The research is clear: onboarding makes a difference when it comes to engagement, retention, and new hire productivity. For example, new hires who undergo a thoughtful, structured orientation program are 69% more likely to remain with their company for up to three years. And organizations with a standard onboarding process say their new hires are 50% more productive.
Yet many new hires say their onboarding experience was below par, or even nonexistent; a Gallup study found that just 12% of new hires say their organization did a good job of onboarding them. Other studies report that their onboarding was erratic or reactive. Still others have said that their onboarding was focused on paperwork and little else.
So what makes a good onboarding program? And how can you build a new hire onboarding program that sets new employees — and your organization — up for success?
What makes a good onboarding program?
First, let’s take a look at what a successful onboarding program should do. The goal of onboarding is to integrate your new hire into your company. This means the process should cover:
- Compliance issues and paperwork
- Equipment and tools
- Integration with the team and company culture
- Information so the new hire can do their job well
- Consistent check-ins with the new hire over the first several months
The best onboarding programs are structured, consistent, and communicative, collecting and acting on feedback from new hires. Below are some guidelines to follow for onboarding new hires.
Best practices for onboarding new employees
1. Make a plan
Research shows that a well-planned, structured onboarding program is most effective when welcoming new hires into your organization. We often talk about learning pathways on this blog, and onboarding should be that: a path for your newest team members. This means offering different kinds of support and setting different goals for each step of the process.
An onboarding plan might have action items or goals for the first 30, 60, and 90 days, for example:
- In the first 30 days a new hire might complete orientation, take onboarding modules regarding company policy, complete required compliance training, have a one-on-one meeting with a manager, and be assigned a mentor.
- In the first 60 days, the new hire may have goals assigned to them by their manager, be encouraged to work cross-departmentally, and continue to take onboarding modules.
- By the end of the first 90 days, the new hire might be expected to create their own manager-approved goals or complete a small project in collaboration with their team. While your organization’s timeline may not look exactly like this, the important thing is for every organization to build their own onboarding plan, so that their teams can have a clear roadmap when it comes to onboarding.
2. Open the lines of communication
The above timeline is not just important for your team, but also for the new hire. During orientation, or even beforehand, provide your new hire with a copy of your plan, so they know exactly what to expect as they ease into working for your organization.
Joining a new organization is a time of uncertainty, and by extension, a time that can cause anxiety. There should be no surprises in the onboarding process. Your new hire should have all the information they need to start their onboarding program, from the schedule for their orientation day, to a list of resources that will help them get through the first weeks with as little stress as possible.
Remember: communication goes both ways. Ask your new hires for feedback during the onboarding process and listen to what they say. If they need more information or clarification, they should feel comfortable asking for it.
3. Make sure your new hire has a buddy
It’s important for employees to have friends at work. Gallup research recently found that employees who have “best friends” at work are more likely to stay with the company, less likely to look for a new job elsewhere, and generally enjoy work more.
This is tough for new hires, who often don’t know anyone in their new organization. Starting at a new employer can be awkward and stressful for employees learning the ins-and-outs of the job. The same is true for informal social interactions, like in-person lunch breaks, or online gatherings for remote teams. In either case, a new team member may feel as though they have no one to talk with and may not know how to break the ice.
While you can’t force team members into friendship, you can give them a buddy to help them more comfortably navigate work for the first few weeks. Choose a peer on your team who can serve as a point of contact for questions they might not want to bother a boss with, provide guidance, introduce the new hire into the team, and get them acclimated to your company’s culture.
Who knows? Maybe they’ll end up becoming besties. If not, at the very least, the buddy will be a friendly face and will keep your new hire from feeling isolated at work.
4. Start with a manager meeting
On the first day, make sure your new hire can sit down with their manager. This is an important introduction to their direct supervisor, the team, and their journey as a new employee. This meeting sets the tone for both their onboarding and their experience with the company and is also a time when a manager can introduce the new employee to the rest of the team, answer any question the new hire has, and provide a list of helpful resources.
These resources may include contact details for other managers, points of contact in other departments, meeting times, links to important documents, and any other information that might make the first few weeks easier for a new team member.
5. Assign onboarding training
It’s time to talk about the role of learning in onboarding. (You didn’t think you were going to read a Litmos blog post and not read about training, did you?)
Training is an essential component of any onboarding program, but it’s important to realize that there are different types of onboarding training. For example, the employee’s first week of onboarding training often serves as an orientation, giving new hires a high-level view of the organization. Orientation training may include:
- An overview of the organization, its business, mission and company values
- Essential compliance information
- Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) modules
- Other important training, such as wellbeing, company culture, or introductions to specific tools
After orientation is complete, onboarding covers department and role-specific information that the new hire will need to do their job well. This might include product knowledge and customer service for Customer Experience roles, sales process and customer journey for Sales Roles, or management courses for new managers. Depending on your organization’s onboarding platform, new hires can take courses that are pre-built or custom-made by your L&D team.
Onboarding mistakes to avoid
Not all onboarding is done well. We’ve all heard onboarding horror stories, from companies with no onboarding at all, to organizations that didn’t have a desk set up for a new hire. Below are some common pitfalls in onboarding programs:
- Beginning onboarding on the employee’s first day of work: Onboarding should start before the employee does. Pre-boarding is the process of ramping up to the first day of work: getting paperwork started before the employee starts, creating accounts for the new hire in any system they’ll be using, and sending a welcome email with information about orientation, expectations, and any important information they’ll need on their first day. If you’re not ready for your employee when they walk in the door (or log into their first meeting) it will show.
- Not onboarding remote or hybrid hires: Remote employees need onboarding too — perhaps even more than in-person hires do. Working from home can be an isolating experience, so a buddy can be an essential contact for new remote hires, especially if that buddy is also remote. Unfortunately remote workers normally don’t have a good onboarding experience, with 63% of remote workers feeling undertrained after onboarding.
- Confusing onboarding and orientation: Many companies offer orientation for new hires, but orientation serves a completely different set of needs than onboarding does. Orientation is an introduction to the company. Onboarding is an introduction to the role itself. Orientation can be done in a short period of time. Onboarding should take some time.
- Overloading a new hire with too much information at once: It’s tempting to try to cram all the information a new hire needs into one day — or even one week — but if you do that, the new employee will experience cognitive overload and the important information you share isn’t likely to stick. Starting in a new job can be overwhelming. Your new hire is meeting new people, starting a new routine, and getting to know the company. They won’t be able to retain all the information you throw at them in one day. Letting them acclimate to their new role and gradually onboarding them is a better strategy. By learning over weeks and months, your new employee will be better able to retain the information they will need to do their job well.
Make onboarding a warm welcome for new employees
It may help to think of onboarding as a greeting; you are welcoming new hires into your organization as you might welcome someone into your home. As a guest, you likely prefer a thoughtful, warm reception, designed to make you comfortable and meet your needs over a rushed series of introductions.
It’s no different for your new hires. A truly great onboarding experience is rewarded by increased engagement and employee retention; when employees feel supported and welcome, they want to stick around.