Onboarding is the process of integrating new employees into the company. It allows you to welcome, train and monitor new employees in order to limit staff turnover, increase productivity and enhance your company’s image.
While essential to the smooth running of a business, it can be difficult and costly to put in place an effective integration process. Intuition Software explains all about HR onboarding and gives you the tools to build a successful onboarding.
Onboarding in a nutshell
- Onboarding is the process of welcoming and integrating new employees ;
- This integration process helps to limit early departures, improve productivity and enhance your employer brand;
- There are 4 key stages to successful HR onboarding: pre-boarding, induction, training and follow-up;
- Some tools make on-boarding easier: online messaging, document sharing platforms, etc.
What is onboarding?
Onboarding refers to the whole process that involves welcoming and integrating new employees into the company. Onboarding literally translates to “ boarding “, which refers to boarding an aircraft, for example, where passengers are welcomed on board to make them feel at home.
Thus, on-boarding corresponds to the various actions put in place by the company to welcome new employees and integrate them into the team. The new employee feels included in the rest of the team and can gradually adapt to their new working environment.
Why set up an integration process?
Onboarding, or the integration process, limit the risk of early departure, improve productivity and enhance your employer brand. A new employee who feels excluded can quickly brown out, which can lead to quiet quitting. Conversely, a well-integrated employee is more quickly at ease and will be more productive and committed to the company.
Let’s look at the benefits of onboarding:
- Limiting early departures : the turn over is the bane of every company, and a good onboarding process ensures that new employees feel integrated and supported as they take their first steps in the company. Without on-boarding, employees are left to fend for themselves and find their feet without support, which could lead to early departure.
- Improving productivity: by properly integrating new arrivals into the company, you give them the essential keys to getting up to speed quickly. What’s more, you increase their motivation and their desire to invest themselves in their work.
- Enhancing your employer brand: the induction process helps to enhance your company’s image among employees. Good HR onboarding improves the candidate experience and helps them to promote your company to their friends and family. This process is therefore essential to maintain a positive image and to develop your brand as an employee.
How can HR onboarding be a success?
To ensure a successful HR onboarding, you need to put in place a number of essential induction and integration stages, and not forget a number of elements. This includes a pre-boarding stage, training and follow-up, the definition of a mentor or sponsor, access to all the equipment needed to carry out the assignments, etc.
Steps to follow for on-boarding
There are 4 essential steps to good onboarding:
- The pre-boarding: you need to set up an onboarding programme right from the recruitment phase, to define the actions to be taken to successfully integrate the new employee. If they feel valued, they will feel included from the outset and will not risk dropping out even before joining the company because of a lack of communication;
- The welcome phase: on the employee’s first day, it’s important to show them the importance of their arrival by organising a presentation of the team, a tour of the premises or a welcome drink. In addition, the people in charge of recruitment must be present to support the credibility of on-boarding;
- The formation of the new employee: when taking up a new post, employees need to feel that they are being guided and trained, so that they can be sure they have everything they need to carry out their tasks. By training them quickly and effectively, employees will be more effective more quickly and can be guided according to their abilities and “difficulties”;
- Monitoring the employee during the induction process: even if the employee has been properly trained, it is essential to monitor them afterwards in order to work on their weaknesses and recognise their strengths. For example, you can define a mentor to integrate them into the company and monitor their skills development throughout the HR onboarding process.
The induction period is a key factor in retaining your talent. Over 33% of executives recruited leave their job before their 1st year. Structuring an integration plan, with clear business KPIs, individual objectives over 3 to 6 months and structured managerial points, quickly creates a bond and a strong sense of belonging between the talent and their new company. Recruitment agencies such as Talent:Program can help you structure this plan and provide support during the pivotal first 6 months in the job.
Things to remember for successful onboarding
To check that your HR onboarding is well constructed, you can check that it contains the the following elements from day one :
- A personal or group office made available to new employees as soon as they join the company ;
- All the equipment required by the employee is available for the performance of his tasks and for his access to the company ;
- The administrative paperwork is ready: contract, health insurance, job description ;
- Informing teams in advance of the new employee’s arrival ;
- Definition of a mentor or sponsor, in order to facilitate the employee’s integration into the company ;
- A welcome drink or lunch with the team is planned, for example, to include the newcomer from their first day;
- An entrance interview is prepared to explain how the company works, the tasks to be carried out and the schedule for the first few days;
- A teambuilding or team-building day is organised quickly to create a bond;
- An interview at the end of the integration process is scheduled to review the employee’s arrival and HR onboarding.
What tools can be used to integrate new employees?
Certain tools facilitate on-boarding by encouraging exchanges and simplifying the integration process:
- Online messaging (Slack): these platforms make it easy for employees to talk to each other. For example, you can quickly transmit documents and share information relating to current files. You can also chat privately or create chat channels.
- Document sharing platforms (Drive or Dropbox): this type of tool allows you to fluidise your collaborative work. Folders are shared automatically and can be synchronised on each employee’s computer to simplify group work on certain files.
- Shared diaries (Google Calendar): very useful for quickly scheduling meetings. Everyone notes down their absences, holidays and events in the diary, and everyone can access it to organise themselves as effectively as possible.
- Onboarding software (HeyTeam): these tools allow you to create and customise onboarding processes while making them fun. You can set up a complete on-boarding programme in the form of games, to help you integrate while having fun.
- The automation software (Arondor): these RPA (Robotic Process Automation) systems relieve the human resources department by automating certain actions linked to the onboarding process, such as collecting candidate data. These tools refer to recruitment software, which relieves companies of repetitive tasks.
Good onboarding is essential to the smooth running of your business. To make a success of it, remember to respect the 4 essential stages in the process of integrating a new recruit. For more information on the recruitment process, read all our Intuition Software articles!
