First impressions count. From the moment that a brand new employee signs on the dotted line, through to their first week of work, is when your organization has the most power to impress (or disappoint!) a new hire.
Transform your onboarding experience. Explore the CentricMinds Employee App.
Book A DemoExplore a hassle-free onboarding solution with a quick demo. Streamline your process and welcome new hires with ease."
Book a demoI recently started working for a financial services firm because I was offered what seemed like a better position and a larger salary. The onboarding process, however, has made me question whether or not it was a good idea to switch jobs.
The importance of an effective onboarding experience is highlighted by recent research from Paychex, which confirms its wide-spread challenge.
Over a thousand recent hires provided feedback to Paychex in a survey conducted in the past year. Employee turnover is common when new hires are unhappy with their onboarding experience. Half of all newly hired employees were already thinking about leaving within the first year, and that number soars to 80% among those who feel their onboarding was inadequate.
Most new hires naturally have some feelings of anxiety and stress when they begin their orientation process at a new job. On Reddit, people often claim they were kept in the dark about what was going to happen next or couldn’t get access to systems, apps, and documents that were essential to even getting started on their first few days.
In sharp contrast, others report that they feel information overload. A classic example of this is that they get training on a skill that they won't even use until day 45. It's pointless; we have limited memory. It’s much better to train someone in the skill right before they need to use it or give them access to it so they can do it in their own time. As a result, it's no surprise that many new hires report feeling unsupported during their first months on the job.
My first day wasn't that great. I didn’t get any access to the software and apps that I needed. So, I was just left with nothing much to do on my first day, which felt bad. I got a call from HR in the afternoon, asking how it was all going. Talk about awkward. I was really hoping to jump in to get a real feel for the projects and get up to speed by reading threads in the support chat. The whole process just felt disorganized. I admit, I asked myself if this was going to be the right place for me.
In my first week, I was trained on so many systems and procedures that I was expected to remember. I felt overwhelmed. I remember thinking, ‘I hope I remember all this’. Following this training, I transitioned to remote working. But with all the weight of the information I had just learned and the lack of guidance, I found it really hard to find my bearings.
It was kinda bad. On my first day, I found myself with limited access to the apps I needed, so the whole process felt pretty disjointed. I had virtually no guidance or updated documentation. I really found it hard to grasp the code base and ops I was meant to handle. I work remotely, so all this just complicated matters. Even though we jumped on a call, I felt disconnected and not sure of who I should approach for help. To add to my confusion, I got assigned tasks with little context, which left me confused and wondering how I was going to get ahead in this company.
If you don’t think the examples above are enough, then check out these worrying statistics about employee onboarding.
All businesses want to get off to a good start by imprinting a welcoming, inclusive, fun, interesting, diverse, forward-thinking, and organized image of their workplace on their new employees. You’ve marketed the role (and sold it!). Now it’s time to give them an onboarding experience that they’re excited to be a part of.
The consequences of a poor onboarding experience speak for themselves in the stats above, so let’s examine how we can drive employee engagement from (even before) day one.
The term "seamless onboarding experience" refers to a process that is well-timed and coordinated to ensure that new employees are gradually acquainted with administrative procedures, company-specific tools, role-specific information, organizational culture, and career advancement pathways.
The onboarding experience should be a slick set of well-managed, repeatable, time-sensitive, and interesting activities.
In short, there’s a lot to get right across the onboarding process. To add to the complexity, not every employee will go through the same onboarding activities; they may need to be tailored to department, role, or site.
Using employee tools to automate and streamline the onboarding process is a great way to impress your new hires and boost productivity. Modern HR departments use a wide variety of software, from cloud-based storage and task management systems to intranet platforms, mobile apps for employees, and, of course, HRIS. The best onboarding employee management tools like CentricMinds make it easier to communicate and collaborate, welcome and engage new team members, and track their progress.
To establish a streamlined onboarding process for employees, you'll need to follow a structured approach that caters to the specific needs of your business. Here's how you can get started:
The first place to start is planning your pre-onboarding and initial onboarding days. Concentrate on your key administration and compliance tasks first. These time-sensitive responsibilities must adhere to specific timeframes, so having a transparent and well-defined process is critical. Gather all the relevant content that you need, such as letters of offer, NDA’s, links to federal or state tax withholding forms, pre-employment medical assessments, contracts, payroll information, safety guidelines, requests for proof of certificates or licenses and health and safety information. Naturally, each organization's pre-onboarding process will look different depending on the nature of its business, the locations, and the local and national regulations that have to be followed.
Recognize that every business and role is unique, and the onboarding process must reflect this individuality. Create a flexible plan that covers pre-boarding activities and even extends to the first month or three months, depending on the complexity of the job.
Separate your onboarding into distinct strands, such as:
You can help set the right tone from the beginning by informing them about things like your performance evaluation process, the career paths on offer, the various training opportunities available to them, and the degree of flexibility built into their role.
