One of the most important HR processes in any business is onboarding, which entails training new employees to be productive and successful from day one.
A streamlined process will save you time and money by reducing turnover rates early on. This is something any company should strive for.
This article will outline how to streamline your company’s onboarding process for success down the road.
So whenever you’re ready to get deep into HR optimization, keep reading and get your notes handy.
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What Is the Foundation of the Onboarding Process?
The onboarding process has a foundation that keeps it together. This foundation is what makes an employee productive and successful from day one.
These are the main components to the foundation:
Guidance
This helps new employees understand what is expected of them in their roles. It ensures they know how to complete tasks, make decisions, interact with coworkers, and more.
Training
New hires need first-hand knowledge about company procedures so that they can do a good job right away. Knowledge comes through training sessions during onboarding.
Onboarding Checklist
The checklist serves as a guide for managers involved in the process (and may not have done this before). It walks them through each phase of the process–from welcoming new employees on board up to handing off the responsibility.
Common Onboarding Process Mistakes
When it comes to the onboarding process, HR makes mistakes. That’s just how it goes. However, it is possible to minimize the number of mistakes made to a negligible amount.
The first step to minimizing mistakes is becoming aware of them. Here are the most common onboarding process mistakes:
- Not providing enough training
- Delaying the process too long
The two most common mistakes are not providing enough training and delaying the onboarding process too long.
If you want to avoid these pitfalls, make sure new hires have a clear understanding of expectations from day one–and that managers don’t wait until they’re 100% comfortable with their role before taking on more responsibility.
The Benefits of Streamlining Your Onboarding Process
Streamlining your onboarding process might seem like a difficult thing to do, and it might be. However, the benefits are certainly greater than the temporary pains endured by the company.
The benefits are:
- Reduced turnover rates early on
- New hires are productive and successful from day one
- Less time spent on the onboarding process
- Less money spent on training and other resources
Streamlining your onboarding process can reduce turnover rates, make new employees more effective, save time, and increase revenue. The benefits greatly outweigh the difficulties of streamlining if you want to avoid long-term problems for your company down the road.
That’s why it’s so important that HR makes mistakes. At the same time, they’re still manageable–rather than waiting until there is a problem with high costs associated with rehiring or changing responsibilities later in their career.
How to Properly Guide Employees
To guide new hires and existing employees, you must be able to articulate your expectations–and get buy-in from team members:
- Make sure employees know what is expected of them in their role
- Ensure they understand how to complete tasks, make decisions, interact with coworkers, and more
- Create clear goals or benchmarks for each position you have on staff (this way, there are no surprises)
If a company creates compelling guidelines that articulate the importance of onboarding–as well as create clear goals or benchmarks for positions available within the organization.
It will be less likely to experience turnover rates early on. Every employee should also feel valued and important when being guided. one can do this by recognizing accomplishments along the way.
Employees want recognition just like any other person wants it! When someone feels appreciated, they will be more willing to work hard.
If you want your employees–especially new ones–to feel valued and important, then treat them that way! Give recognition when it is due; let people know how their actions contribute to the company’s success.
It also helps if management provides a clear understanding of expectations from day one: what is expected in performance at work or training on certain topics. This way, there are no surprises for either employee or employer down the road.
How to Properly Train Employees
To properly train employees, you must present the material that is required to be known. You should provide ample time for understanding and practicing new skills. And finally, test them on what they have learned.
Presenting information to employees is only part of the equation. Training must also provide enough time for it to sink in, as well as allow room for practice and testing–before incorporating newly trained employees into active duty.
If you don’t do this, then there are a few things that can happen:
Employees won’t know how to complete tasks or make decisions properly.
They will feel unprepared, which might lead to turnover rates if someone else offers more training opportunities elsewhere in their current company.
The right amount of training encourages success from day one by giving proper guidance to new employees to know what is expected of them.
Make sure you provide ample time for understanding and practicing skills as well, or else there might be an unhappy employee on your hands–and a high turnover rate!
Creating an Onboarding Checklist
The final foundation for onboarding employees is creating an onboarding checklist. The best way to go about this is to know what needs to be done during the onboarding process and then create a checklist:
- Consider how long their training will take.
