Onboarding 

The action or process of integrating a new employee into an organisation or familiarising a new customer or client with one’s products or services. 

Well… how fancy! 

I don’t mean to sound flippant, but I do sometimes wonder where the common sense has gone and when it got to the point where we forgot just how absolutely vital the new staff member is to the team. Not to mention, how long it took to recruit them and how hard it was to find the exact talent that we were looking for… only for us to spend the 1st few weeks of their new job not looking after them properly! 

Quite simply – I see onboarding as a company carefully planning, putting in time and effort to look after new staff members and treating them as you would want to be treated if you were starting a new job. 

The fact is, we are still seeing poor onboarding processes in place across many businesses and it is being cited as a reason for employees feeling disillusioned in the early stages of a new job and also as a reason for leaving should they decide to leave in their 1st year. 

And then the recruitment process has to start all over again to find a replacement… 

We all need to commit to looking at the processes in place to enhance the journey of the new team member, from offer through to start date and then for the 1st 4 weeks of their career – with ongoing support clear, planned in and consistently delivered. 

It’s fair to say that the most powerful phase of any new relationship is often the beginning. So, initial contact and first impressions do count towards a lot. The new starter will want to feel like there is some order to their first few days, some planning has gone into them joining the company. At the very least, they need to know who to speak to, where things are and what’s expected of them! 

But it goes deeper than that. 

Workers need to now feel comfortable in the new environment, have a clear plan and feel welcomed by superiors & peers alike. Do you have a team of people in place to take on mentoring roles to enhance the onboarding process? If not, it’s worth thinking about how that could work in your business. 

Attracting a strong candidate pool to your business is critical, retaining the best talent is so important, your brand strength is crucial, word of mouth from a happy new employee is hugely positive and the power of good reviews from happy staff members is vital. Ultimately happy, content, well supported staff will pass it on! 

If it was your first few weeks in a new job… what would you expect?