When you bring a new hire on board, the goal is to have them reach full productivity quickly. Additionally, ensuring retention and boosting engagement are common priorities, as they directly impact the company’s performance.
Typically, a comprehensive onboarding process is essential to support new hires, giving them the information and tools they need to excel. Here are five key ways to ensure new hire success in the first few months.
1. Start with Pre-Boarding
Pre-boarding allows critical steps to occur before a new hire’s first day on the job. For example, they can complete paperwork that’s necessary for payroll and related compliance using an online platform that supports digital signatures. Additionally, they can review employee handbooks and safety information in advance.
By using this process, new hires don’t have to spend their first days on the job handling paperwork. Instead, they can spend time with colleagues, begin on-the-job training, or take part in similar activities. That immediately improves engagement, igniting their passion.
2. Ramp Up Over Weeks
Many companies treat onboarding as if it’s completable within a single day. In reality, candidates need ongoing support to ensure their success.
Adjust your onboarding mindset and focus on ramping up the new hire’s productivity over the course of weeks. Start them with simpler tasks that lead to quick wins, helping them build confidence. Then, build on those successes one step at a time.
3. Add a Social Connection
When new hires start at a company, they typically don’t have close connections to other employees. By assigning every new hire a buddy or mentor, you can help them start forging relationships. In turn, they become more comfortable in the environment, as they always have a person to turn to for guidance.
4. Check in Regularly
Managers need to check in with new hires regularly for several reasons. First, it creates opportunities to set expectations and offer feedback that helps them grow. Second, it lets the new hire ask questions and increase their comfort level with their supervisor.
When managers reach out, it’s wise to adopt a coaching, supportive mindset. New hires will make mistakes because they don’t know everything about their jobs yet. By concentrating on steering them in the right direction without micromanaging, you’re giving them guidance and assisting with their development in a non-threatening way, increasing their odds of success.
5. Embrace Onboarding Technology
Onboarding technology makes streamlining and coordinating comprehensive onboarding processes easier. Staffing firms can track new hire document completion with ease, allowing them to follow up on missing documents and ensure compliance. Plus, they can monitor new hires as they review training documentation and can respond to messages from incoming employees right through the platform, allowing them to offer exceptional support as new hires get their footing.
Bottom Line
Ultimately, setting new hires up for success during their first few months on the job is essential. With a comprehensive onboarding process, you ensure they have the knowledge and tools they need to excel. Plus, it boosts engagement, allowing them to reach full productivity faster and become a top performer in less time.
At Essium, our goal is to assist staffing firms looking to streamline their onboarding process, all while ensuring thoroughness and high candidate engagement. Our modern onboarding technology is explicitly designed with recruitment firms in mind, ensuring staffing agencies can provide an industry-leading candidate and client experience, ensure compliance, simplify communication, and streamline workflows. Schedule a consultation call with us today!
