An onboarding program is just as essential for new employees as it is for your organization. Effective onboarding programs can influence employee engagement, performance and retention, so it’s important that your program is set up to positively impact these vital elements. When you set up an employee for success, you set up your company for success – and a strong onboarding program is a surefire way to do both. Here are a few things to consider when creating, revising or implementing your onboarding program:
Tip: Address Core Values
Have a manager identify the core values of the company and where those values can be seen throughout the organization. Values should align with the company vision, mission, and culture, and should help define what sets you apart from your competitors.
How It Helps: When employees feel like they’re a part of your company and that they belong with your team, they’re more likely to demonstrate real drive, a willingness and excitement to become a valuable contribution to the organization – not just doing it out of obligation. Engaged employees are more likely to go above and beyond what’s expected of them. That’s good for their manager, and it’s good for the company too.
Tip: Develop Successful Leaders
It’s important for a manager or leader to have developed their own leadership skills in order to successfully onboard new employees and coach existing employees. A great leader will retain great employees, so make sure your supervisors, managers and other leaders have honed their own leadership skills as they take on more employees.
How It Helps: Employees will stick around for the long-term when they feel valued and have a good rapport with their manager and colleagues. Successful leaders manage and develop potential leaders, which supports a company’s success, growth, and retention rates. And it all starts with your leaders knowing how to effectively provide direction and support from day one.
Tip: Implement The Buddy System
At the point of onboarding, set the new employee up with a buddy who can be a guide for tips, tricks, best practices and other tidbits of knowledge. The experienced employee can introduce the new employee to the company’s values, help them learn their specific roles and responsibilities, and engage them with the company culture.
How It Helps: Lowering the rate of turnover can be attributed in part to improved employee relations. Give your employees ample opportunity to build rapport with their peers by implementing the buddy system from the get-go. Creating great connections and encouraging the team to support each other can improve the ways in which employees work together. As they support each other, their successes become shared successes, and the results go beyond anything that could’ve been achieved by just one person.
Tip: Set Them Up To Win
Provide direction and support upfront, and watch as your new hire picks up responsibilities more confidently. A clear path forward can help shake any uncertainties that your new employee might have, which can make all the difference between a positive and negative onboarding experience.
How It Helps: What would it take for you to say that your new hire has succeeded? If you’ve got an answer (and you should), help make it happen. The more time spent with an employee at the initial onboarding stage, the sooner that employee will be a responsible and dependable performer – a valuable contributor to your organization.
Effective onboarding processes can make a significant difference in the confidence and performance of your new employees, and they can also improve retention rates overall. The result is a more productive organization with a group of employees who are more engaged with their work, the company they work for, and the mission that your organization strives to achieve. If your onboarding process is missing something, don’t wait until retention rates start dropping to do something about it. You hire your people for a reason – now’s the time to make sure they’re all-in from day one.