Best Onboarding Practices For New Employees
There’s no worse way to start off an employee’s experience at a company than giving them a stressful or ill-prepared on-boarding process, one which leaves them wondering:
Have I made the wrong decision?
An employee’s first few weeks (even months) at a new company are when their motivation is at a peak. They’re driven by the extra adrenaline and determination to prove themselves – so how do you leverage this and ensure you get off to a good start?
Our experience tells us that employee retention starts from day one, so let’s look at what you should avoid doing and what you should do to keep your new employee happy!
Here what to avoid when boarding new staff:
1. Giving them a mountain of paperwork
Remember that first impressions count. Do you want your employee’s memory of their first day to be filling out form after form, getting lost in a sea of paperwork? Or would you prefer to look better prepared, having sent out any relevant documents in advance so the employee can arrive armed and ready to hand these over, allowing them to use their first hours of employment more wisely? We’d definitely recommend the latter!
2. The ‘we’ve not quite sorted that’ experience
Company car, desk, email account, logins for all platforms – these types of things should all be sorted and ready for use before an employee even sets foot through the door. Otherwise, you come across as not being fully invested in the new individual, potentially leaving them feeling undervalued – which doesn’t fair well in retaining them.
3. The ‘just get comfortable’ approach
We’re surprised to hear that, even for the executive level people we place in oil and gas companies, employees are sometimes given a huge block of research time when they start their new employment – such a month to research the company and get familiar with the way things work.
You may be wondering what’s wrong with this. Well, when someone starts a new role they’re usually keen to make an impact, but not giving them any real value-added tasks in the first weeks or month can be a huge turn-off for new employees.
Having a good understanding of the company is important but shouldn’t mean their new job motivation isn’t leveraged – it should be seen as an opportunity for the company. Give them small projects to get their teeth into early on – after all, the best way to learn is actually doing the work rather than purely research.
4. The meeting and to-do list overload
Other companies can take the complete opposite approach to the above, ensuring their new employee’s calendars are filled with as many meetings and to do list items as humanly possible, in the first week or month. Being this organised can seem like a good thing, but does it actually benefit anyone?
Unfortunately not. A person can only absorb so much information within one time period. If you overload them with information too quickly, they’ll only need to ask questions later on down the line – ones you thought you had covered – which defeats the point and may even cause the employee embarrassment.
What onboarding should look like
Now that you know what onboarding shouldn’t look like, in our next article we discuss strategies for onboarding your new employees effectively and successfully.
Read now: 9 Tips To Onboard Your New Employees
