Beginning a new job is an important milestone for everyone, and the process of onboarding plays a crucial role in ensuring a seamless transition. It entails familiarizing newcomers with the company’s core principles and offering them the necessary support to start their journey successfully.
But, the effectiveness of the onboarding process heavily relies on how it is handled by the recruitment team. If they fall short, it can negatively impact the success of onboarding. In fact, 88% of employees are not satisfied with their onboarding program.
Therefore, doing everything possible to make this process a rewarding one is very important. That starts with having clear onboarding guidelines, implementing the right employee management software, and having more detailed and informative company rules.
That will help you provide new hires with a good onboarding process that will make them feel calm and welcomed in the company. So, in this post, we will be shedding light on some common mistakes organizations make when onboarding new employees. You should avoid them in your own case!
5 Common Mistakes You Should Avoid When Onboarding New Employees
#1: Not providing quality recruitment training
You cannot have a successful onboarding process without providing your hiring teams with proper recruitment training. A quality recruitment training program will educate and help them improve their hiring and onboarding capabilities.
This way, your hiring teams will be able to better locate, hire, and introduce people to the company policy. A training program consisting of videos, transcripts, closed captions, and many language options available on both desktop and mobile apps will make the learning process effective and accessible to everyone.
Once your hiring team gains an understanding of the recruitment process, they will naturally become more conscious, steering clear of the mistakes throughout the onboarding process.
#2: Ignoring the pre-boarding process
When a new employee starts, both the HR team and the new employee must sign a handful of papers. It’s an important yet time-consuming procedure, so avoid doing all of this on the first day. Instead, implement the process of pre-boarding.
This is the process of signing paperwork, educating new workers about what they will be doing on their first day, and getting to know them before they start their journey. Take advantage of the time before they are formally recruited to do these activities.
#3: Not having clear goals and expectations
Being a new employee at a company is already stressful. This uncomfortable situation can become even more stressful by failing to convey what is expected of the new employee and the goals for which they should strive.
So, use your onboarding process to build a feeling of purpose for your new hires and make it a good, affirming experience. The onboarding phase is the ideal opportunity to establish the foundation for an open and honest connection with your new coworker.
It’s an opportunity to discuss how the employee’s job contributes to the company’s goals and plans. It’s a good idea to settle on a few smaller objectives that can be spaced out across the entire process. That should make things more manageable and achievable. Also, always make sure your goals are aligned with the SMART goals practice.
#4: Failure to provide support from management
A manager’s desk is always filled with documents that require focus and attention to be completed effectively. In other words, managers already have hectic schedules and limited free time. As a result, allocating any of that valuable time for duties outside of their typical responsibilities may be perceived as adding to a busy manager’s schedule.
However, given its significance, management should consider onboarding as part of those routine tasks. So, each manager should plan and schedule onboarding activities like one-on-one meetings with new workers or even conduct orientation seminars.
That is where your HR comes into the picture. However, even as that department is diligently doing its job in easing the process, it cannot replace the unique insights and meaningful assistance that a manager can give a new team member.
#5: You have not informed the teams
It is a common practice to inform all teams of the arrival of a new employee. However, sometimes newly hired employees begin their jobs only to discover that they are not expected by the current teams. They frequently discover that no one knows their identities and that no materials were prepared for their arrival.
So, if your company has a newsletter, you might use that to introduce the new employee or simply send an email to everyone informing them that a new team member will be joining soon.
Final thoughts
Even for the best companies, onboarding may be difficult. So, start slow and try to avoid the usual mistakes. Begin pre-boarding activities on time, such as signing the relevant papers, before their first day.
When it comes to expectations, the trick is to strike the appropriate balance between being clear about goals and overloading people with information. And don’t forget, regardless of the degree of expertise of your new hires, always strive to provide them with the right support they need.