Onboarding a new employee can be intense amidst changing work models post-pandemic. To minimize the roadblocks, companies have started to leverage modern technologies and apply various best practices to make the new hires’ joining experience as smooth as possible. But when it comes to succeeding at their efforts, very few agree that they have cracked the code.
The information gap around the technology and tips and tricks have left companies grappling with their onboarding programs. That is why we have shared some of the best employee onboarding tips in this blog to help you plug these gaps and optimize your onboarding program efficiently.
Employee onboarding tips to revamp your employee onboarding program
From administrative tasks to first-day training, onboarding involves many steps that help a new hire transition into a productive, happy employee. But like every other process, onboarding is easier said than done and often leads to complexities for HRs.
To tackle the perplexing challenges, here are the best employee onboarding tips that you must apply to make new hires feel at home.
Employee onboarding tip #1- Streamline the onboarding process for remote and hybrid workforce
The new corporate landscape is gradually shifting from an on-site work model to a remote or hybrid one. While such arrangements give the employees significant flexibility, it also brings several issues. The chances of miscommunication heighten, and without a proper strategy in place, the productivity of a new employee can also go down.
Your onboarding process should align with the different work models at your workplace. The job responsibilities and tasks should be conveyed to the new hires accurately and on time. If you have applied a hybrid work model, combine in-person and virtual meetings to avoid chaos in the last minutes. It gives the recruits an accurate representation of the workplace and a chance to interact with their team members personally.
Additionally, it allows the managers to clarify the hybrid work model policy, convey employee expectations, and establish an inclusive culture.
Employee onboarding tip #2- Ship equipment before onboarding
Many organizations send employees laptops and other necessary equipment to accommodate remote and hybrid work models. Any delay could make a poor first impression and hamper new hires’ experience.
Hence, ensure the equipment reaches the employees before their joining date by coordinating the shipment with the logistics team. This way, the new hires can get acquainted with the system, and onboarding will run smoothly.
Employee onboarding tip #3 – Foster meaningful relationships
When a recruit joins your organization, it is only natural for them to feel a little out of place. The primary goal of an efficient onboarding strategy should be to make the new hires feel as comfortable as possible.
The best way to make your new employees feel at home on their first day is to create a communication channel for them before the onboarding day. Allow them to communicate with their team members. This way, they can get to know their colleagues, ask them questions, and receive mentoring from experienced employees.
Employee onboarding tip #4 – Set clear expectations
Several companies fail to provide new hires with a clear picture of how a particular employee impacts an organization’s growth.
However, managers can play a central role in tackling this issue. Besides communicating their job role in detail, managers should also explain the big picture to new hires and how the team should collaborate to achieve organizational goals and objectives.
Employee onboarding tip #5 – Create an easy and intuitive journey
The new office is an alien environment for the new hires, and they are bound to get confused and have questions. However, they must also go through many administrative formalities on their first day.
A robust onboarding tool should be able to resolve their queries instantly. AI-powered virtual assistants interact with new employees to answer their questions and help them navigate their tasks in real-time. Implementing the latest technology saves time and improves employee satisfaction, irrespective of the work model type.
Employee onboarding tip #6 – Assign an onboarding buddy for the first 90 days
Your new hires may feel too intimidated to ask their seniors any questions. To prevent this, assign them a work buddy or a partner with a similar job role, interest, and seniority level.
This assigned work buddy will act as their first friend from work. They should regularly check in with new hires and familiarize them with the culture and mode of operation amicably.
Employee onboarding tip #7 – Provide weekly itineraries
Keeping up a consistent pace during the onboarding journey of new hires is quite challenging especially when you do not have a weekly work plan ready for them. Your new hires need a clearer idea about their jobs during the onboarding stage, which impacts their performance and productivity.
Your 90-day employee onboarding strategy should include weekly itineraries, key learnings, and clearly defined expectations for the first 30 days. For the remaining 60 days, add an outline of specific growth objectives. It helps your team plan their approach toward training a new hire. An exact itinerary supports the new employees in adjusting to their roles.
Employee onboarding tip #8 – Help them picture their future in the organization
Inculcating loyalty in your employees is paramount for the company’s success, and this process should start from the onboarding stage. If your new hires do not see their career growth path in the organization, their motivation and engagement go down rapidly.
