New Employee Onboarding Process

Whether you're looking to improve your existing onboarding process or need some inspiration to help you nail the first day, week, month, or year for a new staff member, everything you need to know about rebooting your onboarding process is here.

This guide is for anyone looking to improve the user onboarding process, move to virtual onboarding, or anyone who is looking to take their onboarding digital. While many companies have shifted towards remote working, you can make your employees settle in faster when you nail the onboarding process.

We're going to break down everything you need to know about revitalizing your current employee onboarding simply by having the following processes in place.

While many employees don't put nearly enough time into perfecting the onboarding process, there are some crucial reasons why it's so important to get it right. Here are some of the main reasons you need to perfect the onboarding process.

1. Don't become a statistic

Stop new employees from leaving within the first six months and don't become a statistic! According to Sapling HR, 1 in 5 new hires are less likely to recommend their employer to friends or family due to a bad onboarding experience. It turns out a whopping 88% of companies in USA are not onboarding well, which is no surprise to hear the 1 in 25 employees leave their job because of the onboarding experience.

While it can cost a company at least $4000 and 24 days to find the right hire, you'll be spending much more to continue the hiring and training process if you don't get the new employee onboarding process right. First impressions and employee satisfaction are crucial for any business, no matter what size, so make sure you get it right!

2. Make your employees feel valued

As we mention throughout this article, you need to make sure your new employees feel valued from Day 1. Understand the importance of increasing employee satisfaction and productivity, and they'll be producing excellent results from the start.

3. Learn to keep hiring great employees

When you nail the employee onboarding process, you'll be able to retain your employees, and when your team expands, you'll have a solid onboarding process in place. It's a no-brainer; to keep the best employees, you need to make sure you get it right from the start.

4. Make sure you get the recruitment and selection process right

We're taking the employee onboarding process back to the beginning so you can make sure you hire the best new employees for your business. Let's make sure you're attracting the top talent to help you grow your company. You can check out our full guide for the best Ideas to Improve Recruitment and Selection Processes to help you nail this part of the onboarding process.

Learn how to nail the perfect job description that encapsulates what the role entails; it will give the candidate a good indication of whether the company's culture is right for them. You'll also want to make sure you post the job listing on suitable job sites. If you're hiring for a specific role, post it on a niche job site relevant to that role.

If your company has a remote working policy, you'll have more chance of finding a fantastic new hire when you broaden your search from the standard 30-mile radius. Find awesome new team members no matter where they are based, and the only problem you'll have is deciding which one to employ. If you're open to a remote role, make sure you post it on job sites such as Flex Jobs or We Work Remotely. The onboarding process for remote employees is a bit different to your in-office onboarding process; be sure to check out our free Onboarding Remote Employees template for inspiration.

Before your new employee starts

There's a couple of things you'll need to organize before the new employee joins the company. Help them be successful in their new job by allowing them to learn as much as they can before their first day. There will be new employees who might not have a lot of time to dedicate to scoping out their new company, so this is where you come in to make it an easy transition for them.

5. Start with pre-onboarding

Unsure what pre-onboarding means? It might seem unclear, but pre-onboarding is the in-between section from signing the contract to actually starting the first day as a new employee.

The pre-onboarding process is critical if you're hiring a remote employee. Help them feel connected to the company by giving them access to your company's Slack channel or other comms apps that you might use so they can see what's going on in the business.

You might like to help the new employee get up to speed with the pre-onboarding process by understanding the company culture and how you communicate. While some companies aren't big on sending out emails, others are keen on keeping meetings to a minimum.

Giving your new employees access to your comms channel will help them feel confident and ready to start their first day without feeling intimidated or overwhelmed.

6. Organize the employee work station set-up

How many people reading this article will agree that they've started a new job without the basic set-up ready for them on their first day? No new employee wants to feel useless on their first day when their manager hasn't properly organized their workstation, hardware, or anything else. Help the new employee onboarding process rock by getting the basics ready so your new team member can slide into their new desk without feeling uncomfortable sitting there. In contrast, everyone frantically gets on with the mountains of work they need to do.

Instead, make sure you have their laptop or computer not only ready for them but the right apps and systems installed and ready to use. If you're hiring a remote employee, make sure you have their laptop delivered to their home with ample time before they start and send them clear instructions on everything they need to install.

And it's an obvious one but make sure you have their email set up correctly regardless of whether your company uses email as a form of comms. No one wants to start a job knowing that nothing has been organized beforehand; first-day impressions will be memorable for every new hire.

7. Create an epic onboarding course

If there's one thing you need to get right for your employee, make sure you create an epic onboarding course. While we can all admit to having terrible new employee training in the past, let's break away from the mold and organize excellent training for your new hire.

