6 Tips for Onboarding Your Team

According to a report by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, businesses hired a whooping sum of 5.8 million new employees into their business in July 2020, but most surprisingly, 5 million workers left their jobs. Thinking about this figure, it's important to note that the rate of employee turnover in businesses is a significant factor that has to be put into consideration. In order for new employees to adapt appropriately to the work environment, companies should devise strategies to carry out an efficient onboarding process.

Interestingly, according to a report by Urbanbound, studies showed that companies who decided to organize a great onboarding process experience as high as 54% of productivity from their new hires. During your recruitment process, it's understandable that you have selected the best applicants; however, ensuring that they are well-integrated into the team is essential. 

Did you know that there are several reasons why employees quit an organization even when they haven't spent much time working? Yeah, some of these issues include a lack of growth opportunities and dissatisfaction with management. However, all these problems can be resolved when new employees are made to pass through an onboarding process properly.

Setting Up an Excellent Onboarding Process for Your Team

Undoubtedly, companies that want to get the best out of their new employees need to have an onboarding structure. Onboarding processes help new staff to be properly introduced to a business's policy, culture, and roles and responsibilities they should play to contribute their quota towards its success. In fact, most human resources officers in companies view the onboarding process as an essential strategy for guaranteeing success for a new employee. 

That being said, let's take a look at some tips through which you can adequately onboard your team.

1. Creating a Comprehensive Onboarding Strategy

When setting up an onboarding process, the first to be done is to create a comprehensive onboarding strategy that ensures employees are properly introduced into the work culture and environment. When developing an onboarding strategy, you should include apparent timelines of what new hires should expect when working on their jobs for the first few weeks and months. After creating the onboarding plan, communicate clearly to employees to avoid confusion.

2. Providing a Thorough Job Description

When employees are hired into an organization, and they have little or no idea about what their roles should be, they can be disoriented. That's why, when you hire new employees into your business, it's essential to give them a detailed description of their jobs so they can have a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities. You can provide employees with clear job descriptions by giving them details about their duties, expectations, and company rules they should obey.

3. Setting Clear Expectations

To get the best out of new hires in your team, you need to set clear expectations for them to have a clear understanding of what they should do. In fact, setting clear expectations is one of the great ideas for onboarding that you can use to motivate your team to accomplish tasks. Setting up clear expectations can be done by preparing specific goals (some top companies use SMART goals to drive their employees positively) and objectives for your team to follow.

4. Offering Feedback and Support

While hired employees may be entirely new to the procedures and operations performed in an organization, you need to provide them with the necessary feedback. New employees who often get feedback from their leaders always feel valued and supported, which in turn helps to increase their level of productivity and effectiveness towards discharging duties. Ensuring regular check-ins and feedback sessions can help your team to identify areas they need to improve and provide ways through which they can achieve that.

5. Giving New Hires the Chance to Access Resources

Notably, not all new hires will know what they are to do in a company which means they need resources that can provide them with the required knowledge. To adequately equip your team with the necessary expertise to carry out their duties effectively, it's essential to give them a chance to have access to learning materials and resources. You can provide your team with the necessary tools and resources by giving them access to databases, relevant documents, software, and every other material they need.

6. Designating a Mentor

Since employees are newly hired into a business, they can't know team members without a proper introduction. That's why, when hiring new employees, ensure they are assigned to a mentor in your team that can help them to properly settle, feel welcomed, and supported in performing their jobs. Ensure that any mentor you assign is knowledgeable about your business and what the new employees must do in their jobs.

Summary

Although onboarding is a long process, it's a vital step that businesses should take to ensure that their new employees start performing well from day one. Onboarding helps to equip employees with the needed knowledge, ability, and skills they need to carry out their jobs effectively. Some tips for onboarding your team include providing employees with detailed job descriptions, offering feedback and support, and assigning a mentor.