What Is New Employee Onboarding?

There’s noth­ing worse than an employ­ee start­ing their new job feel­ing unpre­pared or dis­en­gaged. For a com­pa­ny, there’s noth­ing worse than cost­ly staff turnover. Now more than ever, HR depart­ments have the pow­er and respon­si­bil­i­ty to imple­ment prop­er onboard­ing strate­gies to ease new employ­ees into their posi­tions. A prop­er onboard­ing process allows employ­ees to inte­grate into the com­pa­ny cul­ture and quick­ly become pro­duc­tive mem­bers of the team.

The fol­low­ing sta­tis­tics show that a struc­tured employ­ee onboard­ing process with­in the UK can have a big­ger (and more pos­i­tive) impact on a com­pa­ny, such as:

• Less employ­ee turnover can save a com­pa­ny 100 – 300% of the employee’s salary in total.

• A one-on-one with a man­ag­er is a cru­cial part of onboard­ing for 72% of employ­ees.

• Employ­ees who have poor onboard­ing expe­ri­ence are two times more like­ly to look for a new job soon.

• In the UK, only 45% of employ­ees are engaged.

• In remote hir­ing, 51.7% of man­agers say the biggest con­cern is can­di­date engagement.

• 61% of employ­ers expect new hires to stay with them for at least two years.

These sta­tis­tics show why it is so impor­tant to imple­ment employ­ee onboard­ing to keep staff hap­py with­in the work envi­ron­ment.

Want to find out more? Read on below to dis­cov­er what exact­ly is new employ­ee onboard­ing, and why it is so cru­cial for any company.

What exact­ly is new employ­ee onboarding?

Employ­ee onboard­ing is a process where a new employ­ee is eased into a com­pa­ny (usu­al­ly con­duct­ed by the HR depart­ment) to become famil­iarised with the com­pa­ny cul­ture and poli­cies and become a pro­duc­tive mem­ber of their team.

Imple­ment­ing a new employ­ee onboard­ing pro­gram will help new hires:

• Become set­tled in their new role

• Gain an under­stand­ing of their respon­si­bil­i­ties with­in their role

• To meet/​be wel­comed by colleagues 

• Under­stand the company’s poli­cies and protocols

• Be intro­duced to per­for­mance tools

• Ask any ques­tions regard­ing infor­ma­tion that they are unsure of.

This process helps employ­ees to become engaged, moti­vat­ed and effec­tive with­in the work­place, enabling com­pa­nies to receive loy­al­ty from the start and mak­ing it more cost-effec­tive in the long-term, as staff turnover can be costly.

What is the process for new employ­ee onboarding?

Pri­or to an employee’s first day, the HR depart­ment should email the employ­ee with the fol­low­ing details:

• Direc­tions of where the employ­ee needs to meet the HR department

• For remote work­ing: a link for the online meet­ing for where you and the employ­ee will meet

• The time and date

• Who they will meet upon arrival

• Any infor­ma­tion that they’ll need to bring with them (pass­port, P45, etc.)

On the employee’s first day, HR will run through all of the infor­ma­tion (as men­tioned ear­li­er in the employ­ee onboard­ing pro­gram key points) and pro­vide them with any addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion such as pass­words, soft­ware down­loads, etc., that they will need in their new role.

This should not be the only time the HR depart­ment will meet with an employ­ee. Week­ly or month­ly meet­ings through­out the employee’s onboard­ing peri­od will ensure that they are hap­py and feel that their new role is going well. This is also an oppor­tu­ni­ty to go over any queries they may have.

Imple­ment­ing an onboard­ing process allows the com­pa­ny to build an ini­tial rela­tion­ship with a new employ­ee. Invest­ing in a new employee’s well-being through an onboard­ing process is the key fac­tor to increas­ing long-term employ­ee engage­ment and over­all job sat­is­fac­tion.

Accord­ing to a recent report, every time a busi­ness replaces a salaried employ­ee, it costs 6 to 9 months’ salary on aver­age. With the most recent gov­ern­ment fig­ures putting the aver­age UK salary at £27,721 per year, this could be high­ly cost­ly to any com­pa­ny. There­fore, it is vital to ensure that employ­ees are sat­is­fied for them to stay with a com­pa­ny long-term.

Ulti­mate­ly, car­ing for employ­ees’ needs leads to a hap­py and pos­i­tive cul­ture for both the employ­ee and the company.

Advanced’s con­tin­u­ous per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware tool allows employ­ees to set effec­tive goals and give instant feed­back. This tool will mea­sure well­be­ing in sec­onds and offers advice on what improve­ments to make.

To see it in action for free, fill out our book a demo form, and a mem­ber of our expert team will be in touch