Let's make sure your new employees are equally excited about joining your company so they can get started with a good employee onboarding process to match. You might already have an employee handbook so let's bring it up to speed and combine everything from what the role involves to the company culture and any other training you need to highlight so your new employee can get started quickly.

Rather than send your new employee loads of documents and files to open, which can be really confusing, why not compile all of your content into one concise online onboarding course like Coassemble so you can track how they are learning? Include interactive elements like quizzes and tests so they won't be mindlessly clicking next and lose focus before the role has even begun.

8. Make the onboarding program a collaborative effort

When creating an effective onboarding process, make sure you make it a collaborative effort and include other stakeholders in the business. If your company sells a product, you might like to interview the stakeholders on video and ask them standard questions about their role and how it impacts the business. Combine the videos into your Coassemble course so that your new hire will be able to understand the business quickly without just looking at an org chart and not being able to put names to faces.

Think about how you'll send the course to your new hire - will they be working remotely or in the office with you? Utilize the best apps and comms tools your team uses so your new hire won't be asking you to resend it because they can't locate it. Let your new hire take their time and complete the onboarding program in their own time when it suits them to be at their most focussed.

You might want to understand how your new employee is finding the onboarding course. Are they engaged? What did they click on, and did they answer the quiz correctly? You'll discover all of the insights into how they interacted with the course in our excellent analytics tool even a non-data buff will easily understand.

You'll also be sent a message to say when your new employee has finished the onboarding program so you can automatically gain feedback to help you improve the onboarding process in the future. This gold dust information will help you cement an effective employee onboarding process so you can start your new employees off on the right track.

What week 1 looks like

Now we've covered the basics to get your new employees ready to join your company; the onboarding process doesn't stop there. Make a fantastic impression and make sure your employee feels valued from the get-go. Here are some steps on how to make this happen.

9. Make day 1 memorable

So you've created a ridiculously unique onboarding program you're proud of; now, you need to make sure you make day 1 a memorable employee experience. No one wants to start a new job feeling uncomfortable, so make sure you fill the day with plenty of ways to make your hire feel included.

Obviously, you'll need to clear a chunk of the day so your new employee can go through the onboarding training. If you're going to organize introduction meetings to catch up with team members or other stakeholders, don't put back-to-back meetings in.

10. Don't organize back to back meetings

Make sure you give the new employee some time in between because it can be an information overload day that will make them feel exhausted by the end of it. Instead, make the day full of constructive meetings with good gaps in between so they can look back over their notes and digest the information they've been given.

11. Organize lunch with your new hire

Make sure you include your new hire from the get-go and organize a team lunch or a one-on-one lunch on their first day so they feel valued and respected. It's an uncomfortable scenario when you're heading out to lunch on your own on your first day trying to find a decent cafe in the area.

12. Take them through the customer journey

Regardless of what the role is, every new hire in the company needs to understand how the company operates. Spend time taking them thoroughly through the customer journey, including how they find the product to purchase it. This will include other stakeholders, so make sure you have one-to-one meetings or videos you can put into the onboarding training.

13. Learn about the company culture

You might like to organize a meeting with HR or the People & Culture team, so your new hire can understand the basics about the company culture and what lies ahead. Explain if certain times of the week or month involve a company meeting or perk that they should know about. The more your can make your new employees feel valued and welcomed, the better.

14. Don't forget about your current employees

Don't forget about your current employees and keep your team up to speed with the new hire. Let them know who their new colleague will be and make sure they are welcoming and helpful for their first few weeks in the office.

15. What the first month looks like

After you've spent the first week slowly helping your new employee settle in and fully understand how the company and team operate, it's time to set them some goals and tasks they'll need to complete. Make the first few weeks about giving them a workload that isn't going to feel overwhelming. Set them tasks they'll be able to smash so you can build their confidence and increase them month-to-month.

Check-in with your new employee every week to see how they are getting on so they know you haven't left them to feel like they are treading water. This is a fantastic opportunity for your employee to ask you any questions or concerns they might have so you can answer them at one time instead of throughout the week when you're trying to get on with your workload.

16. What the first six months look like

While the six-month mark could indicate whether your new employee has settled into your business well, the onboarding process should be almost complete by now. Throughout the last six months, you should have purposely organized weekly, then bi-weekly, and monthly catch-ups to check in with your new hire.

By this point, your new hire will have passed the probationary period and should feel part of the team and company. If you've included our onboarding process steps, you will have seen them settle fast and produce results much quicker than your previous hires.

Check out our library of onboarding templates

Ready to build out your new onboarding process? Our extensive library of onboarding templates are yours for the taking. Check out our most popular onboarding templates for free today:

• Company Onboarding

• Onboarding Checklist

• Onboarding for Remote Employees