How to effectively onboard new employees

Onboarding is an essential process for business growth. However, it is not an easy procedure. There is a range of leadership training courses that can help you develop the required skills to effectively set up an onboarding program.

Yet, there are still several aspects of onboarding that all managers and human resources staff need to know about.

What is onboarding?

When a business grows, an owner or manager will need to hire extra personnel to work within new roles or on new projects or clients. However, new staff are not always able to hit the ground running and will need to be brought up to standard. This is where onboarding comes in.

Onboarding is a process whereby new employees  are welcomed into a business and provided with the right tools, resources and access to knowledge that will be essential to their acclimatisation.

Orientation programs are typically associated with the first day, however, onboarding is a much wider and longer process that can allow new employees to effectively transition into their roles. Rather than throwing recruits into the deep end, with less than a day’s training, onboarding can offer them easy access to a range of ongoing services throughout a set period.

How can you better manage new staff?

How can a manager optimise onboarding?

One of the main benefits of an onboarding process is employee engagement. Making a worker feel welcome, informed and supported is a great way to produce productive and successful employees.

As a manager, there is a range of actions you can take to optimise this process. Your role locates you as one of the most important parties in the onboarding process, as such, you should aim to be at the centre of it.

One way an onboarding can engage with employees is by liasing with them before they begin. This could mean a phone call, letter or email a week or so prior to their start date.

Another key area to consider is the length of an onboarding scheme. According to Inc, onboarding should not end after an employee’s first week. Instead, it should continue for several months.

During this time, a manager should also be working feedback back into the process, which should help the program grow and evolve – making sure that problems are not repeated and benefits are maximised.

If you would like to know more about onboarding, seek out a Melbourne-based leadership training provider today who can help you learn the essential skills needed for effective onboarding.