Why Is the Onboarding Process So Important? 5 Key Purposes

Nearly three-quarters (70%) of new hires know if your organization is the right fit for them within the first month, and 29% know after the first week. What’s worse, nearly half (44%) of new hires regret their decision within a week of starting a new job.

With so little time to make an impression, important to get your onboarding process right. Imagine boarding a plane, buckling your seatbelt, and listening to the in-flight announcements, only to hear a flight attendant go on and on about the food options onboard. No mention of emergency exits, bathrooms, safety rules and regulations, or in-flight entertainment—just long ramblings on the chicken and fish dinner options, drink menu items, and types of peanuts. This would be a failed onboarding checklist, wouldn’t it?

It’s the same with the employee onboarding process. You can’t onboard by, say, showing new people to their desk, and wishing them well. No, effective onboarding always serves many purposes.

Employee onboarding is the process of transitioning new hires into their job, their team, and the company. The two key parts to onboarding are transitioning employees into the company culture and helping them become familiar with its values, goals, and expectations, as well as familiarizing them with the tools and resources they need to be productive.

Orientation, Onboarding, and Training

Getting new hires up to speed and ready to run is a process that’s often broken into three distinct parts: orientation, onboarding, and work training. However, an effective onboarding process encompasses orientation and work training.

Onboarding helps new hires integrate with other employees, management, and the corporate culture. Ultimately, the onboarding process helps people understand how to be successful in their new job.

Orientation is a one-time event that welcomes new hires to your company and is typically held on the first day or first week of employment. It officially introduces your organization’s culture, mission, and values. An orientation often brings together new employees across departments. Onboarding best practices include:

• New employee paperwork
• Introduction to employee benefits plans
• Review of key policies (safety, health, time off, etc.)
• Review of administrative procedures (computer systems, logins, etc.)

Work training helps new employees know how to do their jobs and helps new hires realistically manage their expectations. According to recent research, Millennials feel they can positively influence training. Onboarding and training should go hand-in-hand to best equip new employees to be successful.

Work training can include:

• Tasks involved in the position
• Procedures for completing tasks
• How to work technology and equipment
• Who to go to with questions
• Approval processes
• Key onboarding resources
• Department initiatives/goals

The onboarding process begins when an offer is accepted, goes through orientation and training, and may not end for several months. More and more, it’s also key to engaging and retaining your workforce.

With that in mind, here are five purposes to plan for as you onboard your new hires. The onboarding checklist includes:

The 5 Key Purposes of the Onboarding Process

1. Validate New Hire’s Decision

A staggering 44% of new hires regret their new role within a week of starting. Your new hires want to feel like they made the right decision when they accepted your job offer, and if they don’t, they may leave. So, your onboarding process needs to give them confidence in your organization. One easy way to do that is to keep in contact with new hires during the gap between accepting the offer and their first day.

By using self-onboarding software, you can keep incoming employees connected to your organization (without taking you away from your other work). Effective self-onboarding resources allow new hires to get most of their paperwork done before they come in and introduce them to their work team, mitigating the stress they feel on their first day. Less stress leads to more confidence.

If your self-onboarding includes questionnaires, new hires can share their hobbies and other interests, so that when they come in, they’ll quickly connect with coworkers who share the same interests. And since their paperwork is already completed before their first day, you’ll be able to focus on more important matters—like ensuring they have a spectacular first day. Good first-day employee orientation helps employees know they’re in the right place.

2. Immerse New Hire into Organization

Your onboarding process should familiarize new hires with their new organization and coworkers. If they’ve done their homework, they’ll know a lot about your organization and their team. As soon as possible, take the time to fill in knowledge gaps and give them the  full story. Help them understand your organization’s unique DNA.

Educate new hires on the organization’s beginnings and acquaint them with its major milestones from that time until now. Discuss your mission, vision, and values, and explain why each is important. You may even want to take the time to fill them in on any inside jokes and other anecdotes they’ll need to fit in. In short, give them the details that, without, will make them feel like outsiders.

3. Provide Clear Expectations

New hires want to know exactly what is expected of them. Without those expectations, they’ll feel uneasy, and they’re far less likely to perform at a high level. So, your onboarding training programs should be replete with clear communications centered around expectations. When communicating expectations to new hires, consider the two different types—cultural and work responsibilities.

When somebody applies for a job, they don’t always fully consider culture—sometimes they just want a particular job. So, it’s of particular importance that your onboarding covers cultural expectations. When you discuss your organization’s mission, vision, and values help new hires understand where they fit in the big picture and how their work helps the organization reach its goals. Demonstrate how they can apply the values daily, and explain what behaviors are encouraged and discouraged within your culture so that there is no ambiguity.

Ideally, when a candidate accepts a job offer, they would know exactly what their work responsibilities entail. However, that’s not always the case. Whatever they know about the job on their first day, you’ll need to fill in the gaps. And make sure they get a perspective on what they’ll be doing from somebody with a similar role. The more complete the picture they have of their day-to-day responsibilities, the better off everybody will be.

As much as possible, you should also educate new hires on what their career growth opportunities look like. Their career path may not be crystal clear yet, but give them something to build towards or, at the very least, hope for.

4. Provide Work Training

There’s a direct link between onboarding quality and employee retention, yet only 12% of employees believe their onboarding process is good enough.

Different roles will require different types—and lengths—of training. What matters most is that organized onboarding training programs are in place and designed in a way that matches your organization’s culture. Department heads should lead these efforts, and HR can fit them into a broader onboarding process. But make sure to tailor each process according to the needs of the role/department.

HR professionals can help managers by both encouraging them to get these training programs in place and by following up with new hires to get feedback on their training experiences. Try using simple follow-up surveys at the end of training to gather feedback. As you sift through responses, you’ll discover ways to improve training programs going forward. And get new hires to full production sooner.

5. Provide Resources

It’s literally in the job title—human resources—but it’s still worth mentioning that one main purpose of onboarding is to ensure new employees have all the resources they need to do their jobs well.

Ideally, you would build a list of employee resources by department and customize it by role as new hires join the team. These lists could include physical resources, like computers and workspace materials, as well as knowledge resources, like standard operating procedures (SOPs), online company directories, and lists of helpful work-related websites. New hires should get these lists on their first day.

Mentors can also be a resource for new hires. You’ll want to choose somebody who has a comprehensive knowledge of the new hire’s work responsibilities, enough time to act as a mentor, and a personality that’ll mesh with the new hire.

Also, don’t forget that internal hires need onboarding as well, so make sure to provide them with the same resources as any new employee.

Without a comprehensive onboarding process, employees can feel lost, like they’re drifting on to no place in particular. With a comprehensive one, employees get off to good starts and feel empowered to accomplish great things.