10 Employee Onboarding Tips to Help Retain Top Talent

Onboarding plays an integral role in talent retention, especially in the era of virtual or hybrid work models. According to a Gallup survey, new hires who report a positive onboarding experience are three times as likely to feel supported at work. On the flip side, poor onboarding experiences are associated with lower levels of employee engagement and higher turnover rates.

Today, companies like Juno Journey are helping HRs create a seamless onboarding process which can be easily managed and tracked.

In other words, onboarding is a crucial part of helping new employees integrate into the company culture and gain the skills necessary to succeed in their new role.

Here are ten employee onboarding tips to optimize this transitional period.

10 Employee Onboarding Tips to Help Retain Top Talent

1. Be proactive with your onboarding process

Don’t wait until your employee’s first day to start onboarding. Make the process more efficient by setting up a self-service portal to speed up the completion of essential forms and paperwork. Granting new hires access to contracts, policies, and necessary documents helps them get organized for their first day.

2. Schedule introductory meetings with key staff

Forming corporate relationships goes a long way in increasing employee engagement while showing them the ropes. Set up meetings with important team members early on to make new employees feel welcome and allow them to start building social connections within the organization.

3. Automate the process

Reduce administrative work by creating an automated workflow system that assigns key documents to review, forms to sign, and enrolls new hires in any required training courses. This keeps the formal onboarding process as organized and time efficient as possible, decreasing the time it takes to get new employees up to speed.

4. Pair new hires with a ‘buddy’

Peer mentoring can be a more casual, yet highly effective way to help new employees learn the company culture and expectations while strengthening social connections in the office. It can be particularly effective in virtual or hybrid workplaces to prevent new recruits from feeling isolated without in-office networking opportunities.

5. Give them the tools they need to succeed

Adopting a standard operating procedure can help organize the onboarding process and speed up the time it takes to for new employees to become independent in their new roles.

Use a project management software, like Trello or Asana, to consolidate all the information a new hire needs to do their job (i.e. instructional videos, informational documents, guidelines and standards) so that they have all the necessary resources to become self-sufficient in one place.

6. Establish company cultural norms

Onboarding isn’t just about learning the technical aspects of a job; it should also relay your company’s cultural norms and expectations. When designing your onboarding process, identify key resources, relationships, and experiences that will best convey your corporate culture to new hires.

7. Help new employees envision their impact

An integral part of onboarding is getting employees to buy into your company’s mission and vision. A powerful way to build loyalty and increase engagement among new team members is to show them how their role contributes to organizational success.

Use onboarding as an opportunity to clarify role expectations and detail how they fit within the company’s goals and objectives. Be sure to also map out opportunities for career growth and personal development to help satisfy employees’ innate desire for fulfilling work.

8. Use gamification to boost motivation

Traditionally, the onboarding process can be dry. Try integrating gamification to heighten employee engagement during this process.

Create a better user experience by improving the flow of information and rewarding hires as they move through the onboarding stages. Something as simple as using progress bars to track employees’ progress through onboarding tasks can boost intrinsic motivation and reduce cognitive load.

9. Customize the onboarding process

Effective onboarding helps new hires understand exactly what it takes to be successful in their specific role. This won’t look the same for each role within the organization, as such, the onboarding processes should be customized as much as possible based on the job description.

Be sure to assign reading material, schedule meetings, and provide shadowing opportunities that give new employees a deeper understanding of what’s expected of them and how they can apply their individual strengths.

10. Ask for feedback

Ask for constructive feedback from new hires about how you can improve the onboarding process. Not only will this provide valuable insight, but it will also set the foundation for a productive bi-directional relationship between employer and employee. This will also help set the precedent for open communication with management in future.

Plus, some of the best employee onboarding tips come from those who have just completed the process!