Onboarding Strategies For Better Staff Retention

What do your onboarding practices look like? Do you have a program in place or do you throw new hires into the deep end? Given that 30% of new hires leave within the first three months, onboarding is essential to staff retention. Effective onboarding lessens a new hire’s stress and alleviates pressure for your team. It also saves your company huge costs of having to hire again. So let’s take a look at what it is and how to do it.

What is onboarding?

Onboarding is the practice of helping your new employee adjust to their role in your company. This involves physically, professionally and emotionally adjusting to your existing company culture, and to the demands of the job itself. With an effective onboarding program, employees will not only stay longer, they’ll also be more productive.

What onboarding isn’t

If you have an orientation program in place, you may be wondering if this counts as onboarding. But while orientation is part of onboarding, they aren’t the same thing.

Orientation provides an overview of your company. It may include training, and is all completed within the first couple of days of the new hire’s employment. Onboarding is more specific to your new employee. It takes place when the new hire starts orientation, and should continue throughout their first year of employment. Orientation is what gets your new hire started, but onboarding is what keeps them going.

Effective onboarding

Effective onboarding involves time and planning. This is why companies will often consult recruitment specialists or purchase onboarding software. Get started with effective onboarding by first considering where and when your new hire will undergo their orientation and training. A slapdash effort of throwing them into a spare room and assigning a busy staff member to the role can make the new hire feel unwelcome. By the same token, the new hire’s workspace should be ready before they commence. Research shows that a new hire’s trajectory can be mapped within their first two weeks, so be sure to make them feel special.

Onboarding for retention

Sometimes it can be hard to tell if your new hire is thriving or floundering. You don’t know them well and they may not be expressing themselves fully. Assign your new hire a buddy to help them build relationships with colleagues and get any questions they have answered. You’ll need to track your new hire’s progress with monthly meetings during the first year. At these meetings, you and the new hire make sure everyone’s clear on deliverables and is making progress towards achieving them. It’s also an opportunity to discuss any feedback they may have.