Rethink your Onboarding Process — Part I

Recruitment is so much more than just a job description; it also cannot be narrowed in just the act of interviewing. Thus, it’s more about the entire experience, the substantial transition from applicant to employee.

Since I worked in different sizes and types of companies, I had to experience multiple onboarding processes. In essence, this article is mainly about this part. On a further mode, the next one is going to involve a concept that I developed with one of my old employers. But for now, let’s focus on how the recruiter can rethink their onboarding process?

Setting up everything beforehand is an important step to start with; it will lead us to raise certain questions such as: is the new employee’s workstation ready to go in terms of the phone number, desktop, e-mail, etc., and are they granted access to all the relevant folders/ functions?

The second step is notifying all the employees about the new staff member. That helps the staff to consider ahead of time how to assist them. You can arrange that by planning a team lunch, which can help to break the ice in a welcoming work environment.

Nevertheless, online training holds a critical division in the onboarding process, as I believe that it must be optimized, and I am sorry for saying that, but it does not have to be formed similar to a lecture. We shall ask questions like: what is the purpose behind each specific training, and how to facilitate understanding and memorizing it? Furthermore, assigning an experienced employee as a mentor can also help them acclimate to their job, answering their questions and walk them through some of their training beneficially.

Being a data-driven person, I would like to finish with the evaluation as a crucial part of the puzzle. By being open and having a conversation with each new staff member, you could collect a lot of data, which will lend a hand to optimize the whole onboarding process experience in a very efficient and lucrative way.

All the above-mentioned leads to a win-win situation, where the employee feels valued by their team, they are more likely to stick around for the long haul and perform their best. And that results in low costs and even lower turnover rates.

Drop a comment if you think that was fun and interesting to read, share with your HR savvy friends, and see you soon with the second part of rethinking your onboarding process.