5 Onboarding Programs Best Practices To Welcome New Hires

Companies successfully turn new hires into long-term employees with quality onboarding programs. As an HR professional, you are directly involved in the hiring process. You listen to interviewees as they attempt to impress a hiring manager and work to impress them in return. In addition, your employer relies on you to do more than find the best candidates to hire. They also expect you to use top onboarding program strategies to retain employees post-hire. In order to build a genuine, hard-working team, you need to learn how to establish a successful onboarding program. Read on to learn onboarding programs best practices to welcome new hires.

Explain Individual Impact

Firstly, focus on the individual impact of each new hire when onboarding. Many HR teams neglect to portray how valuable their new hires are to the company as a whole. As a result, those new hires fail to resonate with the work they will be conducting. They then either produce low quality work or leave before the onboarding process is even complete. By laying out the framework of the company and incorporating each new hire’s role into it, you make it clear how essential they are to the company’s success. When HR teams implement this practice into their onboarding programs, they successfully retain motivated employees.

Portray Company Values

HR teams also inspire new hires through onboarding programs by portraying the company’s core values. Most job seekers want a job that they can fit into both intellectually and culturally. Typically, new hires still feel uneasy about whether they fit into a company’s culture. Thus, they feel unwelcome. To rid your new hires of this uneasiness, show them how you and other employees act on the company’s core values on a daily basis. Tell company stories that include the values you and the rest of the team follow each day. That way, your new hires will begin to feel like they are part of the team. With this onboarding programs best practice, they will understand that their skills and values meet your needs and vice versa.

Team Approach

Also, use a team approach within your onboarding programs. In doing so, you will increase your new hires’ sense of becoming part of the team. More so, the onboarding process will not be solely up to you and the rest of your HR team. With a team approach, you will have a training plan that alleviates stress by sharing onboarding responsibilities. New hires can also gain perspectives into different departments of the business with this approach. At the same time, they will begin establishing relationships with their colleagues from the beginning of their career at your office. Newly hired employees will feel welcomed if you implement this onboarding programs best practice.

Constant Check-Ins

Because the onboarding process can become overwhelming depending on the role, add constant check-ins to your onboarding program. New hires expect HR professionals to follow up with them after completing certain tasks or watching instructional videos. If a new hire watches a video and has a question, they need to be able to ask it. When they are not met by an HR professional and cannot ask their question, they cannot fully understand their training. Hence, they will not be able to perform their duties well. Furthermore, they will feel like your team does not have time to fully train them, producing a sense of unwelcomeness. To avoid establishing a poor office culture during onboarding, use the best practice of performing constant check-ins.

Relational Learning

In addition to the above best practices, relational learning is also advantageous in onboarding programs. Unlike traditional onboarding, relational learning takes place over a longer period of time. Rather than having your new hires watch videos all day, every day for a week, you onboard over months. New hires will not have to learn the entire employee handbook at the drop of a hat. During their first few months, offer new information in small chunks. This allows new hires to take in your company’s processes, techniques and rules. By slowing down the process, you increase your new hires’ chances of remembering key details. More so, you continue working closely with employees as they buy into their new job. Use relational learning in onboarding programs to promote complete learning and high performance.

Use onbarding programs best practices to retain your new hires and make them feel welcome. To begin the process, explain to each new hire how their role will positively impact the entire company’s success. Throughout the entire program, portray company core values to ensure you have a good culture fit. Use a team approach to enable relationship building. Frequently check in with your new hires to answer questions or resolve any issues. Finally, implement relational learning throughout a new hire’s first through months. With these onboarding programs best practices, you will effectively integrate new employees into the workplace.