Employee Onboarding refers to the process of integrating a newly hired employee with a company. An ideal on-boarding process comprises steps of employee orientation like understanding the job responsibilities, initial paperwork, and also by socializing the newly hired person with the office environment properly. Thus onboarding is a comprehensive and subjective process that involves management and other employees of the company.
Organizations should ensure that their employee onboarding program helps newly hired employees to get started with the right foot. Many employers still have the traditional mindset that once a contract is signed with newly hired persons, they will be guaranteed their loyalty to their new employee. But this does not apply to the new generation talent. Today’s generation needs a very efficacious onboarding process that makes them feel integrated with their new employer successfully. A positive first impression is very helpful to start an effective onboarding process.
A strong onboarding process results in much happier employees. It helps employees get to know one another and learn how to communicate effectively. Onboarding also helps people discover how their roles fit in with the rest of the company’s workforce.
Normally, any person will feel nervous while starting a new job. But if the direct reporting manager can arrange a one-on-one talk with the new joiner within the first week of joining, it will ease the transition of the new employee to a team member. A study conducted by LinkedIn shows that 96% of new employees stated that a one-on-one meeting with their direct manager is an effective step for a successful onboarding process.
Several companies confuse an employee orientation program with onboarding. The orientation process is a sub-set of an employee onboarding program that mainly focuses on documentation process and compliance. A successful onboarding process takes a long time (up to 1 year) with frequent check-ins and feedbacks given throughout this period. By accomplishing a successful employee onboarding solution, companies can accelerate new hire proficiency.