Employee Onboarding: What It Is, the Process and Examples

The decision is made, you put an offer on the table and it is accepted. This is no time to relax, though – it is time to start planning the onboarding.

How that is handled may well determine whether your newly hired specialist decides to stay with you or carries on looking elsewhere.

Every employer onboards, deliberately or not. How do you do it professionally and to good effect? And what exactly is onboarding? Read on.

What is onboarding?

Onboarding is the process of bringing a new team member into an organisation and shaping their first relationships and experiences. It is a unique chance to make a good first impression as an employer. Onboarding matters both to the employee and to the company, because it affects how effectively they work later on.

Pre-onboarding – what is it?

Onboarding consists of several stages designed to integrate a new employee effectively into the company and its culture. It is worth starting as early as possible. Pre-onboarding happens once you have decided to hire a candidate but there is still time before they start – while they work out their notice, for instance. During pre-onboarding you can:

• send a welcome email,
• attach a presentation introducing the company,
• tell them about their new workplace and department,
• send a site map showing where to go on their first day.

Keeping in regular contact with your future employee matters. It reduces the stress of the change and gives you greater confidence that they will actually turn up.

What does the onboarding process look like?

Onboarding is not just showing someone their desk and introducing the boss. It is a process that should bring an employee into their responsibilities without overwhelming them. Two days crammed with standards, procedures and new faces is far too much for a comfortable start. The elements of effective onboarding include:

The first day: a warm welcome and introductions to the team. Make sure the equipment a new employee needs is waiting for them – there is nothing worse than waiting a month for a work laptop because someone forgot an approval.

Proper training and support: arrange workshops and sessions that let a new team member pick up the knowledge and skills the job requires quickly. Spread the induction over time – some training may be more useful once the employee has met the situation in practice.

Reviewing progress regularly: schedule meetings in advance to assess how the induction is going, give feedback and offer support with development.

More and more companies appoint a “buddy” as part of onboarding – usually a longer-serving colleague whose role is to look after the newcomer. They are the person to ask about holiday requests, a procedure that makes little sense, or how the coffee machine works. On anything to do with work, there are no stupid questions for a buddy.

How do you make onboarding interesting?

To make onboarding effective and engaging, you can add a few further elements, for example:

• Using technology – webinars, knowledge bases and remote e-learning are very convenient, because an employee can start and pause them whenever it suits.
• Involve them in the department’s work: do not leave a new person out simply because they are new. Ask for their perspective in meetings and invite them to speak. A fresh pair of eyes can be invigorating on questions that have been troubling you.
• Organise a social event: plan something outside the office, or team-building activities that let new team members get to know their colleagues beyond work.

Onboarding – why does it matter so much?

The early period at a company is a time when the employer assesses the employee, but also when the employee assesses the employer. Has the promise made in the EVP (employee value proposition) been kept? Are the values stated during recruitment actually respected?

All of this may determine whether, after the probationary period, the employee decides to extend their contract or looks for professional fulfilment elsewhere.

A well-run onboarding process improves one of the most important HR metrics there is: turnover. And better induction reduces costs – if an employee stays longer, there is no need to bear the cost of recruiting again.

Interesting onboarding – examples

Examples of effective onboarding practice can be found at many companies. Here are a few for inspiration:

• Google: even before they start, candidates receive messages not only from HR but from their future colleagues. Managers are given clearly defined onboarding requirements they have to meet. Alongside going over the role and its responsibilities, the list includes helping the new person integrate with the team and giving regular two-way feedback through the first six months.

• Zappos: everyone hired, whatever their role, begins after initial training by answering calls from customers. This gives them a better understanding of the company’s mission and of the challenges at different levels of the organisation.

They are then offered money to… leave. As a result, only those who, having seen the company from the inside, are sure they want to stay remain on board. At the end of the induction, Zappos holds a graduation party, giving new employees the sense that they have joined somewhere interesting and selective, and that getting there is an achievement in itself.

• Toyota: for the company’s management, conveying the motto “Customer first” to employees matters enormously. So one integral part of onboarding is an interactive video journey through the customer experience, which every new employee must complete from start to finish. Using technology has shortened the theoretical part of the induction and given specialists more time for one-to-one meetings.

Onboarding does not have to be dull and repetitive – and it should not be. Certain elements, such as health and safety or GDPR training, cannot be skipped, of course. But the main purpose of onboarding should be to give an employee the broad knowledge they need and a sense of security. Interesting onboarding pays off in satisfaction on both sides.