Introducing a new team member is quite a task. You must ensure they feel welcome, help them find their place, and set clear expectations for the coming year without overwhelming them. This is where a thoughtful onboarding process comes into play.
While many people think of employee orientation as the main part of onboarding, it’s really just the tip of the iceberg. A great onboarding process involves several stages that connect different departments and emphasize both immediate and long-term goals.
In this article, we’ll explore some effective (and creative) ways to onboard new employees. We’ll dive into the 5 C's of onboarding and check out examples from some of the largest companies in the world that have nailed this process.
What is Employee Onboarding?
Employee onboarding is a structured program designed to help new hires transition smoothly into their roles within a company. It begins at the job offer stage and focuses on seamlessly integrating new employees into the organization. This process aims to make newcomers feel welcomed and oriented.
During onboarding, new employees are provided with essential information about the company, including its culture, values, and business model. They also learn about their specific roles and responsibilities within their teams. Through this process, new hires gain the confidence and knowledge needed to perform their jobs effectively, reducing feelings of anxiety and disorientation on their first day.
Why is It Important?
Employee onboarding is where an organization makes its first impression on new hires. This is the company’s chance to make sure their new team members feel like they belong. Recent recruitment statistics prove that most employees decide their future with a company based on their onboarding experience.
Onboarding vs. Training
Employee onboarding is the broader set of activities designed to ensure that an employee feels welcomed in an organization and has the necessary information and relationships to ensure maximum productivity.
In comparison, employee training is a part of the onboarding process. It ensures employees understand the technicalities and the details required to perform their daily tasks effectively.
Training may include familiarization with relevant technology, tools, software, and equipment. According to a study by Axonify, 93% of employees said that well-planned employee training programs positively affect their level of engagement.
Onboarding in the context of training is about making sure the employee understands how their training complements the work of their teammates and fits into the bigger picture.
Onboarding vs. Orientation
Employee orientation is also part of the onboarding process, but managers often use the two terms interchangeably.
Here’s how to draw a clear distinction between the two. While onboarding is a more long-term process, orientation may include activities like:
- Meeting with colleagues
- Familiarization with the office space
- Understanding the organization’s procedures and policies
- Learning about the perks and benefits the job brings
- Receiving access cards and keys
In short, employee orientation is one of the phases of employee onboarding. The goals of employee orientation are to provide an employee with the relevant contractual information and workplace resources they’ll need.
Some Creative Onboarding Ideas for New Hires
A nice welcome message to a new employee can make a world of difference for a little effort on your part. However, modern organizations have much more extensive onboarding practices that cover an employee’s needs from multiple angles. Some engaging onboarding activities include:
- Introductions with critical internal and external stakeholders
- Team training
- A presentation of the company's current goals and recent accomplishments
- Welcome gifts
- Team lunch
The duration of an onboarding process varies from one organization to another and may be anywhere from a few days to a year. At the end of an effective onboarding program, new hires feel comfortable and confident about their role in the organization and are ready to contribute to its cause.
The 5 Cs of Onboarding
Organizations use different onboarding processes and strategies depending on their business goals. However, every onboarding strategy needs to have the 5 Cs of onboarding to make an impact.
The 5 Cs of onboarding are:
1. Compliance
This step involves familiarization with company policies and procedures. Compliance onboarding may also include understanding documentary processes, such as signing off on NDAs, non-compete agreements, and password policies.
This step aims to ensure that new employees are aware of the policies they must follow while working at the organization.
2. Clarification
In the context of onboarding, clarification means communicating job performance expectations and addressing any uncertainties or questions.
Clarification may involve a detailed Q&A session with the new hire. This step aims to minimize confusion, set clear and manageable goals, and brief the employee on what the organization expects from them.
3. Culture
Familiarizing new hires with the company’s culture is vital to integrating them into the organization. The organization’s culture is ultimately defined by what it rewards and discourages. How they go about it is typically outlined in the company’s handbook.
Culture onboarding includes making new hires aware of the company’s social and extramural calendar, such as signing them up for the company’s sports team.
4. Connection
It’s essential to build a positive relationship with new hires from day one. Gestures like a welcome note, an email, or a video message can go a long way toward establishing an initial connection between the employee and the organization.
Online or in-person introductions with critical internal and external stakeholders that the new hire is most likely to work with are vital to this process. Not only does this create an impactful first impression on the employee, but sends a message about the professionalism of the organization to external stakeholders.
5. Check back
New employees must simultaneously learn the organization’s culture and familiarize themselves with their specific job responsibilities. In this situation, all the information provided during the onboarding process may quickly fade from memory.