To prevent that, show them you look forward to creating a long-lasting and mutually enriching bond with your employees. While onboarding, help the employees discover the prospects of the company. Include facts, quantifiable data, and stories from people who had a successful and enriching tenure at the company.
Employee onboarding tip #9 – Automate documentation
From sorting out the credentials of new employees to filling out necessary forms, repetitive onboarding tasks only overwhelms HR professionals. Besides, manual processing of employee data also leaves room for errors and mishaps.
The solution to this problem is AI-powered document management software. An automated document management software ensures that employee documents are collected, validated, organized, and stored at a centralized location that both HRs and employees can access.
Leena AI’s document management software enables HRs to manage all employee documents via a conversational interface without compromising security and compliance. It facilitates HRs to seamlessly integrate their onboarding solution for storing all documents in a centralized location and retrieving any document within seconds using the AI-powered virtual assistant.
See the document management system in action
Book a demo nowEmployee onboarding tip #10 – Prepare FAQs beforehand
Another way to keep your new employees motivated and productive during onboarding is to provide them with relevant information before joining.
Apart from the regular employee handbooks and resources, keep a set of frequently asked questions ready to share with your new hires.
This approach will demonstrate that you have been thorough with your planning and are ready to provide your new hires with every resource they need to thrive. You can use AI-driven FAQ automation software to convert regular queries of employees around policies, payroll, benefits, and others into byte-sized information for faster consumption.
Employee onboarding tip #11 – Ask for feedback after the completion of onboarding
The recipe for a successful onboarding lies in your commitment to constantly improving your operations. A company conducts onboarding to make its employees feel welcome. Thus, your employees are the best people to give you feedback for improving your onboarding strategy.
Once you complete the first 30-day phase of onboarding, send out feedback forms or pulse surveys to your new hires. It will give you an insight into what is not working for your new workers and allow you to implement required changes before situations escalate. Employees will feel motivated to do better if you take their suggestions and issues seriously.
Employee onboarding tip #12 – Invest in an effective onboarding tool
The market is crowded with many onboarding tools claiming to revolutionize your employee experience. But not all of them can handle the operations when your company scales and grows its workforce.
To yield the best results, you need a tool that has robust features and is efficient and scalable.
Choose an onboarding software that is AI-driven, offers constant customer support, multilingual capabilities, seamless integrations, and powerful analytics.
Leena AI’s onboarding solution encompasses all of these features and much more. Schedule a demo to see how it works.
Employee onboarding tip #13- Personalize onboarding for each employee
Your approach toward welcoming every new hire should be different. The one-size-fits-all approach will not leave the best impact on the new members of your workforce. Thus, it is crucial to personalize their onboarding experience based on new hires’ roles, designations, and work preferences.
For instance, an employee from the leadership team might not find the job responsibilities of a team manager relevant to them. This is why tailoring the onboarding experience has become critical.
Similarly, your strategy for on-site, hybrid, and remote onboarding should accommodate the different working needs of recruits. Your remote employees may feel left out as they will not interact with their colleagues face-to-face. To make them feel included, arranging frequent and virtual meet-ups would break the ice and help them feel present.
You can use a digital onboarding solution to curate personalized experiences for new hires. It will also help you analyze their sentiments and see beyond the mere words of the survey answers, gauge what your remote and hybrid employees expect from their employer and effectively help you customize your onboarding plan accordingly.
How Leena AI’s onboarding solution is a one-stop solution for onboarding new employees seamlessly?
Manually administering the entire onboarding process is no more feasible.
HRs need a system that automates the onboarding process end-to-end for a smooth candidate-to-employee transition.
Leena AI’s AI-driven onboarding solution is a comprehensive solution that addresses all aspects of employee experience. The AI-powered virtual assistant starts with preboarding automation, including assigning onboarding buddies, notifying IT and other departments about allocating assets, training, and development, etc., and continues engaging employees until onboarding completes.
Meanwhile, the virtual assistant keeps taking regular feedback from new hires via pulse surveys and provides real-time insights to the HR managers about their onboarding experience. Overall, Leena AI helps bridge the gap between hiring and onboarding and assimilates new hires faster into the organization.
