What Is Onboarding and How Do You Do It Successfully?

What is onboarding? We hear this term thrown around a lot in the hiring world, but what exactly does onboarding entail?

What happens when your organization finally finds the perfect new candidate? You are confident that they are a great fit for the position and can see them being a great asset to your company’s culture. Do you welcome them in on the first day and send them off to weeks of monotonous training, where they sit and learn all day? Or are they quickly being immersed in your company’s culture and experiencing hands-on learning to better equip them for their role? While the textbook education style might prove to be the easier route, it isn’t the most effective when it comes to onboarding new hires successfully.

The fear or expectation of new hires leaving your organization within the first 12 months can be daunting. It can cultivate unwanted pressure when employee turnover expenses add up for recently terminated new hires. When new hires are welcomed into an organization, they can quickly become overwhelmed with the paperwork, initial welcome, and learning a new role. An effective onboarding program helps new hires feel that they have a place to belong and helps employees be more productive in their roles. If this process isn’t handled well, it can lead to higher (and quicker!) turnover rate for new hires.

Onboarding Is a Journey…Not a Sprint

Onboarding goes a lot deeper than just a new hire orientation. It is a process. It is a journey. As an organization, you can’t effectively onboard new hires by simply providing a training manual and expect your employee to feel 100% confident in their role.

Making new employees feel welcomed and a part of your organization accomplishes quite a few things:

• First, you identify key expectations that will be required in day to day operations. This eliminates issues with unspoken expectations and allows the employee to better understand their place within your organization.

• Second, it is important to highlight what makes your company unique. Allow your new hires to engage with your culture. What values do you live by as a company? What language and key phrases do you use? What makes you, you? Allowing your employees to engage with their colleagues creates a sense of purpose and belonging within your organization. Through transparency and intentionality with new hires, you can diminish frustration during the process, and empower your new hire to feel like they are fully apart of your organization.

A solid onboarding process ranges from 12 months to 2 years depending on the role and includes lots of checkpoints along the way. Onboarding well includes constant communication, feedback, and performance measurement. Seamless integration for the new candidates through the onboarding process will better ensure every new employee’s success.

Is your organization looking for a more effective way to onboard new hires, we’ve got you covered with vidREACH.