Check back with them and schedule meetings 30, 60, and 90 days after the commencement of the onboarding process. These meetings can evaluate the employee's progress, obtain their feedback on the onboarding process, and revisit key focus areas of the onboarding program to keep the employee on track for success.
How to Onboard a New Employee [Step-By-Step Guide]
Good employee onboarding is a complex process with multiple moving parts. It requires an eye for detail and well-documented steps. This section will outline the seven most important steps in any onboarding process.
Creating the ideal onboarding procedure for your organization would require adding specific details and sub-steps to this process.
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Step 1: The Offer
An organization’s onboarding process begins immediately after recruitment. The HR manager sends a pleasant email to kick off onboarding, sharing the good news with the successful candidate.
In addition, necessary documentation at this stage, such as the offer letter, onboarding forms, and other organizational policy documents, are shared with the new hire. This is a crucial step to give the employee a feel for the organization’s culture. So make sure to set the tone right.
Step 2: The Acceptance
The onboarding process moves forward when the candidate accepts the job offer. Ideally, HR should schedule a call at this point to address any questions or concerns the employee might have about the offer. The bigger goal is to keep the new hire engaged and build an emotional bond with the organization.
This is achieved by setting expectations for how long any next steps might take and maintaining regular contact until the date of joining. A slow hiring process or lack of communication at this point can allow uncertainty to creep in. A candidate who starts doubting your hiring process may well ghost you before their date of joining.
Step 3: Pre-Joining Checklist
It’s important to set the new hire up for success from day one. Unfortunately, many organizations unnecessarily delay simple yet important pre-joining onboarding tasks such as document verification, contract signing, and obtaining references, which may leave a bad impression on the new employee.
Create a checklist of documentation the employee can complete, sign, and send before their first day, so it is out of the way when they start.
Step 4: Joining Day
This is an exciting day for the new employee. The HR team should make the most of it to ensure the new team member develops a sense of belonging and establishes an emotional connection with the organization.
An effective onboarding process should have a list of activities planned for an employee’s joining day so that they feel welcomed and immediately become a part of the company. These activities could include briefing the new employee on the company’s history, values, and goals through video documentaries or printed material, meetings with colleagues in-person and online, as well as a team lunch where the new employee can interact with their colleagues informally.
Step 5: Cross-Functional Coordination
Cross-functional coordination is critical for seamless employee onboarding. Ideally, the HR department should coordinate with the relevant departments and stakeholders to ensure everybody knows what’s expected from them in a new employee’s onboarding.
Furthermore, the team should be briefed on the new coworker’s priorities and responsibilities before their first day at work to facilitate easy collaboration right from the start.
In most organizations, departments nominate a team member to coordinate with HR and brief the new employee about the department’s functions and role in the company.
Cross-functional coordination ensures that departments plan their part of the onboarding process in advance, so it doesn’t impact regular operations.
Step 6: Orientation
Orientation sessions are essential in familiarizing new hires with the organization’s culture, mission, vision, values, and goals. This gives the employees an accurate idea of what is expected of them in the next month, quarter, and year.
You can measure the effectiveness of your orientation through a survey, which also serves as a way to check in with the employee. The survey can not only provide valuable feedback to improve the orientation process but can also show the employee, based on the questions, what the company’s priorities are.
Step 7: The First Quarter
Completing the first quarter with a new hire is an important milestone. This is where the organization and the employee can review the results of their efforts and identify improvement areas.
Setting measurable Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) from the outset is essential for making this review phase easier and more productive. KPIs help make performance reviews less subjective and more measurable.
New employees can review their KPIs regularly with their managers to maintain a realistic understanding of their job performance relative to expectations. There will be no surprises for anyone at the end of the quarter.
New Hire Onboarding Checklist
In addition to the points mentioned above, the following checklist will help you ensure your onboarding process is comprehensive and effective:
- Prepare the orientation schedule in advance and keep it handy.
- Procure and assign IT assets for the new hire. These can include a company laptop, their email account, and, if necessary, their phone.
- Have the necessary office supplies ready, such as stationery and office keys.
- Activate a salary account for the employee.
- Assign a colleague as a guide who can help the new employee settle down.
- Review their performance periodically and provide constructive feedback.
- Ask the employee about any concerns or issues they might be facing.
- Discuss career paths and growth.
- Get open feedback about the existing onboarding process and ask for suggestions.
- Ask the employee about their workload and find out if it matches their expectations.
- Identify whether they require further training.
