A thorough
guide to
employee
onboarding
Chapters
1. What is employee onboarding? 3
2. What employee onboarding is not? 4
3. Why does employee onboarding matter? 4
4. What are the benefits of employee onboarding? 5
5. What are the 5 stages of employee onboarding? 9
6. What are the unique challenges that come with virtual 16
employee onboarding?
7. What to keep in mind when building an employee 19
onboarding strategy for the hybrid workplace?
8. What tools can help you improve employee onboarding? 22
9. What not to do during employee onboarding? 25
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1. What is employee onboarding?
Employee onboarding is the process of familiarizing a new hire with their
role, informing them of the policies and culture of the organization, and
giving them access to any tools that they would need to do well in their
role. Onboarding could last for anything between a few weeks to 12
months, and the duration entirely depends on the way the organization
designs it.
Onboarding happens at both formal and informal levels. At a more formal
level, onboarding would involve training, documentation, and orientation.
Formal onboarding is often done by separating new hires from older
employees. At an informal level, activities such as one-on-one
interactions with the new hire, introducing them to their peers, and
providing them access to information and equipment become a part of
onboarding.
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2. What employee onboarding is not?
Employee onboarding is not the same as an orientation program.
Orientation programs last for a few hours or maybe days, are a lot more
generalized, and try to accommodate several employees at once.
Orientation is usually aimed at keeping the employees informed about
the organizational policies and does not focus on empowering the new
hires to perform well within their roles.
Employee orientation is more to do with the formal introduction of new
hires to their peers and seniors. It simply aims to help the new hires ease
into the organization and ensure they do not feel out of place. Trying to
replace employee onboarding with orientation is not a smart idea.
3. Why does employee onboarding matter?
Organizations that onboard well see an 82% increase in their employee
retention rate. In a world where retaining new hires is becoming
excruciatingly difficult, employee onboarding can not only help you
retain them but also ensure they remain productive.
Given that this is the first time a new hire is interacting with your
organization, onboarding is crucial in helping an employee decide
whether or not they will stick around with your organization. A proper
and planned onboarding ensures your new hire does not feel lost, knows
their role inside out, and knows who to approach when they need
guidance.
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4. What are the benefits of employee
onboarding?
Did you know that 69% of employees are likely to remain with an
organization for 3 years if they have a positive onboarding experience?
However, retention is not the only benefit that comes out of efficient
onboarding. Here are some other major benefits of employee onboarding:
Helps attract top talent: There’s enough research to prove that
employee referrals are a faster and cheaper way to hire new employees.
However, post a negative onboarding experience 1 in 5 hires is unlikely to
recommend an organization to a friend or family member. Worse still,
dissatisfied employees might make their opinions public and we all know
what negative reviews can do for an organization.
A positive employee onboarding experience increases the chances of
referrals and spreads the good word about you. Happy employees who feel
included from day 1 at their job are more likely to bring in top talent and
reach out to their networks regarding vacancies in the organization.
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This saves your time when searching for candidates and makes sure you
spend less time onboarding the referrals as they would already have a
friend in the organization to help them out.
Improves employee engagement: When employees understand the
organization’s vision, culture, and values, it is a lot easier for them to
relate to their role and connect with the company. Setting your new hires
up with a buddy, giving them enough time to have one-on-one
interactions with their manager, and figuring out what new hires want,
can help them feel like they matter and ensure they remain actively
engaged.
Every new hire looks at several organizations before settling on one, and
it is only natural for them to go for the one that engages their attention
first. With every interaction, the employee provides an organization a
chance to engage them. Treat each of these touchpoints as a chance to
engage employees and you will have employees who are engaged from the
get-go. After all, a welcome onboard t-shirt and some praise for the first
assignment your new hires complete never hurt anyone.
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Increases employee productivity: Employees can take anything
between a few months to a whole year to settle into a role, come up to
speed, and attain full productivity. An efficient onboarding process can
help reduce this time.
Onboarding can push employee productivity up by 70%. A successful
onboarding acclimatizes the new hire to the organization, connects them
with their seniors and colleagues, helps them set realistic goals, and
ensures they can create a roadmap for themselves. In short, onboarding
when done right makes your new hires independent and empowers them
with the tools and knowledge they need to be productive members of the
organization.
Strengthens employee experience: The experience that onboarding
dishes out serves the tone for further employee experience. If this very
first experience is negative, an employee is highly likely to be skeptical of
the company culture.
The fact that 33% of new hires start looking for another job within the
first month of joining reaffirms the above.
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Frequent check-ins, assigning your new hires a buddy, and formal and
informal interactions with teammates and managers are among the few
things that you can do to ensure your onboarding establishes your new
hire’s faith in the company. Even after onboarding is complete, these
should remain your focus areas if you intend to deliver a stellar employee
experience.
