Implement a fail-proof onboarding experience

Onboarding new starters into your organisation has many benefits, including increased productivity, ensuring compliance is adhered to, and employee satisfaction. The fact that only 12% of employees believe their employer provides a good onboarding experience shows major issues within the process.

We’ve put together some tips to help you implement a fail-proof onboarding experience, proven to improve new starter productivity by 11%!

Information input

Before a new starter begins their career within your organisation, it’s a good idea to complete any data requirements needed to set them up as an employee and meet any compliance requirements – 57% of organisations state ‘meeting compliance’ as the objective of their onboarding programme.

Requirements such as payroll details are essential to collect and input accurately, including tax codes. If you incorrectly input a new starter’s first payroll it creates a bad first impression, and can make them feel frustrated or uneasy about your organisation.

Ensure efficiency and minimise admin with a user-friendly HR and payroll platform where your new starters can input their own personal information. This ensures it’s correct, whilst also allowing them to feel empowered and in control of their own data.

Chatbot feature

Engage your new starters from the beginning with a chatbot feature that provides them with all the answers to any questions they might have, available 24/7. Chatbots also allow you to send new starters welcome messages, give a countdown to their start date and at the right time, communicate a checklist to complete, engaging them before they’ve started their new role – all whilst minimising your admin. The Chatbot feature ensures new starters are confident when they start their new role by knowing they’ve completed the tasks they need to as well as answer any questions they have prior to day one so they can hit the ground running.

Social platform

An organisational social or collaboration platform lets employees communicate and connect professionally, bringing your workforce together regardless of their location. Giving new starters access to this platform straight away gives them the ability to view key information, as well as boost productivity and strengthen cultural alignment.

With 58% of onboarding programmes only focused on processes and paperwork, providing a social or collaboration platform is an innovative way to support new starters with their data processing, understanding the organisations goals and culture, and collaborating with their team.  

Induction day

Providing new starters with a structured induction on their first day allows them to learn key information about your organisation. This is vital as 66% of new starters want to know about your organisations culture and values, and 50% want to know about your mission and vision. With 62% of organisations stating their main onboarding objective is to integrate employees into their corporate culture, a structured induction is the perfect way to get your organisation and your new starter acquainted from the start.  

Mentorship programme

87% of organisations find assigning a mentor during the onboarding process very effective, as it provides the new starter with someone who is not their manager to turn to if they need advice or guidance and helps support knowledge transfer.

Establishing a trusted relationship between new starters and someone who has seasoned experience helps promote professional development and allows new starters to integrate into the organisation smoothly. Organisations that have implemented a formal mentor programme as part of onboarding report that 77% of new starters hit their performance goals. This also increases manager satisfaction by 20%, as their new starter will quickly get to grips with their role through clear communication and encouragement from their mentor.

Are you getting the most out of your onboarding process? Do you know if it’s a success? A worrying 55% of organisations don’t actually measure the effectiveness of their onboarding programs, leaving their onboarding experience at risk of becoming ineffective and sometimes even damaging to their reputation and culture.

First impressions last, so having an onboarding process that is automated, up to date and measurable ensures new starters gain a positive start in their career. With employees 18 times more likely to feel highly committed to your organisation after a good onboarding experience – it’s essential you get this right.