4 Onboarding Tips to Set Up Employees for Success

December 30, 2014 at 12:04 PM by Kathleen de Lara

onboarding employeesThe first day on the job can be rough, and your company’s onboarding process can make or break the chances of a new employee sticking around a few months from now.

Hiring the most qualified candidates for your open reqs doesn’t come easy, so why let them slip through the cracks after you’ve already got them through the front door? Try applying these four tips to your onboarding process to build engagement and retention from Day 1.

Don’t delay the training weeks into the job.

Within the first few days on the job, new hires should have an understanding of their company mission and culture, job responsibilities, and company processes. Track employees’ tasks and activities and provide frequent feedback, even after training, to keep them on pace for their career plan. To start, run them through a typical day on the job, going over duties, projects, and deadlines, who they report to, and maybe even what happens during the end-of-quarter wrap-up.

Take employees on a tour of the space.

And its people, too. One small, but crucial, important way to engage employees with their new job is to connect them with their coworkers. A quick meet and greet is a good way to establish rapport between old and new employees, and to help team members feel more comfortable in their workspace. It’s also a good way to communicate to current employees the company is continually hiring people with additional, diverse experiences to the team.

Set goals and milestones for new hires to reach before the end of the year.

Creating a year-long timeline of what team members are expected to achieve and how they’re expected to develop at a company encourages organizing and timing their plans and strategies, and communicates the company is looking out for their career growth. Engage new hires early on with a road map of their job progression in a year’s review, including a list of mentors in your network to connect them with, conferences and events to boost their planning and productivity, and any of the company’s management training programs ready to prep employees into a more senior role. Don’t forget to factor in employees’ professional goals, too.

Give employees a budget to spend on additional training and learning resources.

Propose to hiring teams the possibility of setting aside part of their department’s budget to use on external training programs, tools, and other resources to support employees’ career development with the company. This can be a fixed number to apply to going to industry conferences and events, buying books, and attending courses to help achieve their career goals.

We’ve got more tips on how to successfully train and get new hires in line with company practices – even before you get them in the door as an employee. Watch our on-demand webinar with Greenhouse, “How to Set Up Candidates for Success,” and get the scoop on building a solid talent funnel to hire an all-star team. greenhouse entelo webinar

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