![Why Employee Onboarding Matters [& 3 Practical Tips]](https://www.organimi.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/AdobeStock_386374036-1080x675.jpeg)
Fresh clothing, shiny shoes, new faces, some excited and chatty, others apprehensive and shying away. No matter how many times you go through the motions of onboarding a cohort of new hires, you’ll always be meeting new kinds of people.
No matter who they are, however, your challenge remains the same—onboard and assimilate them into the organization as seamlessly and efficiently as possible.
The importance of this cannot be understated, especially at a time when organizations are seeing unusually high numbers of resignations. According to research by Glassdoor, a great employee onboarding process can improve employee retention by 82 percent.
What is Employee Onboarding?
Employee onboarding, sometimes referred to as employee orientation, is the process of incorporating a new hire into an organization and getting them familiar with its culture and policies, their role within the organization, and their colleagues.
A robust and positive onboarding process helps your new hires become effective members of the team from the get-go and it can deliver significant benefits in the long term. Onboarding processes vary between organizations but as a minimum, they should help your new hires:
- Understand their roles and responsibilities
- Understand where they fit within the organization
- Get comfortable in their new work environment
- Meet and get to know their colleagues
- Learn about important company protocols and policies
- Complete important administrative tasks
Why Positive Onboarding Matters
The U.S. Department of Labor says that the average person changes jobs 12 times throughout their career. And each job change marks a significant investment from employees in terms of time and energy: It can take several weeks, if not months, going through the motions before an employment contract is signed and their start date is scheduled.
It’s not all on the employee, though; employers have skin in the game too. According to research by Glassdoor, recruiting, interviewing, hiring, and onboarding a new employee costs the average U.S. company 52 days and around $4,000.
This significant investment on both sides illustrates why it’s important to deliver a positive onboarding experience.
For employees, a positive onboarding experience goes a long way to setting your new hire’s attitude and perception of what the organization will be like to work for. A positive onboarding experience will help them feel at ease and motivated to hit the ground running.
For employers, a positive onboarding experience helps to boost retention numbers which saves you money further down the line and prevents your talent from going off to work for the competition.
3 Ways to Ensure a Solid Onboarding Experience
An organization only has one chance to make a solid first impression with a new hire, and their first few days on the job will set the tone for them in the long term. Here are three things that an organization can do to get things off to a positive start:
1. Create a Welcome Strategy
Everyone has their part to play in making a new hire feel welcome, and the best way to ensure everyone does their bit is to create a welcome strategy. Ask your employees what it was like for them when they started and what other people could have done to make their experience better. Use the answers to these questions to brainstorm and come up with a strategy for welcoming new people into your organization.
Once you’ve got the plan down in writing, have everyone involved in implementing it by making it a part of your company’s policies. This hammers home the importance of it to your staff and lets everyone know that they’ve each got an important role to play in making new people feel welcome, even if it’s something as simple as sending an email to say hello.
2. Immerse Your New Hire in Company Culture
Immersing new hires into your culture as quickly as possible is the best way to cement the thought that they are a valuable part of the team, even as a newbie.
There are many ways this can be achieved, from assigning new hires exciting tasks and asking for their input in all areas that fall within the remit of their roles to involving them in all of the usual fun and social activities of the workplace: they should be a part of everything.
3. Introduce the Organizational Structure with an Org Chart
One of the biggest factors that create angst for a new hire is wondering how they’ll fit in and who they’ll be working with. On their first day, they’ll probably end up meeting a lot of new people and find it hard to remember who they are, what they do, and where they fit in with their new role.
A great way to eliminate this angst is to create an organizational chart to build a visual representation of everyone who works for the organization, who they are, what they do, and where they fit in. This helps new hires start to understand the company more quickly and acts as a convenient reference point that can be easily accessed to find out information such as contact details and working hours.
Build a Better Onboarding Process with Organimi
Organizational charts can be used as part of the onboarding process to provide your new hires with a visual representation of company information and concepts.
In addition to using your company’s org chart to show people where they fit in and who they report to, you can use Organimi to build flowcharts, process maps, project plans, and more; our tool gives you complete creative control and flexibility which can be used to streamline the onboarding process, improve employee retention, and secure your bottom line.