By A.J. Mistretta | HRTools.com Business Writer
New employees have a lot on their shoulders. They want to prove themselves to you, their employer, and they want to start off as strong as possible. But there’s going to be a ramp up period. The new hire isn’t going to know where the coffee is on the first day, much less how to impress with their work. There will be a period of adjustment, of getting to know their coworkers and the company culture. All this is to be expected.
Your job is to make sure the worker is given every opportunity to succeed. If, on the employee’s first day, they spend hours filling out paperwork and don’t even have a telephone or computer, they might feel less than enthusiastic about this new gig. It’s important to have a process in place to make sure the employee feels welcome and valued right from the beginning.
In the talent management arena, this is called on-boarding. The idea is that you are getting the new employee ramped up, or “on board” with the rest of the company as quickly as possible. Doing so increases the likelihood of retention and helps to quickly integrate the individual with their new team. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, having a documented process or set of activities can speed up how fast a new worker feels welcome. And since measurable time and resources are likely spent recruiting your employees, keeping them is probably a strong focus.
Steve Werner, management professor at the University of Houston’s Bauer College of Business, says a good on-boarding plan allows companies to provide new employees with accurate information in a more efficient way. Also, since the on-boarding process is probably the first significant exposure the new employee has to the company, it’s a good opportunity for the employer to begin explaining the culture and company values.
“There is often a lot of uncertainty and perhaps some fear of the unknown for an individual coming into a new company,” Werner says. “On-boarding gives you a way to help alleviate that uncertainty, and the more you can do that on a personal level, the better the long-term benefits.”
Below you’ll find 10 steps — broken up by where they fall in the process — to help you successfully on-board your staff.
Before the First Day
Step 1: Create a Checklist/Plan
Like many other components of running your business, on-boarding is best executed using a pre-set plan. You want the process to be the same for all new employees, so it’s not something you will want to “wing” each time. Other things may be happening in the company when a new person starts that take away from the introduction process. So create a checklist or a plan. Put it in writing. Share it with your managers. Consider making it part of the employee handbook so everyone is aware of how it should work. Werner says as employers design their on-boarding plan, they should attempt to make the process as engaging as possible. “You want to have a positive atmosphere where people come away from the process thinking ‘this is a great place to work,’” he says. Committing to a pre-set plan will make the process go smoothly, regardless of what else is occurring in the company when the new hire comes on board.
Step 2: Reduce the Day 1 Paper Trail
The first day on the job should consist of getting familiar with computers and phones, meeting coworkers and gaining a general understanding of the workplace. But oftentimes much of an employee’s first day actually consists of filling out paperwork—from tax forms to confidentiality agreements. Sure, these documents have to be completed. But consider sending them to new hires ahead of time so they can be filled out and brought in complete on the first day. You may even want to put these forms on your company intranet site, along with a digital version of the company handbook and other important information. Give new workers access to this site before their first day so they can begin familiarizing themselves with the company and what’s expected of them.
Step 3: Send a Welcome Letter and First Day Itinerary
The goal of on-boarding is to quickly integrate the new employee into the company and make her feel like she’s part of the team. Once the new hire has accepted the job offer and a start date is determined, send a letter welcoming her. You don’t want to go into specifics on expectations—that will come later. Rather, this is your chance to reiterate why you hired her in the first place and how excited you are to have her on your team. You might also want to provide an agenda for the first day of work, including what she needs to bring with her, what you hope to show her, plans for a welcoming lunch, and so on. The letter may accompany the employment paperwork discussed in Step 2 or a link to where these documents can be found online.
Step 4: Do the Set Up
Have you ever started a new job and had to wait three days before your computer was set up? It’s not a pleasant experience, knowing that you could be starting on work if only you had the tools to do so. This scenario is fairly common and often leaves employees feeling less valued. After all, if you, their employer, cared about the job they were doing, wouldn’t you have their equipment ready? Whether it’s someone from HR or, in the case of a smaller company, you the owner, someone should be responsible for making sure a new hire has everything they need on day 1, from phone and computer to office supplies and even business cards.
The First Day
Step 5: Make Introductions Easier
Meeting an office full of new names and faces can be a little intimidating. Of course your new hire wants to get to know everyone quickly, but the reality is he’s not going to remember all those names along with everything else he’s bombarded with on the first day. Help him out by creating a company directory, complete with employee headshots. You can make this part of the handbook or house it on the intranet. Just make sure your new hire has ready access to it so he can quickly figure out who’s who.
Step 6: Appoint a Mentor
Your new hire needs someone to show her the ropes around the company, answer questions for her and generally be a buddy until she finds her own niche. More and more businesses are using formal and informal mentorship to help new employees get acquainted with their environment. The mentor should be someone on the same level as the new employee so she doesn’t feel intimidated about asking certain questions. You’re not trying to force a friendship, but rather you want someone who is compatible and can explain all the unwritten rules of this workplace. Werner says more employers are pairing new hires with those who themselves are relatively recent additions to the company, perhaps a year or so. “That way the mentor understands what the newer individual is going through and can relate to them,” he says.
Step 7: Have a Welcome Event
If the goal is to get your new employee to mesh well with the team, he’s got to get to know the team. Try to organize a meet and greet lunch or happy hour within the first couple days of the his start date. You want this to be casual and low-key. This is a chance to stir conversation and find commonalities between the new hire and the rest of the team. You should probably do a little homework on the new guy’s hobbies and interests ahead of time to make this conversation flow well. And it’s probably a good idea for you to make yourself scarce after a little while, giving your team a chance to talk to the new guy without the boss around.
Moving Forward
Step 8: Hold a “Where You Fit” Meeting
Oftentimes employees are hired for a specific job—think marketing, payroll, administrative assistant—that might not pertain directly to the core function of a business. Sure, they are skilled for their position, but they may not be aware of the intricacies of what the company does. It’s important that you explain the company to your new hires. What do different business units do? Who’s in charge of what? How does the company make money? They’ll probably figure out the answers to all these questions in time, but why make them start out blind? Schedule a sit down with your new employee shortly after the start date to explain the company in depth and how they fit into the overall mission. If done right, this will give them a greater sense of responsibility and value to the organization.
Step 9: Set Achievable Goals
If you don’t know what you expect of your employees, you can’t expect them to know either. Setting defined goals gives both you and your employee a baseline for expectations and a tool to measure performance. Shortly after the start date, sit him down and go over specific goals for his first three months on the job. Perhaps this is the trial period to ensure he fits well with your business. Tell him the things you want to see him accomplish over that time and what success looks like from your viewpoint. In doing so, you’re establishing what he can do to impress you, as well as what failure looks like.
Step10: Give Timely Feedback on Performance
Yearly reviews are fine once a worker has been on the job for a while. But when an employee is just starting out, she probably wants a lot of feedback to ensure she’s doing the job properly. It doesn’t behoove the company or the employee to hold criticism in for long periods of time. Instead, hold regular “status check” meetings during those first few months. What can she do more efficiently? Does she have any questions or concerns about the way the job is going so far? Weekly or bi-weekly status checks can help curb mistakes or bad habits early, and help ensure you’re going to keep a good employee.
Whether you call it orientation, on-boarding or something else entirely, the process of integrating new workers into your company can make or break your team. “We already know how important first impressions are,” Werner says. “If the employer handles the on-boarding well, it can have a tremendous long-term payoff in terms of retention and employee buy-in. But if the employer blows it, there’s increased potential for a long-term negative impact.”
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