Ensures employee retention: A successful onboarding not only attracts
top talent but also helps you retain them. Turnover can be expensive and
simply ensuring the organization makes a good first impression on the
employee can help you reduce that significantly.
When a new hire feels like the organization is helping them reach their
goals and giving them the right tools to grow as a professional, they feel
more engaged with their job and are likely to stay longer. Onboarding also
helps the organization understand how well the employee fits in with the
role, and knowing these gaps right from the start can help both the
employer and employee work towards closing it.
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5. What are the 5 stages of employee
onboarding?
If you think onboarding is over the minute your new hire seems to have a
few friends and knows where the cafeteria is, you couldn’t be farther from
the truth. Onboarding can take up to a year and is one of the most
important long-term strategic plans that an organization designs.
While there’s no thumb rule as to how long onboarding should take,
there are 5 broadly distinguished stages that your employee
onboarding process should cover:
Pre-boarding stage, or before the first day: Onboarding should ideally
begin before an employee joins the organization. Your job to engage the
new hire begins the moment they sign your offer letter and agree to be a
part of your organization.
Pre-boarding stage checklist
• Send a briefing email that lets the employee know their date and time of
joining, any IT-related information they need, and informs them of any
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documentation they should be ready with. Including a welcome video
along with this would be a good idea, too.
• Inform the team and the department about the new hire and make them
aware of the roles and responsibilities the new hire would be taking up.
• Draft out a personalized onboarding plan. In order to avoid future
confusion, remember to collaborate with the new hire’s immediate
manager on this one.
• Plan out the new hire’s first day and first week.
• Assign them a buddy or a mentor. Someone close to them in terms of
age and work profile might be the best choice.
• Streamline all paperwork and administrative aspects, such as security
logins, email addresses, asset allocation, and system access.
• Be ready with a clean desk, the new hire’s office access card, and any
other such things they might need to smoothly move around within the
office space.
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Orientation stage, or the first day: Walking into a new office is often
not easy. Your new hire is likely to be as excited as nervous about the first
day and the organization must make this as smooth for them as possible.
Every new hire would be different and you would be required to create a
plan which is the most suited to their personality, but the following
checklist might help you.
Orientation stage checklist
• Organize an in-depth office tour, preferably led by the new hire’s
assigned buddy or someone they’ve interacted with during the hiring
process.
• Introduce them to the team and their colleagues. If it’s a referral hiring,
you can let their friend or family member take care of this part.
• Encourage them to join the team and their manager for lunch. This
makes it easier for both parties to break the ice and be more comfortable
around each other.
• If the new hire is joining a team that wears a uniform, hand over their
uniform kit to them. Maybe even ask them to try it on and see if they need
a change of size.
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• Ask the company founders to do a presentation. This is mainly focused
on how the company operates and its culture.
• Make them aware of the holiday calendar and also send them invites for
team events and meetings.
• Provide them access to the employee handbook and also get their
payroll process going.
• Make them aware of any collaboration tools your organization uses.
Integration stage, or the first few weeks: The first day is simply the
orientation and informs your new hire of the company policies, processes.
Integration of the employee into the organization actually begins after
the first day and this is what kickstarts the crucial bit of onboarding. This
time period helps the new hires get familiar with their role and its scope,
map their strengths with the requirements of their role and figure out
their growth roadmap.
Integration stage checklist
• Schedule one-on-one meetings with peers, immediate manager, and
heads of all departments. These help your new hire understand what is
expected of them and how they can work towards fulfilling expectations.
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• Check-in with them on a daily, or weekly basis. Ensure your new hire can
reach out to you if they need an interaction before the scheduled one.
• Introduce them on your LinkedIn page and/or on any company-wide
announcement platforms that you use.
• Recognize them for any significant efforts they put in. Letting them
know they’ve done well on their first task can be particularly helpful.
• Create a schedule for future check-ins with your new hire.
The engagement stage, or first few months: Nearly 30% of new hires
quit their job within the first 90 days. This time period is called the
engagement stage for a very good reason. If your new hire checks out
mentally during this stage, it might be extremely difficult to bring them
back.
Engagement stage checklist
• Inform your new hire of their key responsibilities and projects that they
will be leading or owning.
• Inform them of the review process and schedule a 3-month review with
them. It is essential that your new hire is first made aware of what the
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review process entails before signing them up for one.
• Discuss KPIs and long-term goals with your new hire. This is when the
manager needs to figure out if they and the new hire are on the same page
when it comes to these aspects.
• Revisit the organization’s core values and mission statements. Also,
help your new hire align themselves with these values.
• Provide them on-the-job training, whether it is via self-training
modules or sessions with subject matter experts. This is the period during
which an employee figures out their strengths and weaknesses and might
even develop a niche they would like to work within.
• Be in constant touch with your new hire and seek feedback from them.