The experience of a new hire's first few days on the job can be enhanced with the help of their current team members. Encourage their managers to take on some of the onboarding load themselves. Routine tasks that involve requests like giving new employees access to apps and tools, requesting uniforms or security passes, etc. can be automated with the help of employee onboarding task management software. To accomplish this, the software forward’s your request to the appropriate individual or system and sends updates and alerts so that you can monitor the status of your request.
Only with employee management software can you fully automate and streamline the onboarding experience. The whole thing is simplified, communication is enhanced, and all new hires receive the same comprehensive orientation.
Below, we detail the various time-sensitive activities that can be setup to run automatically.
Simplify tasks, empower onboarding. Experience CentricMinds Task Management.
Book a Demo!As we mentioned above, most organizations want to automate their onboarding because it offers several advantages:
You can a more modern onboarding process with tasks, which results in steps that are completed accurately and on time.
It creates transparent lines of communication between HR, managers, and new hires, giving you a more effective and collaborative onboarding process.
Onboarding task templates allow a logical and easy way to access company policies, training materials, and other important files, videos, and resources throughout the employee's onboarding process in one place.
Automated workflows can help you save time on repetitive onboarding tasks while providing a consistent and positive experience for all new hires.
To ensure your new hires experience an onboarding process that’s specific to their team or department, you’ll want onboarding task management templates that you can customize. If you want to provide a truly streamlined process, the final step is to integrate your employee management with your HRIS so that data can be shared between the two systems. And that’s going to give you a smoother, more streamlined onboarding process as a result.
Now that you have an onboarding system in place for every employee who joins the organization, the next step is automating time-sensitive onboarding checklists for individual hires. With employee management software like CentricMinds tasks and the employee app, you can automate your onboarding checklists using digital forms and workflows.
Some of your checklist items include:
If you’re resources are limited, then just focus on these five critical practices, and they’ll significantly enhance your onboarding process. This is based on insights from a comprehensive study by Paychex. Feedback from surveyed individuals found that these 6 key things will ensure a seamless and engaging onboarding journey for your new team members. Now, let's take a look at these essential practices.
Imagine onboarding a new hire and involving just one of their team members. Despite how obvious it may be, that is just not engaging and lacks depth. For this reason, including other team members in the onboarding process is crucial. The end result is a work environment where new hires feel accepted and part of the broader team right away. They get to see the big picture and get a better understanding of how things work in their new job.
And don't forget to inform existing employees how important their contribution is to the onboarding process for new team members. Involving more people makes new hires feel more integrated and helps them learn the ropes faster.
To kick things off, you should create an epic "Welcome to the Team" post and check the engagement level. Who is liking it who is commenting? With CentricMinds employee app, you can do it in seconds, setting the tone for a really positive first day at work. It's a great way to show new hires that the company cares about their success.
Another great thing to do is introduce new team members in a dedicated workplace chat channel, which you could name ‘welcome to the team’. You can easily track how many people are doing the best job of making new hires feel at home with CentricMinds employee app statistics. Making a good first impression doesn't have to break the bank. Try out some of these suggestions for fun ways to onboard.
An onboarding process that utilizes task management software or, at the very least, a thorough checklist will benefit both you and your new hires. Checking off items and seeing the percentage complete is an easy way to feel progress and the feeling of being on track.
Giving a glimpse of the expected standards and key results early on helps new hires prepare and align their efforts accordingly. Sharing an overview of the performance review process helps them familarize themselves with what is to come, which reduces potential surprises down the track.
Career advancement doesn't always mean a vertical move in a role. But everyone that starts a new job likes transparency when it comes to understanding what career advancement opportunities are open to them. Just sharing what's available to a new hire is kind of awesome, even if it's training opportunities or learning new software. It gives them a sense of agency about their role.
People can't be what they can't see. If you want to create a welcoming workplace and boost retention, you have to demonstrate it in action. Pairing new hires with buddies or mentors through work chat channels in an employee app is the most simple and effective way to do it. It helps newcomers settle in quickly without taking up too much time. Experiencing a culture at work that is supportive builds trust and teamwork.
The best employee onboarding software helps your new staff quickly become productive members of the team. It reduces disruptions and stress, and it’s highly automated to reduce repetitive steps. And it allows you to tailor it to your needs with customizable task onboarding templates. When you have the right employee management software in place, like CentricMinds, customizing the your orientation process is a breeze. After you've established your onboarding procedure, you can implement a feedback loop by polling your new hires in the employee app (and any internal collaborators) on their experiences so far.
See CentricMinds in action with a personalized demo.
Discover how our user-friendly tasks and employee app can revolutionize your onboarding process.
CentricMinds makes welcoming new team members easy - request your demo today.
Check out the Glossary to help you understand industry jargon and ideas
Learn more about how CentricMinds Intranet can help you unify all your work with everyone in one single place.
Watch videos or download whitepapers to learn more
