When defining how to carry out onboarding, it is essential to understand it as a key stage to guarantee the success of the hiring process.
17% of new hires leave companies in the first quarter of their employment. Thirty percent do so in their first six months. Most specialists agree that this is largely due to the absence of an onboarding strategy.
Taking this into consideration, onboarding should become one of your priorities to ensure talent retention.
What is onboarding?
Onboarding is the process of incorporating a new employee into an organization. It is that first stage in which they must be helped to understand, among other details, their role, the company’s culture, and policies.
To understand this concept well, several key points should not be overlooked:
Onboarding is part of the hiring flow. In other words, onboarding does not end with making a job offer and signing the contract but with the final incorporation of the new employee into the company. The entire process revolves around hiring and onboarding.
The onboarding process is not limited to induction. On the contrary, it is organized in phases that must be completed in stages over a medium to a long time.
Although most talent management specialists plan it for 90 days, it can extend up to a year.
In principle, upon completing the onboarding process, new employees should feel well integrated and confident in their new position. At least, this is the ideal of what is assumed to be a successful onboarding.
Why is good onboarding important?
With the arrival of a new employee, you cannot expect them to make their way into the company. However, this is a misconception that many companies make.
There is a tendency to believe that if you are a “crack,” you will overcome any challenge without much accompaniment. But this is the source of many avoidable problems in organizations, which is why it is important to be clear about why onboarding is important.
The numbers are clear: Approximately 45% of new employees don’t make it to their first year on the job. Could this be improved with writing papers for money onboarding process? Most likely, yes.
Recruitment processes are costly and time-consuming, but onboarding should not be neglected. This phase is key to ensuring that new hires are successful.
So much so that among the main reasons for a new employee to desist from staying with the company are bad experiences and lack of resources during onboarding.
Benefits of good onboarding
The advantages of investing in onboarding can be distinguished in the short and medium-term. Short-term benefits (first three months):
The new employee will find it easier to integrate, to recognize him/herself as part of the company. Consequently, he/she will strengthen the values that he/she has in common with the rest of the team, which is probably part of the corporate culture. This environment is very favorable to obtain results in less time.
Medium and long-term benefits (first year):
In addition to ensuring a favorable work environment, the advantages of a well-implemented onboarding are also seen in strengthening the employer brand and decreasing turnover rates. Another indicator where improvements should be seen is increased productivity.
Steps in the Onboarding Process
Planning onboarding will help you reduce the time and resources you spend on new hires. Talent retention is the biggest reward of this process, but you must create your script to get there.
Ideally, the new hire should move from learning to action in the first three months. However, as I mentioned above, this can take a little longer. It will depend on the training, information, and coaching they have received.
My colleague, Alida Miranda created an onboarding model that is very easy to execute and consists of four stages:
0 days: definition of purpose
30 days: learn
60 days: build
90 days: do
Each stage is not independent of the previous one but represents the moment the new employee should be in that period.
Definition of purpose: Pre-onboarding
Usually, we place the beginning of the onboarding of new employees on day 1. However, to get there, we must have a series of conditions previously created.
The purpose definition stage starts from the recruitment and selection phase, particularly in the interview process. This first moment is closely linked to the generation of expectations, both from the new employee and the company.
The expectations generated must be very well aligned with the purpose of the new role. In this way, we will avoid frustrations on both sides.
A good guide to approaching this phase can be:
State the vision you have for the new role and check that it aligns with the objectives you expect it to fulfill. It is important to clarify what skills the new employee should have and what contributions he/she will make to the company.
Write a document detailing the new role and the responsibilities he/she will assume. It should define what the new employee will do and how they will carry out their tasks.
Establish milestone performance metrics. These metrics should be shared at the outset so that the new employee is clear on what results from he or she is expected to achieve.
Set out some benchmark milestones that, while more qualitative, represent an added value of what the new role is expected to drive. This may be the creation of strategic plans or other initiatives.
Learning: A key stage of onboarding
You can’t aspire to successful onboarding if you don’t contemplate a learning phase. Usually, the first month of work is based on this.
The first thing to keep in mind is that you must prepare yourself and the new employee for their arrival:
Systematize all the information that could be useful about the company and send it to them before their first day. You can include general information such as the mission, vision and corporate values, organizational structure, details of his immediate team, rules, schedules, available equipment, etc.
In addition, the new employee must be clear about where and to which member of the company he/she should introduce him/herself on the first day.
Be careful: You cannot expect to have control of all this information from the first day. Determine the details, if necessary, as the onboarding progresses.
Another aspect that is crucial during the learning phase is training:
Most companies assume that an intensive training plan, with lectures, courses, and certifications, is enough for the new employee to learn how to do his or her job. But to do a good job, as in life itself, takes practice.
Therefore, you must involve new employees in real projects where they feel their participation is considered from the first month. This does not mean to throw them adrift without support but to assume their preparation from practice with formal training as support.
A good way to measure the evolution of the new employee is to hold periodic meetings. As onboarding progresses, it is normal for these meetings to be spaced out. However, in the first month, it is essential to generate these exchanges of mutual feedback.
Building new work strategies during onboarding
The learning process does not end in the first month of onboarding; on the contrary. In the building stage, new employees have more active participation in the company’s processes and must map out their development strategy within the organization.
In addition, it is important to be clear that construction is a permanent phase and encompasses both production and relationship development. In this phase, the new employee must know the team better and become part of it.
All these elements mark the new employee’s roadmap within the company. It is a key moment for them to project their capabilities and the value they bring to the company. The development of this stage will determine, to a large extent, the success of the hiring process.
Onboarding with follow-up
After their first two months, new hires are expected to feel more comfortable in their role. Therefore, already at this stage, it is important to systematically track KPIs and other evaluation indicators to analyze whether the new employee (and the company) is on the right track.
This does NOT mean that mistakes made from here on will be intolerable. Keep in mind that 2-3 months is too short for the new employee to master the company’s processes to perfection, especially if your results depend on historical values.
However, it is necessary to comply with more elementary issues such as schedules, rules of discipline, and execution of tasks where their seriousness and commitment are evidenced.
In a general sense, this stage, which can extend up to a year depending on the role and type of company, should be a period of natural growth. It is expected that the achievements will have a longer-term impact, and the new employee will be fully integrated into the organization.
Consult our text: “How to attract and retain the best talent” and discover some of the most effective strategies to foster good relationships in the team. It will be very beneficial for you to master these actions to develop your ideas for onboarding new employees.