This is also the period during which your new hire’s growth trajectory
might change and being in touch with them ensures they tell you if this
happens.
The final stage, or end of the first year: Regardless of whether or not
you spent a year onboarding an employee, by this time it’s a good idea to
wrap up onboarding. Beyond this, your new hire is on their own and
knows who to go to when they need something.
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Final stage checklist
• Celebrate and publicize your new hire’s one-year milestone. This is an
achievement for both them and you and it deserves to be marked.
• Have a final one-on-one session with your new hire to discuss their first
year with the organization. You can also combine this with their annual
review.
• Assess and analyze if the new hire is a good fit to the organization. By
this time, it’s pretty clear whether your new hire is an asset or not.
• Ask for their feedback on processes, their work, and their peers.
Employees who are heard remain engaged and feel empowered.
• Have a detailed discussion on the kind of growth trajectory and plans
your new hire has for themselves. Tell them about any new L&D programs
that are suited to their role and make them feel like the organization
cares about their growth and will be supportive of any growth trajectory
they choose.
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6. What are the unique challenges that come
with virtual employee onboarding?
2020 has proven to us that we must be prepared with a virtual and remote
workplace-friendly version of nearly every process within an
organization. And employee onboarding is no exception.
49.7% of managers think that onboarding would be the biggest challenge
for them in a remote hiring scenario, and they cite new employee
onboarding as one of their major areas of concern even in a post-
pandemic world. So, if you’re ever again in a situation where you need to
continue hiring remotely, here are a few employee onboarding challenges
you can brace yourself for.
Lack of communication and human connection: Video calls cannot
last for hours on end, and if they do it might not be an enjoyable
experience for every new hire. Even for the ones that do enjoy video calls,
it might not be a replacement for face-to-face interactions and water-
cooler banter.
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When hired and onboarded virtually, your new hire cannot just turn
around and ask their neighbour for advice. For your new hire, this can
lead to gaps in coordination, an inability to feel a connection, and a hoard
of unanswered questions. Both your team and the new hire might find it
difficult to feel like they know a colleague that they have never met in
person.
Inability to hold your new hire’s attention: Even the most interesting
of training modules might become boring after a while. In a virtual
scenario, your new hire becomes a passive learner and is unlikely to
absorb as much information as they would in a face-to-face session.
When training modules seem boring, the new hire would either give up
entirely on going through the modules or end up even more confused
than they were before they started to go through all the information
provided to them. In either case, the new hire would end up feeling lost
and disengaged.
Poor network connectivity: Ever since the world has moved to a remote
workplace, “am I audible?” is a question we hear and ask nearly every
single day. While nobody can be blamed for poor internet connection or a
network outage, it makes onboarding a horrifying experience for the
employer as well as the new hire.
Even the best of digital infrastructure does not seem to guarantee a
smooth internet connection and it remains a massive concern for remote
onboarding. It is an issue that can single-handedly ruin every video
interaction and make your new hire feel even more frustrated.
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Decreased understanding of one’s role: Employees who are onboarded
remotely do not have a colleague whose role they can mirror and might
not want to repeatedly have calls with their manager or mentor for every
little doubt they have. New hires tend to learn a lot more about their role
when they see what their teammates do at a practical level and in real-
time, and this is something that virtual onboarding takes away from them.
Online orientation and onboarding often happen over a fixed time period
and your new hire might have questions that arise a few days after the
sessions are over. In a face-to-face scenario, a new hire could simply walk
up to someone and ask for their time. However, in a virtual scenario, this
involves sending a meeting invite and finding a common time slot, and
there’s no doubt the sheer tediousness of the process is enough to
dissuade nearly anyone.
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7. What to keep in mind when building an
employee onboarding strategy for the hybrid
workplace?
After a lot of back and forth between remote working and going to the
office, we can safely assume the hybrid workplace is here to stay, even in a
post-pandemic world. Given that the hybrid workplace comes with its own
set of onboarding challenges (more on that in our next section), your
traditional employee onboarding plan might not be the right fit anymore.
In fact, a recent HBR study found that 52% of employees feel left out and
shunned when working remotely. Imagine how bad things would be for a
new hire, then. So, while you will still need to cover the five stages
mentioned in our previous section, here’s what you’ll need to pay special
attention to.
Train managers and mentors to engage new hires in a hybrid work
environment. Engaging new hires and employees is a lot tougher when
one cannot meet them. Your managers might be in need of a few tools and
a regular interaction schedule to make sure new hires don’t feel lost and
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neglected. Also, enable managers and mentors to find time for the new
hires.
Prioritize assigning a buddy for your new hire. Much as it is essential
for the manager to have several one-on-one meetings with your new hire,
it’s unfair to put the entire responsibility onto the manager solely. This is
where a buddy comes into the picture and serves as a much-needed bridge
between the new hire and their manager. Also, the buddy is usually a peer
and hence a lot more accessible for a new hire.