- How many tasks or projects need to be completed before they are ready to go into active duty
This way, there is no confusion, but employees also know where they stand in terms of readiness–which might motivate them more.
If you want your new hires to feel like an important part of the team from day one (and reduce turnover rates), ensure you have all bases covered with an onboarding plan!
The best thing about creating this kind of plan? You’ll save time because everything will happen smoothly and quickly without any hiccups along the way!
Lessen the learning curve for new employees by providing easier access to information. Create benchmarks or clear goals so that expectations are met from day one.
Make sure your company offers compelling guidelines on onboarding and how it benefits both current staff members and those being trained.
Automating Onboarding
One of the greatest ways to streamline the onboarding process is by automating it. This is done by using an onboarding checklist that ensures no shortcuts are taken.
The automated process has these benefits:
- It’s easy to show new hires what they need to do in their role and make sure they have all the training needed
- There is less room for error since it will be done by a computer or program (rather than someone making mistakes)
Automating your entire process can be difficult if you don’t have the right software or when there are too many steps involved. However, this should not discourage HR from automating as much of the process as possible.
The benefits outweigh any difficulties associated with automation down the road. Automated processes ensure quality, consistency, and accountability. This makes them worth investing in now:
Email Notifications
One of the simplest automation is to make email notifications occur of their own volition in response to certain business actions. For example, when onboarding a new hire, you can automate the notifications they need to complete certain tasks.
You can also use email notifications when there is an open position that needs to be filled or when a new hire has completed their training and are ready for active duty!
It’s yet another way you might try to reduce turnover rates in your company. This is because notifying the right person at the right time prevents mistakes from happening. Not to mention, it’s just a courteous thing to do.
The Workflows
The next thing you can automate is the workflows for your own onboarding. To get started with automated onboarding workflows, you can start by choosing a business process to automate.
Then, look for the following things:
- What are the individual steps needed to complete automation?
- What information is required from each person involved in that step?
The next task will then be deciding on how you want this whole process automated. This might include automating deadlines or assigning tasks and responsibilities. When it comes time to choose software, consider these factors:
- How easily does it make doing work easier than before (when there was no automation)?
- Is the cost worth what they offer in terms of services?
Will one software suite cover all your needs when it comes to onboarding processes? If so, congratulations! If not, then it’s time to do some more research! You’ve found what you’re looking for.
Compliance
The next step of onboarding streamlining is optimizing the digital compliance forms. This is done by using an automated tool to do the heavy lifting. Without automation, you are relying on outdated techniques and tools.
You can also automate compliance by making all your employees use a single login for their obligations and tasks or integrate with this software that will help you comply as well!
Automation on this level makes it easy to see who is compliant in real-time–instead of waiting until year’s end when reports are done manually.
This might mean fewer violations down the road because every employee knows what they need to do at any given moment (following company policy).
If automating onboarding sounds like something worth exploring more, then schedule some downtime and get started today!
It’ll lead to happier new hires from day one, reduced turnover rates over time, and better overall success for your company.
Ensure Company Culture Is Understood
One of the important steps that follow automation is ensuring that all new hires understand the company culture. To do this, your company must have a set of guiding principles everyone should know and follow. These are the values that make your company culture unique!
The next step would be to make sure these specific core values are communicated in a way so they can easily understand them–whether it’s through online videos, posters around the office, or employee handbooks with FAQs about common questions (such as “What does casual dress mean?”)
It is important to keep this information up to date because new hires come on board every day! It might seem like such an outdated concept today, but we must remember that our company cultures shape how we do business.
They’re one of the most important things you’ll ever have for keeping employees engaged over time.
One of the Most Important HR Processes
Remember, the onboarding process is one of the most important HR processes in any business. To streamline it, look for ways to automate tasks and workflows–making them easier than before (with no automation).
You can also optimize your digital compliance forms with an automated tool that will do all the heavy lifting for you! It might seem like a dated concept today because company cultures shape how we do business.
When new hires come on board, they need to understand your core values, so be sure they communicate well through online videos or posters around the office.
Take some time now to explore automating this whole process and see what happens when employees know exactly what’s expected of them at any given moment–which leads to happier new hires from day one.
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