A report by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), gives a practical overview of the proper utilization of the onboarding process, a pivotal part of your business and human resource management. When done correctly, it can help your new hires be in sync with the rest of your workers and integrate effectively with your workforce culture. According to SHRM, new hires onboarding is so important because it allows employees to “adjust to the social performances aspects” of their jobs “quickly and smoothly”.
Benefits of Onboarding
There are many safety benefits that come with new hires onboarding effectively because a good orientation means providing a worker with all the information they need to be safe members of the workforce. You can also view onboarding in the context of the Return On Investment (ROI) of new hires. An effective onboarding strategy can be the critical intervention to ensure the productivity of new hires from the start.
A good new hires onboarding process leads to safer and more productive workers. Safety helps your company’s bottom line because workers are less likely to have an accident, suffer an injury and miss time from work. This also cuts down on injury compensation costs which is a massive burden for companies in heavy industry. The other major benefit is that properly training your workers will lead to a consistent competence across your workforce so you will see productivity increase.
“The process of incorporating a new employee into the culture and progress of a company, as a whole, determines how effective they are going to be, and how long they’ll remain with the company. These two variables will determine the ROI of an employee’s total contribution — and better onboarding is a good way to improve both of these variables and therefore, improve the business.”
-Evergreen, Medium
SHRM has provided a broad and extensive report on onboarding but we’ve decided to take a look at the Four C’s they mention are key to onboarding.
4 C’s of New Hires Onboarding
1) Compliance Doesn’t Mean Boring:
The first of these Cs, according to the report, is compliance. This is the “lowest level of teaching” and may include giving your employee an overview of legal notes, contracts or other related material to introduce them to the company. It doesn’t mean you should bore your new employee or overload them with information. Use this opportunity to go through the basics. This stage is about ensuring your employee knows where they stand legally, and ensuring they are aware of the rules governing specific housekeeping items. According to the Wynhurst Group, 58% of new employees who go through a successful and “fully structured” onboarding program are more likely to stick with an organization.
2) Offer Some Clarity, Please:
New hires Onboarding must ensure that your worker knows and understands their job, according to the report. It may sound obvious but some workers may be unsure of their role and what is being asked of them. They also may be unsure of the mechanisms in place to ensure this job is conducted effectively. It’s important for you to go through the job specification during your onboarding process. As the report says, “the bottom line is the faster new hires feel prepared for their jobs, the faster they will be able to successfully contribute to the firm’s mission.” You should keep this in mind when making clarity part of your orientations. Of course, offering clarification can only get an employee so far. Integrating your worker into the culture of your workplace is a more difficult task.
3) The Culture Game:
A successful new hires onboarding process means integrating workers into your culture. It’s more than just educating an employee about your culture, it also about giving them a “sense of organizational norms,” as the report puts it. Let’s use a famous example: Google. The technology company have become famous, not just for their ability to create the world’s most popular search engine, but for their promotion of an open and inclusive working environment. “We strive to maintain the open culture often associated with startups,” says Google on their culture page. The company hold a number of “all-hands TGIF” meetings, where Googlers (as employees are called) get a chance to ask questions directly to management. Another part of this culture, it should be noted, is the environment they have created in Google headquarters across the world. They have a pub-style lounge in Dublin, a rainforest entrance in Sydney, and a bowling alley in California. You may not have the budget at the moment for bowling alleys but what Google have done superbly is create a culture that people feel proud to be a part of. Something to consider.
4) Making Connections:
According to the report, making connections refers to an employee establishing “interpersonal relationships” and effective “information networks”. This doesn’t mean that you as an employer do not have the power to influence this side of the new hires onboarding process. “New employees need to feel fully socially comfortable and accepted by their peers and superiors,” says the report. This is where you as a manager have a vital role to play. Check in to see how your employee is fitting into your organization. Get the contrasting opinions of his/her peers and if it appears there are any significant problems, address them head-on. You want to tackle problems early so they don’t get worse.
The SHRM report deals with new hires onboarding broadly and in depth. Even by just following these four steps, you can ensure the new hires onboarding process can get off the ground without a hitch.
How Online Orientations Can Help
Most of the four points laid out in the report can be covered in a worker’s orientation. Using an online system is the ideal way of communicating these messages to your workers. Initiafy’s online contractor management system makes compliance worries a thing of the past by allowing workers and contractor companies to upload their documents, qualifications, safety statements, etc, before a worker steps foot on-site. The online platform is easily customizable allowing you to create orientations that instill in your new hires the values and culture that are important to you and your company.
