If done the right way, onboarding is a great opportunity to prepare your new employees with the training they’ll need to complete their upcoming tasks. However, when done poorly, like a bit of paperwork, tour around the workplace, and quick handshakes with some team members, then a bad onboarding experience can lead to the new person hating their job and begin searching online for something else within the first few months. If you want to give any newbie the chance to thrive and be happy in your workplace, then make sure you avoid all of these typical onboarding errors!
1 Stop talking after they accept the job offer
During the interview process, there is understandably a lot of back and forth between the applicant and the company. However, once they gladly accept the role and it’s potentially another two or three months before they start the job, then conversation essentially dries up. To ensure that recruits don’t start getting paranoid, a welcoming email 1 or 2 weeks before the starting date is a nice gesture. Tell them exactly where and when to show up, what the first day could look like, a dress code, as well as some forms that they could either send back electronically or print out themselves and return on day 1.
2 Not having an onboarding plan and documentation process
“Winging it” is a little reckless when it comes to the training of a new employee. When there’s a clear plan of what each day will entail, who will be doing the training, and what things have been covered along the way, then things run smoothly. If there’s any debate over what the recruit has learned, then things might be forgotten, and the onboarding is very inconsistent. The HR team and the newbie’s manager need to monitor every step of the way, as some companies onboard their employees for several months. Onboarding software tools are readily available these days and can help your company to coordinate everything and ensure the training is running smoothly at all times.
3 Making a new employee feel alone
Starting a new job is nerve-wracking enough as it is, but what’s even worse is when the company itself doesn’t exactly roll out the welcome mat. If there’s no team lunch and the recruit barely even knows who’s who at the workplace after the first day, then the onboarding process is off to a bad start. Assigning a “buddy” to the recruit might feel a bit like school, but it does help inclusivity and becoming a part of the company. No one wants to be isolated at work, so ensure that every new employee receives a heartfelt and warm introduction.
4 Not allowing the employee to ask questions during a feedback session
Every new employee should be given a chance to speak their minds about how they feel the onboarding process is going during a feedback session. This can be done with a member of the HR team or even the manager responsible for the employee. But either way, a follow-up discussion needs to occur at least two weeks and yet again after a month. This discussion not only benefits the employee, who gets to ask burning questions that might be on their mind. But the company gets to see how good or bad their onboarding process is precise. Recruits would be dying to know how they’ve performed in the first month, so it’s also an opportunity to provide feedback on their progress.
