom training paths and lessons about key metrics, team & personal objectives, and helpful resources that any new team member should know.
Having an onboarding process template is a good practice. You will be able to answer questions about what you’re going to work through in the first week and what you’re going to accomplish in the first month. It’s a good way to gauge where you are in the onboarding process versus where you need to be.
Onboarding new employees is an exciting time for both companies and employees. Make sure to harness that excitement with proper planning and establishment of your new hire onboarding process flow.
Onboarding checklist
To create a new hire onboarding checklist, you need to decide what you want your new employees to experience in their first week. You don’t want to bombard them with information, but you can’t drag out the initial learning process for months. You’ll find the perfect balance with some practice.
Consider having a company overview before meeting the team and tour. The company overview should brief your employees on common processes they may not be aware of. Also, after this section they will have a better idea of day-to-day operations. So, when the team section rolls around you can go over roles of what people do and what tasks. New employees will have questions and they should know the expert in that area when they do.
A manager onboarding checklist might be different from your new entry level checklist. You should have checklists prepared for different departments as well as different positions. If your new manager is being promoted from within, their checklist will be different from a manager that’s new to the company. Maybe the meet the team section is more important than the company overview section in a manager’s checklist. The decision is up to you.
An employee onboarding process checklist ensures HR does not glance over one section or completely forgets another. It’s helpful to both parties and when a new employee asks a question, you can take notes to be sure to cover it next time.
Get started making onboarding process checklists today; make a few and test them out.
Creating an effective onboarding plan
Great companies have great onboarding plans. An onboarding plan differs from an onboarding checklist in detail. But, successful onboarding programs begin with an onboarding checklist. By expanding your onboarding checklist to form an onboarding plan you will decide not only what you want to cover in the process, but how and to what detail it is explained.
For example, in an onboarding checklist, you may have an office tour. In an onboarding plan, you will have a where to start your office tour at what time and where to finish. This will ensure that you are moving at the right pace so you can cover everything you have planned for the day.
An employee onboarding process map is a great way to present your onboarding plan visually. It should be an expansion of what you want to cover in the coming days. It’s called an onboarding map so you can see where you’re going rather than just knowing landmarks along the way.
If you’re wondering how to build an onboarding plan for a new hire, you need to find the right sample onboarding plan. Don’t rely completely on an onboarding plan template though. You’ll need to apply it to your own company. Some things will be removed and some things will be added. If you’re lucky, you’ll just have to add your company name.
Onboarding programs are best when they are created by someone within the organization. No company or individual knows your company like someone who works in it. It loses a personal touch when you pull one from a random site without even reading through it. Consider asking recent new hires for feedback on what they enjoyed when they started and what they wish would have been included. This will provide a great foundation for building an efficient onboarding process that employees love.
Instead, simply basing your onboarding plan template on another is the best way to go. You can find one to base yours around and go from there. Don’t be afraid to change it after a while. Find what works best for your company and your new employees through tests and trials and stick with it. The best onboarding employee template for your company is one that you create.
What does an effective onboarding process look like?
The onboarding process for new hires is crucial to get right and in spite of common practice, includes much more than the first day of work. In fact, best in class onboarding programs last more than just a few weeks. We’ve seen some great onboarding programs create 30,60, and even 90 day checkpoints for new hires after the initial onboarding process ends. Similarly to the group dynamic process flow, a good onboarding program will be aware of and include the phases of forming, storming, norming, and performing.
