Save HR Dollars, Learn to Onboard Like a Pro
Simply Hired Staff
It’s a well-known fact that one of the largest staffing related costs businesses face is employee turnover. During the hiring and firing process, employee turnover costs the average company approximately 150% of an individual’s total compensation package. What’s perhaps not as well known is that an effective onboarding plan can help drastically decrease employee turnover. The result is not only seen in immediate dollars and cents savings. A successful onboarding strategy also contributes to employee productivity which has a corresponding effect on staffing output and your ultimate bottom line.
While developing such a program may seem like a time and resource consuming task, in reality, many of the most common solutions require little in the way of resource expenditure and a modest amount of planning. The three largest goals of any onboarding plan should include helping your new hire get up to speed in their job role, orienting the employee on company culture and policies, and integrating the individual positively within the new team.
The best onboarding processes begin early at the recruiting stage and continue throughout the first six months to a year of employment. Here we break down how to craft an effective onboarding plan and provide advice for implementation that cost less than $100 total for each new role.
Stagger Your New Hires
While the tendency may be to combine multiple hiring opportunities into unified start dates, the reality is that this approach often stretches existing limited HR and training resources. Whenever possible, stagger your new hires by several weeks to allow your key onboarding professionals time to get back to tackling their everyday tasks. Even in larger companies that have dedicated training and hiring personnel, scheduling your new groups of candidates by priority will allow the best application of resources and will keep your existing team fresh and energetic.
Take Advantage of Efficiencies
That being said about staggering if you have the opportunity to onboard several new hires within the same department or with similar job functions every effort should be made to bring the new employees on with the same start date. Not only will you save resources by offering one training to several individuals, but there are also proven benefits to establishing strong working and team relationships at the outset of any new employment. Evaluate your anticipated and one-off hiring needs in order to determine the right balance between optimization and over taxation of your hiring and training staff.
Treat Each Position Individually
We’ve all heard the common idiom about trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Much like our childhood building blocks games, treating the onboarding process the same across all company job levels and descriptions often lead to a one-size-does-not-fit-all scenario. While there will be certain essential HR orientation and company-wide training that apply to all hires, individual department and seniority level specific training strategies should be utilized to help make the onboarding process as impactful and useful as possible.
Create a Mentorship Structure
Perhaps one of the most vital tools in any successful onboarding process is a company’s existing talent pool. Current longterm and otherwise standout employees can provide vital support, mentoring, and leadership to newer counterparts. Hiring managers should identify current team members that display an acumen for guiding and mentoring current staff. These individuals should be partnered with new hires to help provide the kind of firsthand guidance that cannot be replaced by an employee manual or first-day hire presentation.
Utilize 360 Feedback
Going hand in hand with mentorship, allowing new hires to provide feedback on the hiring and training process is an important step to crafting and refining a successful onboarding program. Oftentimes a new set of eyes can provide crucial insights into the efficacy of existing policies and procedures. Allowing new hires to provide feedback on their individual experiences can also create opportunities for these individuals to feel appreciated and involved in their hiring process and the larger company. At various stages throughout the onboarding process, be sure to provide prompts for feedback on both structure and various individual interaction. Utilizing this information will allow leadership to fine-tune individual policies and procedures and will return dividends beyond a single new hire experience.
Successful Onboarding as Company Culture
Last but not least, when it comes to creating and maintaining a successful hiring and integration platform, hiring managers should remember that onboarding isn’t as much a one time process as it is a company culture phenomenon. An impactful onboarding program will speak to both a commitment to finding quality talent and your internal company culture. Both of these aspects will resonate with both current and incoming candidates. The result? The ability to not only attract but retain top-notch quality individuals for all of your essential job roles.
Want to learn more about how to improve your hiring process? Stay tuned to the Simply Hired blog for the latest and greatest advice from those in the know when it comes to best practices and impactful trends in the world of recruiting.
Article Updated from the Original on May 7, 2019