Looking for resources to onboard remote new hires? Check out our comprehensive guide to remote employee onboarding.
Dos and Don’ts of Employee Onboarding
Creating an onboarding process is a complex task. To simplify things, it’s always good to have some ground rules about what you absolutely should or should not do.
Dos:
- Prepare and share a well-documented plan for onboarding before the new employee joins to set expectations.
- Have a list of goals prepared for the employee to achieve along with timelines during the onboarding process.
- Help the employee understand the company culture, such as policies, arrival and leaving times, overtime, and communication after work hours.
- Pair the new employee with an experienced colleague as a guide they can go to for help or ask questions.
- Set short-term targets. These are the things the employee needs to dive into immediately to make a positive first impression on their colleagues. Examples of such activities are attending daily meetings, completing mandatory training, and responding to emails.
- Convert short-term goals to annual milestones once the employee settles down and understands their role.
- Set up regular check-ins to make sure the employee is settling in well and can focus on their role.
- Get feedback on your onboarding process. Any insight regarding your organization’s onboarding process from your new hires is essential to improving it for your future hires.
Don’ts:
- Don’t mix onboarding with orientation. Employee orientation is for familiarizing employees with the essentials, while onboarding is a more profound exercise undertaken to integrate new hires into the organization and set them up for success.
- Don’t think of onboarding as a one-day thing. Employee onboarding is called a “process” for a reason. It may go on for weeks or months until the employee feels confident in their role.
- Don’t overwhelm employees with information. Instead, break the process down over days, weeks, and months to ease the employees into the organization's culture.
- Don’t think of onboarding as an HR-specific event. It is a cross-functional exercise where representation from multiple departments is required throughout the program.
To make sure your employees are on track to succeed at your company, you need to provide them with the right tools to maximize their engagement and productivity. Learn more about setting up new hires for success at your organization.
Simplifying Complex Employee Onboarding with Automation
If you’re considering automating your onboarding process, you may have several questions in mind.
- Can an onboarding process be effectively automated?
- What about personalization?
- Does automation really help?
- What if we already have onboarding software?
- What are the benefits of onboarding automation?
Let’s address each question in more detail below.
Why Onboarding Automation
Based on a Formstack study, 55% of managers spend around 8 hours per week on tasks that could be automated.
Onboarding automation can save time, deliver operational efficiency, and boost new hire engagement and retention.
Typical employee onboarding processes require new hires to complete more than 50 activities throughout the program. This often requires dealing with multiple people, departments, and manual procedures that can run more smoothly when automated.
Is Onboarding Automation Impersonal?
It’s natural to ask whether a completely automated onboarding experience may feel cold and impersonal. However, onboarding automation can allow for advanced customization and personalization.
When done correctly, onboarding automation can surprise you and your new hires with the level of customizable detail it can deliver, boosting employee engagement throughout the onboarding process.
For example, once a candidate is marked as “hired” in your applicant tracking system (ATS), you can trigger the following steps through your integrated onboarding automation software:
- Creation of their employee profile in your HRIS.
- Company email account setup.
- A welcome email is sent to their new work email.
- Their account is created in an IT service management system.
- Ticket is added to track their progress throughout the onboarding stages.
What if We Already Have Employee Onboarding Software?
Does your onboarding software integrate with your recruitment software, as well as all the different steps and sequences in your onboarding process? If not, you need to consider switching to a solution that connects all your functions and automates your work.
Integrated automation can help make functions such as recruitment, document processing, and IT provisioning more efficient.
This seamless integration and automation significantly improve your new hires' onboarding experience, leaving a lasting positive impression on them.
What is An Automated Pre-Boarding Process?
According to Zach Lahey from Aberdeen Research, the most innovative and employee-centric organizations are 53% more likely to initiate their new hires' onboarding process before they formally join the organization, a process referred to as pre-boarding.
Pre-boarding is a process where data is collected from the new hire prior to onboarding, using web forms, email, and eSignature tools. Onboarding automation can utilize technologies such as OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and document extraction to process, share, and save the submitted employee data automatically without involving any human resources.
By automating pre-boarding, organizations can optimize the use of their new employee’s time on the day of joining by avoiding tedious paperwork and form-filling. Instead, the new hire can focus on more productive activities, such as in-person meetings and immersion in company culture.
Effective Onboarding Process Examples to Try
Let’s discuss the employee onboarding processes at some of the world’s largest companies like Google, Facebook, and other tech giants. These companies have invested heavily in human resource development and employee onboarding.
Studying their practices can help you gain valuable lessons for your onboarding strategy.
