There’s nothing like a bad onboarding experience to make a new hire regret accepting a job offer. It’ll take a lot of work to restore the employee’s trust, if you’re lucky enough to keep them.

A good onboarding process provides new employees with everything they need to be successful. They receive whatever tools, equipment, and instruction they’ll need to do their job. They’re given time to read and reflect on company policies. They’re given time to get acclimated to the new environment. They’re introduced to members of their team and given time to connect with people in the company they’ll be working with closely. Remember that the experience should be reciprocal—onboarding is a time for the company to get to know the new hire better, too. In short, they’re given a warm welcome!

As with hiring, always look for ways to improve the onboarding process. Establish a way for newly onboarded employees to provide feedback anonymously. Your onboarding process should begin with planning ahead for your new employee’s arrival. The following checklist will help things move smoothly for your new employee:

New Employee Onboarding Checklist

• Notify everyone in the new employee’s department that a new person is starting.
• Assign one of your employees to show your new hire the new workplace environment, make introductions, and respond to any questions. This is a great way to put your new employee at ease.
• Encourage the team to welcome and support the new employee.
• Ensure that the employee’s work location is clean and organized.
• Set up access to the company’s network or intranet, email, and telephone system.
• Arrange for a building pass, IDs, and parking pass, if necessary.
• Provide employee handbook, benefits packet, new hire forms, and payroll details. Be sure to respond to any questions your new employee may have or refer the employee to the person in charge of benefits.
• Arrange to have lunch with the new employee, if possible.
• Develop a training plan to ensure that the new employee’s first few months go smoothly.
• Organize a list of key people (i.e., team and management) your new employee should meet to get a better understanding of everyone’s roles.

The duration of the onboarding program can range from 2-3 hours to several days depending on the amount of information and complexity of the job. But be careful to avoid overloading your new employee with too much information on the first day. The best way to measure the success of your program is if the new employee has enough information to feel confident and productive.

Follow-Up to Your Onboarding

Set a time for informal meetings with the new employee. These allow you to ensure that their introduction to the workplace has been successful. Also, you can fill in any gaps that have been missed or answer any questions.

Evaluate Your Program Regularly

Your company’s onboarding program should be evaluated routinely to make sure you are keeping up with workplace policies, practices, and changing staff needs. When possible, get feedback from those who have gone through onboarding to see if you can improve your company’s program.

Emplova is a unique Professional Employer Organization (PEO) that helps small to medium sized businesses grow and prosper by providing benefits, payroll, technology, compliance, and HR administration. To learn how we can create a winning HR strategy for your business contact us today.