Pay special attention to the personalization of onboarding
programs. While this matters even when new hires are not working
remotely, a non-personalized onboarding plan would wreak havoc in a
hybrid work environment. When physically present in the office, you’ll
likely notice how disinterested your new hire is in the orientation module
you just sent them, but it’s a lot easier for them to hide this in a remote
environment. The only way to ensure your onboarding engages your new
hire is to know their interests and communication style and build an
onboarding program accordingly.
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Create top-notch self-explanatory employee handbooks. From your
organization’s vision and goals right up to employee benefits and
company policies, your handbooks should include everything an
employee needs to understand how things work. Make these handbooks
available to your new hire and ensure they do not need to run from pillar
to post seeking information about the organization and their role.
Invest in some quality HR tech to deliver a positive new hire
experience. With technology taking care of the administrative side of
things, you can concentrate on the human aspect of it. If you already own
an impressive HR tech stack, take a look at how it is all set up and see if
there’s anything you’d like to refresh. Your new hire will find themselves
very impressed when they are greeted with a smooth and digital
onboarding experience.
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8. What tools can help you improve employee
onboarding?
If there’s one thing that can help you get through the challenges that
remote onboarding brings with it and keep you prepared for employee
onboarding in a hybrid workplace, it is the right set of HR tools/software.
Here are the top five tools you need to make your new employee
onboarding a smooth experience.
Employee training software: Be it your new hire’s orientation or specific
training related to their job role, simply going through boring modules
can make it an unpleasant experience. This software helps you create
interactive training modules which help engage your new hire, track their
progress, send in regular assessments, and also give them feedback.
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Employee onboarding software: This one’s a perfect option for those
who are looking to automate the entire new employee onboarding
process. Employee onboarding software takes care of all the monotonous
tasks and mandatory joining rituals, from paperwork to orientation, and
lets you concentrate on the human aspect of the new hire experience.
Conversational-AI-based HR chatbot: Also known as an HR Virtual
Assistant or an HRVA, such software can be the much-needed digital
guide your new hire needs. From sending reminders for pending
paperwork to answering every query your new hire might have, an HRVA
is your best friend when you’re looking to deliver a smooth onboarding
experience. Biggest perk with HRVAs? They are available 24x7x365 and
free up your HR team’s bandwidth so they can concentrate on people over
processes.
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Comprehensive employee experience suite: The one-stop solution to
all your employee experience woes, a comprehensive employee
experience suite will manage everything from employee engagement to
onboarding right up to offboarding for you. While not the perfect choice
for those simply looking to automate employee onboarding, this one’s a
smart investment for those who are looking to leverage every employee
touchpoint and deliver a good employee experience in the long run.
Employee engagement software: As highlighted in earlier sections of
the guide, employee engagement can begin as early as the new hire’s first
week with the organization. Through short pulse surveys sent out at
regular intervals, employee engagement software ensures you’re well
aware of what your new hires think of the onboarding process. Such
software can also alert the HR department when there’s a dip in
engagement among new hires, give the former actionable insights to work
on, and ensure your new hires don’t start looking for a job change within
the first 90 days.
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9. What not to do during employee onboarding?
As we come to the end of this guide, here’s a short list of the most
commonly made employee onboarding mistakes.
Overlooking pre-boarding: It is essential to remember that onboarding
starts before the new hire’s first day. Pre-boarding includes a basic
briefing session with your new hire and making them aware of things they
will need to be prepared for on their first day. If you make your new hire
feel left out and lost before they’ve even started working with you and
then overload them with massive amounts of paperwork the second they
join, chances are high that your new hire won’t hold you in high esteem.
Lack of clarity about goals and expectations: There’s nothing worse
than a clueless new hire who does not know what is expected of them.
Such a new hire will not only be disengaged but will also be unable to set
goals and a growth trajectory for themselves. Lack of clear information
about KPIs and review cycles is bound to demotivate even the brightest of
new hires.
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Giving too much information: While it’s important to keep your new
hires informed, overdoing this would also lead to an absolute failure of
the onboarding process. Constantly throwing information and knowledge
towards your new hire will not get them up-to-speed faster and will
instead be counterproductive. Be it about their job or about the company
culture, refrain from overloading your new hire with information.
Not personalizing the onboarding process: Not every new hire is the
same. Candidates from various different industries, disciplines, age
groups and mindsets are hired by organizations, and delivering a generic
onboarding program to them is only setting your organization up for
failure. Onboarding programs that fail to address generational, cultural,
behavioral, and other such differences will lead to detached new hires
who will turn into disengaged employees.
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With that, we have come to the end of our holistic employee
onboarding guide.
If you’ve got any more questions and would like to get a
walkthrough of what our employee onboarding software can do
for you, join us for a demo.
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