Starting a new staff member can be tricky and a time consuming exercise. Its a rewarding experience bringing a new person into your team if done right and is a daunting experience for the individual starting the role. We have a few tips to help you create a consistent streamlined approach to onboarding and to improve the overall experience for the staff member.
- Find an onboarding tool that works for you – It may seem pretty obvious but again there are a multitude of software solutions that will make creating an onboarding experience easy. Some of the tools available can easily create a step by step pre start date and ongoing onboarding program that allows documents to be completed, training to be modulated and other material such as videos watched easily. Check www.enboarder.com for one of our favourite tools.
- Give them contact time for the first few days – Isolation and loneliness can be a killer for any new employee in the first few days and weeks of a new job. It’s important that you schedule regular contact to touch base with new employees and ensure they have everything they need.
- Teach them what the company does – Obviously, they’ve come into the role understanding the companies core business and objectives but they probably don’t have a complete understanding of all the moving parts of the business. Having team members from different departments (or in smaller teams different roles and responsibilities) give a bit of an overview of what they do will give the new employee a greater appreciation for other employees and help them understand who to reach out to when they need something.
- Check in and get feedback – A great way to tell whether or not the employee has felt like the onboarding process has been a positive experience is to ask them. Make a time to sit down with them after 2-3 months and get some feedback on what could be improved and what is working
