How to ensure a solid start with an onboarding checklist
Find the onboarding checklist at the bottom.
There are plenty of reasons why you should plan an onboarding process before you welcome your new colleague. On top of paving the way for a steady outset where your new co-worker feels embraced in their new workplace, you also increase the chances of this person staying with their new job for longer.
According to the book “Onboarding – flyvende fra start” the cold hard facts are that close to 25 % of all new hires leave their jobs within the first year of their employment, and 4 % never return after their first day at work. To avoid being a part of those sad statistics, you must plan out a solid onboarding program before greeting your new co-worker on their first day.
A study from Glassdoor shows that planning out a thorough onboarding process can support your retention of new hires by 82 % and productivity by over 70 %. Now, that’s a perk worth working for.
What is onboarding?
Onboarding is a term used for the process of welcoming and introducing your new hire to their workplace. One way to do this is to ensure the employee is adequately introduced to the workplace culture. This is also where you ensure the relationship with their new coworkers is off to a great start and verify the requirements that make your new hire perform their best.
The new employee’s success often depends on the onboarding process, so ensuring you have a good one will save you both time and money.
It is a good idea to prepare your new employee before their first day, to ensure a good onboarding process. We call this the preboarding. With HR-ONs HR-system, Staff, you can connect the preboarding as well as your onboarding checklist in our process management system.
No specific it-skills are required to set up this process, and you can use it again and again for new hires. Once it has been set up, it will be a real-time saver – learn more about Preboarding and get your free preboarding checklist here.
Create a sense of belonging by handing out assignments early on
The goal of creating a good onboarding is to make the new hire feel like part of the team. It means that you have to give the new player on the team the best shot at establishing relationships with the rest of the employees. The first step is to properly welcome them to the team and ensure they are introduced to their team members while giving the new hire a chance to present themselves.
After this, you can take whatever steps best fit the culture of your organization. However, one of the first steps should be introducing your new staff member to some of their assignments. Assigning tasks early on is an advantage, as it can give the employee a sense of contributing to the company. Providing the new hire tasks to resolve will also increase their sense of belonging and give them the best chance of coming off to a solid start and settling into their new workplace.
We will elaborate below on other essential steps to ensure a good onboarding process. Overall, they are useful tools that give the employee access to relevant systems and know the name of their new colleagues and who to contact if they have any questions.
Tools and checklist for a successful onboarding
At HR-ON, we wish to create the best premises for you to set up a solid onboarding process. That’s why we have designed the tool “Processes” for you that you will find in HR-ON Staff. This way, you only have to set up the different steps in the onboarding process once, and after this, you can connect the employees who will be part of the process. It could be people like the contact person, the nearest leader, and of course, the new colleague.
This way, you have a blueprint for a thorough onboarding process that you can use repeatedly. It is easy to adjust the blueprint if needed so it adapts to the staff member you wish to onboard.
On top of this, we have drawn up an Onboarding Checklist that you can download below. The checklist is based on best practices that work for multiple organizations, no matter field or size. This way, you can check off every step as the onboarding progresses. It can also be used to crosscheck with the onboarding procedure you might already have created in HR-ON Staff.
What is onboarding?
Onboarding is the steps and tasks you do when a new employee is starting at the company. It is where you introduce the new co-worker to the culture, rules, and tasks they will handle.
Why is onboarding important?
Onboarding is important to ensure a good start and solid relations with the new coworkers. It also ensures that the new employee knows what's important and can translate that into value fast.
