Our 4-steps guide to build an Onboarding Process

It’s estimated that 20% of companies do not have a specific process when it comes to integrating new employees. However, we do know that the first steps of an employee entering a new team can be decisive for a successful future at your company. That’s why an effective onboarding process is a fairly critical part of a new employee’s first days at the company as they learn to orient, integrate, and support themselves among their new colleagues.

If this is your first time onboarding new employees we recommend going through at least these 4 essential steps that over the years the Beehire team has learned can be fairly impactful:

Maintain contact in the period before the new employee starts

The Onboarding process doesn’t start on the day your new employee arrives, but well before that. It’s important to ensure that you maintain a relationship with the candidate after they have accepted your job offer. This keeps them engaged and thinking about their future employment at the company, and at the very least keeps tabs on them so they don’t accept another offer elsewhere.
Motivated people tend to use the period to start working themselves into the matter they will be dealing with when they start or prepare themselves mentally by enjoying a few days off thanks to that sweet spot that is the period between two (confirmed) jobs.

Some things that work well to keep the future employee engaged are:

• Send them their signed contract before their arrival date.
• Send them an email with various elements allowing them to immerse themselves in their future environment, for example, your employee guidelines or any security policies they should review.
• This is a big if, but if you’re doing a teambuilding or having a team lunch/dinner in the period you might even invite the new recruit to get to know the team ahead of their start. (This also helps your team get used to the new employee).

Prepare a workspace

Not knowing what one’s to do on a first day is unpleasant, and not having anywhere to sit is just as unpleasant (especially the whole “go ahead and sit there, we’ll figure out where to put you later” is very unprofessional). Instead, have the recruit’s computer and any other job-related materials ready, the seat and desk cleaned, and perhaps even prepare a little welcome gift (a mug with their name, a box of chocolates, etc).
If the employee doesn’t sit at a desk be sure to show where they can get a (clean) locker or otherwise store their belongings.

Inform the team

It’s pretty bad when a new employee arrives at an office on their first day and doesn’t know what to do, but it’s even worse when their team doesn’t know what they’re supposed to do either. A simple e-mail informing the team and the various administrative departments of the recruit’s arrival will prevent a lot of discomforts when they finally arrive.
At the very least it gets people thinking about what tasks and onboarding sessions will be needed, because it might even speed up some other things such as access to networks, devices, and ID cards.

Which brings us to…

Assign a mentor

… or at the least a single point of contact for the new employee. Someone the employee can go to with questions about the business, administration, and team activities like having lunch. This also helps a lot in getting a better fit in the company’s culture, and new recruits typically really appreciate this.

This doesn’t always have to be the same person: some companies have a rotating mentor system where everyone gets a go.

That’s a quick wrap of the basics when it comes to onboarding a new employee. We’d love to hear from you if you have any questions or comments about how to apply this at your place of work. Contact us or get started for free today!