Onboarding measures for new employees
How to invest in employee retention before day one
The onboarding of a new hire costs companies three to four times their annual salary. Make sure that this investment pays off and that your new employees are perfectly integrated into the company right from the start through appropriate onboarding measures.
With the hiring of good employees and a successful onboarding process, you ensure the continuance, further development and goal achievement of your company. It's not an easy task - but with good planning and communication, you can become an ambassador for your company and build long-term employee loyalty.
Targets of your onboarding efforts
Cost reduction and early employee retention
Good onboarding measures serve both the company and the new employees. The company ensures that new colleagues are trained as quickly as possible, contribute their expertise to day-to-day business and thus effectively contribute to the company's success. At the same time, new employees experience appreciation, and their satisfaction and self-efficacy are strengthened by initial successes. This contributes to long-term employee retention and significantly reduces the costs of unfilled positions, recruiting measures and repeated training efforts.
Your challenges in planning and executing effective onboarding efforts
During onboarding of new employees, you lay the foundation for their success and integration into the company. We summarize the key challenges and show you ways to design and implement effective onboarding programs. In doing so, you'll promote seamless integration of new colleagues into your company while empowering them.
With careful planning, effective communication and structured onboarding, you can overcome these challenges. That's how you balance the needs of the company and your new employees.
Missing digitization
Analog processes are stressful and consume valuable resources. Nowadays, new employees expect modern and fast processes for application and onboarding. They represent a modern and sustainable company and can tip the scales when it comes to choosing an employer.
Enable your future colleagues to apply digitally, sign employment contracts digitally, and provide key forms in plain language and digitally as well.
Faulty processes
Involve relevant departments such as IT early so that workspace and required equipment are ready in time.
Information overload
During onboarding, new employees are often exposed to a large amount of information about the company, its culture, policies, procedures and their job responsibilities. Stagger the information, make it easy to understand, and enable feedback. Plan learning paths to virtually take your new employees by the hand and guide them through the onboarding process in a structured manner:
Unknown corporate culture
Enable new team members to connect with colleagues, both key team members and managers and subject matter experts. There are often dedicated employees who are happy to act as mentors for new colleagues. Identify them and involve them in your onboarding processes.
Unclear training and development needs
Define the training needs of new colleagues early on and develop an orientation program. Again, ensure that information is delivered in a staggered manner so as not to overwhelm new employees. Digital onboarding measures are effective, cost-efficient and easy to implement.
Missing monitoring and feedback
Keep an eye on new colleagues. Offer conversations and ask for honest feedback. This will help you convey appreciation during the onboarding process and provide valuable ideas for improving the onboarding process.
Remote Onboarding
Be prepared for a virtual onboarding process for new colleagues in the home office. Effective communication and providing remote access to all necessary resources are critical here. Pay special attention to regular exchanges to create a sense of belonging in your new colleague already during the onboarding process.
Communication is King
The entire onboarding process thrives on effective communication. Use digital tools, such as e-learning courses, digital coaching or a learning platform, to bring your new employees along on the journey and provide them with the best possible support.
Our Knowledgeworker Share learning platform is ideal for implementing digital onboarding measures. Schedule processes and training content once and share the onboarding program with each new employee with just a few clicks.
Optimize onboarding efforts and reduce workload with digital communications and e-learning
The benefits of digital onboarding
Much of the information conveyed is repeated in every onboarding process: from company introductions, communications from key contacts, first-day procedures, software and technologies used, to essential briefings, policies and documents.
With modern onboarding measures such as e-learning, you can automate the communication of this content and reduce your effort significantly.
Flexibility and access
Enable your new employees to go through the onboarding process at their own pace and access content from anywhere. Complex content can be easily repeated, making knowledge transfer even more successful. With the digital offering, you present yourself as a modern employer at the same time.
.Tip: Release the virtual onboarding already before the actual start day. This way, your new employee can get an idea in advance, gains confidence and is well prepared on the first day.
consistency
With standardized, digital onboarding formats, you ensure that all new employees receive the same information. This creates a common knowledge base and gets new employees up to speed on your values, culture, and company expectations in no time.
Cost and time efficiency
After the initial setup of the onboarding, you will not only reduce your time, but also that of your colleagues. This allows them to devote themselves to their actual tasks in the company. Experienced colleagues are then available to the newcomers as mentors for technical questions of the well-prepared new employee and thus experience a new appreciation.
Interactivity and engagement
E-learning content is multimedia and interactive. This creates a positive, digital onboarding experience that reflects the company's commitment to employee development.
Scalability and customization
With a learning platform, you can scale your onboarding process effortlessly. If your company grows or hires employees at different locations, you're already well prepared. What's more, e-learning allows you to customize for specific job roles, departments, or employee levels, so onboarding content can be tailored to meet the unique needs of different positions.
Tracking and rating
A standardized onboarding process ensures consistently high quality. With the help of extensive reporting functionalities, you can monitor with just a few clicks that all new employees have received all the information, have successfully completed the onboarding courses and evaluate the feedback from your new colleagues.
Conclusion.
Getting new employees on board is an important task for the HR department. The goal here is not only to integrate the new employees into day-to-day business as quickly as possible, but also to integrate them into the company and the culture and retain them in the long term. In doing so, HR managers often face challenges such as a lack of processes or a lack of digitization. With the help of digital processes and e-learning, you can create an onboarding process that picks up, motivates and engages employees - in a time-saving, effective and cost-efficient manner.
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Image source: Syda Productions/Adobe Stock