Everyone starts their journey as a new employee at some point in time. It’s a time full of anxiety and uncertainty for the new recruit since they’re walking into an unknown environment. If you can help reduce their stress then the employee will adapt quickly to the new environment which will help them become a productive member of the company much faster. The quicker you can make an employee used to the work environment and culture of the company, the better.
Below are some of the key points you should keep in mind when onboarding a new employee to help them become a part of the company faster and will ultimately retain them by creating a positive first impression.
1. Make them feel at Home
Whether it’s an offline onboarding in your office or an online onboarding process, you must ensure that the employee feels comfortable around their peers. This will help them establish their network inside the office and form professional relationships faster. Many companies provide a welcome gift, a set of instructions, and a welcome buddy to expedite this process.
Making the new recruits comfortable will also make sure that they ask work related questions. Asking questions is extremely important since it will clear up their doubts regarding their work. The number one problem employers face with new employees is retention, if you follow these steps then it shouldn’t be a problem.
2. Get the Paperwork Sorted
Before you can start assigning your new employee their tasks, you should make sure that their documents are in order. This is beneficial for both your company and your employee. Your company will benefit greatly since managing paperwork is usually a cumbersome task for HR. You can always take the help of an easy employee onboarding software solution to make things easier and more convenient. If you complete the formalities in the beginning, you will not be facing any issues with incomplete paperwork in the future.
This is also greatly beneficial for your employee since it will give them a sense of being officially inducted into your organization. The employee will be more productive after they consider themselves to be formally inducted.
3. Assign a Mentor
Oftentimes, the induction and the training provided to a new employee isn’t enough to make them ready for a real-life scenario. The problem with theoretical training is that it provides 0 practical experience in how to deal with problems that are bound to emerge during one’s work. The only way to teach your employee how to deal with these daily hiccups is by pairing them with someone who has experience in the organization.
Only a person who has personally faced the problems can guide someone the right way. A mentor helps the new employee understand how the company works and what are the workarounds to the problems faced while completing their work. A new employee will get comfortable with their mentor very fast and this will help them develop their first bond with another employee in the company.
4. Establish a Roadmap
A roadmap that spans several weeks or even months will help your employee understand how their responsibilities and work are going to evolve over a period of time. You will also be able to hand over the critical functions one by one after your employees have proved that they are up to the mark.
Initially, you would like to start slow and allow more room for the learning process and growth of your new employee. Once they are firmly established, you will be able to integrate them better into your organization by assigning more complex tasks. The roadmap will keep your employee’s morale high since they’ll know what to do in order to reach the next step on the growth ladder.
5. Get the Managers Involved too
The new recruit will be forming the backbone of your company and in order to establish a level of trust, you need to rope in the senior managers to interact with them. This will ensure that your new employees don’t feel left out and they might even get inspired by the top-level leadership. The involvement of managers will also show that your company cares about its employees and it will help inculcate a sense of belonging in the new employees.
The managers symbolize the work culture of your company and interaction with them ensures that your employees understand the ethos of your company. A manager can get involved in little ways like organizing an interactive session to take feedback and address any issues. The communication line that develops during these interactions will go a long way in ensuring employee satisfaction which is important to retain your new recruits.
6. Create a Fun and Positive Environment
You don’t have to keep poking your new employees to do more work and achieve more targets right off the bat. If you create pressure from day one then it’s highly unlikely that the employee will associate their office with a place where they want to be. If you create a negative and tense atmosphere it will be just like hitting yourself with an ax.
You want to ensure that the employee has a good time when they’re at the office. This will ensure that their productivity is high throughout the day and even during the rough patches which are inevitable. A positive environment is not only beneficial for new employees but for the veterans of your company as well. This is mainly because everyone wants to give their best at work and it’ll only be possible if you provide the right environment to do so.
These are a few tips that will help your new recruits adapt better to the new environment they are in. You were also once a newbie at some point in time and empathizing with their situation is the best way forward. If you ensure that your employees get comfortable soon, then you’ll be rewarded with high retention rates and more productivity in the end. So focus on the adjusting phase and the results will automatically follow soon after.