Example 1: Google’s Onboarding
Starting from a garage, Google has grown to become one of the biggest brands in the world, with over USD 257 billion in revenue. They have hundreds of locations worldwide and employ thousands of brilliant people. Google is a mission-driven company that has truly changed how we live our lives over the years.
Google’s success isn’t possible without a relentless focus on acquiring and retaining the best talent in the market. Indeed, Google owes a large part of its success to the effectiveness of its “just-in-time” employee onboarding process.
Google’s “Just in Time” Employee Onboarding Checklist
A day before a new employee joins the company, their manager gets an email with a checklist of five critical tasks.
- Discuss the roles and responsibilities of the new employee
- Match the new hire with a peer buddy
- Help the new hire build a social network
- Set up employee onboarding check-ins once a month for the new hire’s first six months
- Encourage open dialogue
This no-nonsense checklist is sent to the manager “just in time” (a day prior) to ensure they understand its importance and urgency. The approach has largely been successful and has improved Google’s onboarding results by 25%.
Example 2: Meta’s Onboarding
Meta is another company that has truly impacted our lives on a global scale. Hundreds of millions of people use Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram every day to communicate with their loved ones, and express themselves.
The company has helped businesses thrive, helped people stay in touch with their friends and family, and in some cases, has helped people find their soulmates.
With over 60,000 employees worldwide, Meta maintains a strong focus on hiring and retaining top talent. Its managers make sure new hires understand the company's core values so they can align their goals accordingly. As a result, their employees have given the company an overall culture score of 79/100, indicating a strong positive sentiment.
Meta’s Bootcamp
The onboarding process at Meta is run in a Bootcamp style. The activity lasts for six weeks and truly immerses employees in the company's work culture. Here’s what happens at the Meta Employee Onboarding Bootcamp:
- Pre-Bootcamp Activities
A day before the commencement of the boot camp, the IT team sets up the systems and installs the required applications for the new hires to perform their practical work. This intensive exercise sets the tone for the rest of the event.
- The 45-minute Rule
The new hires attempt to complete their assigned tasks in 45 minutes. These may include bug fixes and feature development. For six weeks, similar challenges are thrown at the new employees, preparing them to be active problem-solvers at the organization.
- Assigned Bootcamp Mentors
Meta assigns its experienced employees as mentors to guide new hires through the Bootcamp. They help newbies figure out how to solve the problems thrown at them, what to prioritize, and whom to work with.
- Versatility
During this intense onboarding exercise, the participants are encouraged to work with various teams on different projects. The objective is to help the new hires figure out which teams and products they want to work with the most based on their interests.
- Introduction to Culture
An essential part of the onboarding process at Meta is communicating the culture of employees owning the company just as much as the managers or the top management. The company has internal workgroups to discuss workplace culture and continuously improve it with the help of employee feedback.
Example 3: X’s Onboarding
Xr’s onboarding process is a meticulous exercise spread over 75 different activities between the new hire, the HR team, and the hiring manager. Some of these activities are:
- Email setup
- Furniture choices
- Laptop procurement and setup
- Availability of relevant documents explaining the job role and expectations
The company has perfected the art of onboarding and refers to its process as “Yes to Desk,” referring to the set of activities that take place from the time the offer is accepted until the employee shows up on the first day.
From the outset, a manager joins new hires to make them feel comfortable. After that, the employee explores the office space, meets with IT, and becomes familiar with the facilities.
At lunch, the new employee meets the team they will work with. You’d never see a new hire looking for a chair at lunch; it would be reserved for them. Later, a happy hour with the team is scheduled so the new hires can socialize in an informal setting.
Continuous feedback is a critical element of X’s onboarding process. So, after a few months of joining, the employees are asked what they liked and didn’t like about the onboarding process. What worked? How can it be improved? X’s HR and decision-makers take this feedback seriously and continuously improve their process.
Apart from these popular tech companies, most successful organizations have well-defined employee onboarding processes. If you want to study more examples, here are some excellent case studies of organizations onboarding employees the right way.
Onboarding New Employees The Right Way
Throughout this article, we have learned how crucial the onboarding process is for new hires to build a connection with the company. We’ve also seen how onboarding is a way for employers to make a solid first impression, retain employees, and maximize their talents.
Building an effective onboarding process may be costly, but the cost of not building one is far greater in the long run.
Want to create an employee onboarding process that seamlessly integrates all your cross-functional teams and helps you automate onboarding effectively? Then check out our list of the best onboarding software in which we’ve reviewed and rated the finest onboarding tools after extensive research.
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