| By :
Joe Maldonado
Copyright (c) 2012 Joe Maldonado Onboarding is nothing new. It has existed since the times of ancient business format. It has significant importance for both the company and the employees. Onboarding plays a very critical role in the lifecycle of an employee because the organizations will continue to focus on development and retention of the workforce. Onboarding needs to be a well designed process which is fun as well as engaging. This is because of the fact that a fun and engaging process works well when it comes to employee engagement and retention. One-day Orientation, which is an old school mentality, is no longer effective. It has been found from the studies of The Human Resources Corporate Leadership Council that if the level of engagement of the employees is increased, the overall performance is increase by around 20 percent and the possibility of an employee leaving the company is reduced by 87 percent! If great working relation is fostered today, future work force becomes highly motivated and this is completely independent of the economic uncertainties. Some organizations may think of onboarding process development to be a daunting task but it is not necessary that the task will be difficult. There is always a simple framework which can be used and tailored accordingly to meet the needs specific to the organization. Let us take a look at that simple framework. Step 1: Before the day one starts, you need to start The moment the candidate accepts the offer, get as much as done instantly. Make them fill up the necessary paperwork for new hire and give answers to the questions before the questions actually arise. For instance, let the employee know where exactly they need to go on first day, the first contact person and all those basic and preliminary things. This will simply speed up the process because new hires will be well informed. Step 2: Socialize Let them know about the work culture and the type of environment they will get. This will help the new recruits to actually make better and informed decisions because they will have less anxiety and they will be networked in a better way since they will have a fair idea of what they can expect from the work culture of the company. Step 3: Go Beyond Day One Leave the old school mentality and extend onboarding beyond day one and take it to at least 3 month and if possible one year. This will increase the experience of the new recruits and they get a better chance of engagement. This actually helps in employee retention. Step 4: Mentoring Assign one mentor or a complete team of mentors so that the new recruits know the person or persons to approach in case they have any kind of question. This help the employees to get confidence and they slowly get engaged in the work process. Step 5: Engagement of managers Get the managers involved and assign them the task of meeting new candidates and set job expectations to reduce confusion. Step 6: Measuring Impact Is the onboarding process working? The impact of the process needs to be measured and hence, conduct surveys at intervals like 7 days, 30 days, 60 days or 90 days. Organize interviews and focus groups and take the results to know how effective the process has been and based on the results, keep improving the results. Step 7: Process Automation Electronic forms, employee integration portals, task management are some of the areas of onboarding process which can be automated. Doing this will save time and money and increase the productivity.
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