Employee Onboarding in most companies involves a lot of different types of paperwork and explanations. It is generally administrative and tedious, and the reason behind this is some basic needs of the employers and ensuring overall compliance.
All that is right, but onboarding your new hires in such a boring way can be a big mistake. Onboarding is a crucial period of transition, and not using this can lead to a high turnover rate, less engagement, and productivity, thereby reducing the organization’s overall efficiency.
Using innovative and strategically designed onboarding practices has many benefits, including :
Better Employee Experience
Today’s job openings are increasing at an unprecedented rate, and all talented professionals have innumerable opportunities available to them. If you don’t provide a good employee experience, they can easily find an option that suits them better.
A good onboarding process paves the way for an entire employee experience. Focusing on work culture, workforce development, and frequent check-ins makes the new hires feel valued, and they think that you care about their experience with your company. Extending these focus points beyond the onboarding process becomes a cherry on the top and provides a strong employee experience.
Higher Engagement
Higher engagement among employees is associated with higher productivity, less absenteeism, and turnover. But, the issue is most employees working in an organization are not engaged.
Here, providing an impeccable onboarding experience can help the new hires to feel more connected with the organization, and its vision, values, etc.
Providing your new hires with a buddy or a mentor to help them learn about the company in unique ways, like sitting for breakfast with the top management, etc., can help. You can give them early recognition and take their feedback seriously.
These small things can work wonders to build employee engagement in your company right from the beginning.
Better Retention
Employee retention is a top priority for all organizations. A company invests a lot of time, energy, and cash on its employees. When an employee leaves, it creates a temporary void in the company, which may or may not be filled quickly.
Even hiring an experienced candidate does not ensure that he will take the place of your previous employee. It takes some time to be aware of the work practices and culture prevalent in any organization, and that’s why employee turnover turns out to be expensive for the company.
Organizations that provide a solid and interactive onboarding experience improve hire retention by 82 percent. This can begin with an ’employee pre boarding’ plan.
Please give them a warm welcome to build some excitement and provide them with a smooth transition from existing employees to new hires. Also, you can use tools like Userguiding for an impeccable onboarding experience.
Easier Talent Attraction
About twenty percent of new hires hesitate to recommend an employer to someone after going through their onboarding process. Doesn’t it mean that the onboarding process influences the psyche of your employees about your organization?
These dissatisfied employees can harm your brand’s image by making their opinions public on review sites like Glassdoor.
An engaging onboard program that offers a phenomenal employee experience can work wonders in retaining old employees but also aids you in finding newer talents.
After providing a stellar onboarding experience, ask the new hires to review these review sites. You can also invite them to your employee referral program to get recommendations for great talent.
Final Thoughts
A strategic and well-planned onboarding process is much more than that tedious paperwork and creating a slide with all the company processes. A good onboarding process is sure to pay you off, both in the short and long term.
Some of these benefits affect your top line, and hence the company’s overall growth. So, consider your onboarding program seriously and make changes to make it more engaging. Over time, you will indeed be seeing its benefits, both on your top line and bottom line.
