Step up your Employee Onboarding Processes

For many companies, onboarding is an afterthought. That’s a mistake. Onboarding is an essential part of any comprehensive talent development and retention strategy. It can single-handedly alter the course a new employee takes through your organization, or how long they stay there.

Any business leader or manager knows how hard it can be to correct morale issues once they’ve started. Employee onboarding could very well be the difference between employees fostering a positive or negative view of the organization they work for. It sets up the knowledge that employees will gain and explains the expectations they will have to meet. In short, onboarding is the foundation on which the rest of the employee-employer relationship will build.

And that’s exactly why employers need to start taking it more seriously. We’ll look at some ways to bring your onboarding processes to the next level and ensure you’re developing and keeping your best talent along the way.

Improving the Process

Trying to reinvent your onboarding process can seem almost impossible, particularly for those who’ve been using the same methods or processes for years. Smaller companies with little or no IT and HR support might be particularly hesitant to make changes. Still, a modern and personalized employee onboarding experience will reap rewards for your organization for years to come.

Below, we look at some of the best tweaks and changes to the onboarding process that any business can implement. We’ll also discuss how they help improve the organization for both the employee and the employer.

Modernize Your Experience

If your onboarding or day-one experience still looks like a manual lecture or involves pamphlets and binders, it may be time for an update. New, automated technology will make the process easier for management and give a more favorable impression to your new employees. The traditional onboarding process for many organizations is outdated, stale, and tiresome for employees and employers alike.

Automated (and electronic) new hire forms, training modules, and policy/procedure packets can provide the type of streamlined, cutting-edge impression on your new hires that any company would want to deliver. It will also improve your overall learning experience and make it easier for employees to find the knowledge they need to perform well in their new roles.

Make it Unique and Personalized

One of the key factors in employee retention and performance is an employee’s engagement level with their work. Engaged employees are more likely to exceed standards and remain with an organization for longer. This is why so many HR departments and professionals are focused on employee engagement as a metric.

A personalized, unique experience makes each employee feel valued, making them more likely to start off (and stay) engaged. Your company can begin this process right at onboarding – customized welcome packages, personal attention, or training custom-tailored to the individual based on their background are all great ways to start a targeted, unique employee onboarding process.

Create an Interactive and Fun Experience

Companies and educators have been focusing their research on gamification lately, and for good reason. Introducing game-like or progress-tracking elements into your employee onboarding process could boost attentiveness and improve learning retention for new employees. It also has a big added bonus – making onboarding fun!

Elements like leaderboards, rewards for progress, badges for certain knowledge obtained or other thresholds can all make for a much more enjoyable experience for new hires. It also sets the right tone for your company – trendy, fun, and modern are all great emotions to be associated with as a company.

Making it Work

Improving your employee onboarding experience is an ambitious and worthwhile goal. By making a better first impression, organizations can count on better employee retention and improved engagement in the workplace. The right system can also improve employee learning and education – both at initial hire and continuing education throughout employees’ careers.

Having the right software and support team to accommodate your changes is an important part of any reimagining of the onboarding process. Juno Journey can help. With specialized experience in employee learning and the platforms that support it, Juno Journey is the ideal partner for any team looking to bring their onboarding to the next level. Get started today!