Your workforce is an invaluable asset, and you want every employee's experience to be a positive one from the very first day they join the team. A well-designed onboarding process is key to a successful and productive employee journey.
With the importance of the onboarding experience in mind, we’re exploring how teams can use a comprehensive onboarding checklist to ensure the seamless integration of new team members.
The value of effective employee onboarding
In the past, employee onboarding revolved around paperwork and operational explanations. However, research has revealed how significant the long-term impact of this process can really be, requiring dedicated time and attention from HR professionals for the best results.
With a comprehensive onboarding process, organizations benefit from:
- Increased productivity: Equipping new hires with the knowledge and resources to hit the ground running in their new role drives productivity and time-to-value.
- Improved retention: A well-executed program keeps new team members around longer, reducing turnover and its associated costs.
- Faster integration: Efficient training facilitates the rapid integration of hires into the company culture, processes, and workflows.
- Enhanced job satisfaction: Fostering a positive experience goes a long way toward enhancing employee engagement, motivation, and happiness in the long run.
- Accelerated learning: A structured and robust onboarding program accelerates the learning curve, enabling hires to obtain job-specific skills and knowledge faster.
Your onboarding program can either help new hires envision themselves at the company long-term, or just as quickly turn them away and drive your employee turnover rate. Yet, only 12% of U.S. employees say their company does a good job of training and orientation.1 Consider the following new hire checklist for more successful onboarding.
New employee onboarding checklist to foster engagement
1. Pre-boarding communication and form completion
Your HR team should reach out to a new hire before their start date to provide the necessary information and answer any questions they might have. This part of the process includes removing the job posting online and gathering all of the documents that the employee has to fill out on their first day — such as employee handbook acknowledgments, benefit enrollment documents, and compliance forms.
2. Workspace and equipment setup
Ensure the new employee’s workspace is prepared and equipped with the necessary tools and technology to set the stage for a smooth transition and immediate productivity. The same is true for remote employees, who must be set up and given necessary access. HR professionals should contact the IT team, facilities manager, and accounting department to add the hire to any relevant systems.
3. Team introductions
Introduce new employees to the team as soon as they arrive to foster a sense of belonging, encourage collaboration, and help establish relationships from day one. HR leaders or people managers can schedule a team welcome meeting, assign an onboarding buddy, or organize team-building activities to do this effectively.
4. Company overview
Provide a comprehensive company overview, highlighting your organization's unique mission, values, culture, and strategic goals — helping new hires align with the company’s vision.
5. Policies and procedures
To set new employees up for success from the start, clearly communicate organizational policies and procedures to ensure compliance and set expectations of behavior and conduct.
6. Job-specific training
Deliver targeted training tailored to the employee’s new role, boosting their confidence in having the skills, knowledge, and resources needed to ensure a smooth job transfer. A learning management system (LMS), for instance, provides structured and customizable training programs with valuable resources to support an improved experience.
7. IT systems and security
Cybersecurity is a growing problem across industries. And, because 88% of data breach incidents are caused by employee mistakes, ensuring new team members receive proper training on IT systems, data security protocols, and cybersecurity measures is a critical onboarding activity.2
8. Benefits and HR processes
To foster satisfaction and reduce confusion, explain employee benefits, payroll, leave policies, and other relevant HR processes to new employees — helping them navigate administrative aspects.
9. Set goals and expectations
With hires eager to take on their new role, be sure to establish clear performance goals. This not only helps individuals understand what’s expected of them but also enables them to align their efforts with the organization's objectives.
10. Continued support and check-ins
Provide ongoing support, mentorship, and regular check-ins with your HR department and managers, so new hires feel supported throughout the onboarding process and beyond. This offers the opportunity to address any concerns and promote continuous growth and development.
Effective ways to evaluate onboarding success
By tracking specific metrics, HR leaders can gather valuable insights and make data-driven decisions to enhance new hire onboarding. Here are some of the methods teams can introduce to measure program effectiveness:
- Completing an onboarding checklist: Monitoring the completion of a new hire checklist, like the one above, allows HR teams to assess whether a joining team member has gone through all of the required steps and received the training necessary to be a valuable addition to the organization.
- Sending employee feedback and satisfaction surveys: Administering surveys gives employees the chance to share their feedback on the training and orientation experiences. This can include questions about satisfaction levels, clarity of the information provided, and overall impression of the process.
- Tracking employee retention: Considering successful onboarding procedures can increase new hire retention by 82%, tracking these rates within the first year of employment can be a strong indicator of efficacy.3
- Assessing performance: Following learning metrics like time to proficiency, productivity levels, and competency assessments help managers evaluate how well employees have absorbed necessary skills and knowledge.
Turning to eLearning to maximize onboarding impact
Because the onboarding process can make or break the employee experience, teams are increasingly adopting eLearning solutions like an LMS to support their procedures. This offers numerous benefits for HR teams and new employees alike, providing:
- A centralized platform to more efficiently deliver and manage onboarding content
- Tracking and reporting capabilities to actively oversee progress and identify areas for improvement
- Interactive and engaging experiences with features such as multimedia content and gamification elements
Revolutionize the new employee experience with Absorb LMS
Absorb LMS is a powerful solution for supporting your new employee onboarding and training programs — helping you maximize impact and keep quality talent around long-term. With comprehensive features and a user-friendly interface, the Absorb platform equips HR leaders with several advantages, including:
- A scalable and flexible solution that fits the needs of organizations big and small
- The ability to tailor the user experience, design, reporting, and dashboards to fit the unique needs of your teams
- AI-powered personalization that predicts the training needs of employees and connects them with relevant content
Deliver online training that establishes a culture of learning, increases employee retention, drives productivity, and reduces the administrative workload on your HR personnel with Absorb LMS for new hire onboarding.
Ready to get started with Absorb LMS? Reach out to our experts or request a demo today.
