If you want to retain staff and make the most of your recruitment process, then employee onboarding is essential for ensuring that new employees are welcomed into the organisation in the right way. Starting a new job is daunting and can make people feel out of place, but with the right system in place, new starters will feel supported and valued from the moment they join the company. Here are some tips on how to improve your employee onboarding for greater staff retention and employee engagement.

Think about Onboarding Before Contracts are Signed

If you wait until the individual has signed on the dotted line before you think about their onboarding experience, you’ve already waited too long. A smooth transition into the workplace requires thought much earlier than this, so every company should have a strategy in place that can be customized depending on the department, the job role or the location. From the moment someone accepts a job offer, the onboarding experience should be in place and shouldn’t end until their probation period comes to a close.

Prioritise the Employee’s Experience

Understanding how the employee will be feeling is essential for ensuring they continue wanting to work for the organisation. Their experience with the company begins from the recruitment process and onboarding is a vital component of this. Think about how you can make new starters feel more comfortable and supported in their role, such as sharing employee success stories, arranging informal meetings with senior members of each department so they can learn more about the company as a whole, share photos and videos of the company so they can get a feel of what it’s like to work there, or arranging a team lunch to help them settle in after their first week.

Only Include the Basics 

Starting a new job is overwhelming and there’s a lot to take in, so don’t flood the person with more information than is necessary. When you’re developing the onboarding experience, take it slowly and pace it out so that they have time to take everything in. It’s also important that they are only given essential information in the early stages as a complex onboarding process can give a negative impression of the business. If there’s a lot of essential information that’s a requirement for them to know, perhaps consider pacing it out over their probation period to give them chance to comprehend the information they’re being given.

Make it Personal 

While the basic overview of the onboarding programme will look the same for each employee, such as including IT setup and orientation, it’s also crucial that employees don’t feel like they’re just another cog in the wheel. Making the onboarding experience personal for each staff member, such as learning or training that’s specific to the individual’s role or department, tailoring objectives and goals to them, and rewards and benefits that cater to different levels of seniority will help the new starter feel more valued and supported.