Employees are one of the most critical assets of an organization. Therefore, providing a positive onboarding experience is vital when you hire new employees. This article has created an employee onboarding checklist to help you do that.
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Organizations go to extreme lengths to find the perfect fit for a job role. However, the work doesn’t stop there. Suppose that your search for a talented employee has finally ended, and the new superstar of your organization is all set to join your team.
New Hire Onboarding Checklist: Why Is It Important?
Checklists are essential because they help employees integrate into their organizations. However, it is important to remember that simply having a list will not ensure a successful onboarding process.
Instead, it is a tool to successfully integrate a new employee into your company, its culture, and its specific role.
The new hire onboarding checklist contributes to consistency and saves you time, especially if you hire new employees frequently. In addition, it helps create a smoother, more efficient onboarding process for each new employee who comes on board, resulting in a greater degree of engagement with the organization.
Full-cycle recruiting is the key to a successful onboarding experience. It engages employees right away by immersing them in the company culture.
Conversely, a poor onboarding experience increases employee turnover. Therefore, you should follow a similar new hire checklist with every new hire. This reduces the chances of something being overlooked or forgotten.
Nevertheless, you can update the employee onboarding checklist based on previous results. This will help improve it the next time you use it for onboarding. In addition, regular updates to the training process can help since there is nothing like “winging it” to slow down the process.
New Employee Onboarding Checklist
Here is a step-by-step employee checklist your HR department can use to make an effective onboarding process:
Send Welcome Emails
The first step is to send your new employee a welcome email. Most companies send a welcome email to the candidate two weeks before joining the company.
You can use welcome emails to tell the candidate your company’s story. You can talk about how it began, its journey, and how it got where it is now.
You can also take the opportunity to introduce your recruit to the company culture and what they can expect through their journey. You may choose to send either a single, detailed email or a series of emails over one or two weeks.
- Start with a warm welcome message with a photo or a video that reflects your company’s culture.
- Give a quick introduction to the candidate about your company values.
- You can also ask them how they feel about being a part of the organization and if they have any questions.
- Also, you can include some tips that will help the candidate work comfortably and have fun.
A good Human Resources tool can significantly help send out welcome emails to recruits. It allows you to create and schedule your welcome emails so that they reach your new hires at the right time.
Send Important Onboarding Information
Close to the new hire’s start date, you can send them a detailed email with all the necessary onboarding information. This might not be necessary if you’re a small office in a single location.
However, if you’re a large organization with multiple offices or one large office, it might help to provide the new employee with the following information:
- New hire paperwork
- Dress code
- How to find the office
- Who to contact when they reach the office
- Where they might be able to get their computer or laptop
- How can they find their desk
- Lunch and break times
- An introduction to their team
Inform Your Existing Employees
Having a new person in the office can also be a different experience for your current employees. Therefore, it might be a good idea to let your employees know who they’re going to see and a little about their background.
You can create an in-company email campaign using your HR software and send an email to all your employees with the name, photo, and a brief description of the new hire.
It will make your employees aware that a new employee will be joining them soon and prepare them to make the new hire feel welcome.
Introduce New Hires To Their Co-workers
On the first day for the new employee, you must introduce them to their key co-workers such as their teammates, seniors, etc.
Using HR and payroll software like Gusto, you can also send a detailed team overview to your new hires before they join. This will make it easy for them to get acquainted with the team when they come on board.
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Once they join, you can assign them at least one of the following to make them feel more comfortable:
Work Buddy: Assign them a work buddy who can help them through their first few weeks in a new environment and show them the ropes.
Mentor: If you’ve hired a fresher or someone with little prior work experience, you can assign them a mentor. The mentor should help them with their challenges while adapting to a new, professional work environment.
The first two weeks of joining can considerably adjust a new hire. Therefore, you must ensure that you give them as much help and support as they need to modify and adapt to their new surroundings.
Orientation Presentations
When the new hire joins, you can give them a detailed presentation of the various aspects of the organization. You can start the production with a welcome note and then cover the basics, such as an overview of the company and its culture.
You can give them a demo of specific tools and platforms that they might need to use from time to time. You can also introduce them to the company’s HR policies and procedures.
If your new hire is going to work remotely, as it is increasingly becoming the norm these days, you might want to give them a presentation on the remote team culture in your company.
You can inform them about how to stay connected in a remote environment and how they can expect the communication to happen.
The orientation is a great time to get new hires excited about the benefits of working at your company.
You can also include a word from the CEO or director of the company and talk about the organization’s history, achievements, and goals and how the new hire will be a part of the narrative.
You can conduct these presentations in batches in a classroom/conference room when you have multiple new hires.
However, in the case of a single joiner or a remote employee, you can send them these orientation presentations through email using HR software like Keka.
Roadmap and Expectations
Do not immediately start the process of setting and communicating goals and objectives for your new hire.
You may end up overwhelming them. So instead, give them some space and time to adjust, adapt, and get acquainted with their new environment.
Instead, you can create a roadmap for the new hire using your HR and payroll software that gives the employee some idea about what is expected of them in the initial phase of their employment.
Keep Checking In On Them
Keep checking in on the new hires from time to time to ensure they are not having difficulty adjusting to their new surroundings. You can also ask their work buddy or mentor to give you periodic updates.
Be mindful of the fact that no two employees are the same. Some can adjust to a new environment easily within a few days, while others might even take a few months.
Wrapping Up
Have a clear plan in place about how you are going to onboard the employee. Give your new hires as much information as possible before joining your team.
This will prepare them to join your organization and give them an idea about what they can expect in their initial employment days. But, of course, you must be careful not to overwhelm them with information.
Consider using an HR software solution to enhance the employee onboarding experience. Do you use employee onboarding software currently? Do let us know what you think of it in the comments below.
Frequently Asked Questions
Onboarding checklists help managers and human resources plan the steps to take in preparation for a new employee joining an organization. They guide new hires through their first 2-3 weeks as part of a unique team by ensuring all necessary preparation steps are taken.
There is no recommended length for a new employee's onboarding checklist, but it should cover everything from the new hires' orientation to getting them adjusted to their new position.
According to our research, Keka, Qandle, and WalletHR are our top picks.
The Four C's of successful onboarding are compliance, clarification, culture, and connection.
Onboarding mistakes that reduce new hire numbers are as below:
- The lack of a pre boarding process
- Leaving new hires in the dark about their duties
- Inadequate performance feedback and support
- Providing inadequate tools and resources
- Making new employees feel unwelcome
- An onboarding program doesn't exist
Khyati Sagar is a seasoned HR and payroll expert with over a decade of experience in the field. She has worked with businesses of all sizes, from small startups to large corporations, helping them optimize their HR and payroll processes. As a passionate advocate for technology-driven solutions, she is always on the lookout for the latest advancements in HR and payroll software. When she’s not working, you can find her hiking or playing basketball with her friends and family.
