With school leavers and university graduates getting their careers started after the summer, now is an ideal time to look at onboarding practices at your organisation.
For most people, moving to a new role or company brings a mixture of excitement and nerves. The first interactions with a new manager and team can help starters feel motivated and inspired, or it can leave them feeling lost and disengaged.
Planning ahead and having a good onboarding process in place is essential. And of course, this includes providing all the information that new starters need about the benefits that working for your business brings, including employee rewards.
Does your business offer employee rewards? Contact us to find out more.
Good versus bad onboarding
Good onboarding sets the foundation for a positive employee experience. Giving new staff everything they need to work at their best straight from the beginning boosts performance. Furthermore, a welcoming start encourages a culture of high employee engagement, helping to improve employee retention in the long term. So the benefits of good onboarding last well into the future.
On the flip side, a bad onboarding experience can have these negative impacts:
- Increase employee turnover, because your new hire’s expectations won’t match the reality.
- A lack of support and no sense of belonging means it’s easier to feel down and disappointed, leading to low employee morale.
- Without that positive initial connection, it’s harder to motivate employees to stay engaged.
- When someone feels unappreciated or doesn’t get the right help it can breed a culture of missed targets and poor performance.
- New employees can’t buy into your company’s values and goals if they don’t know what they are.
Excellent onboarding: 7 steps for the first day
Here are some simple steps to get things off to the right start for new employees on their first day.
- Schedule a welcome meeting
Find time for a friendly welcome meeting between the new hire and their manager. This is a great opportunity to listen to any concerns, share what your plans are for the first week, and prepare them ahead of their introduction. - Introduce them to the team
Make sure the new starter meets their team early on. If some or all of you are remote, host a team video call so everyone can greet their new co-worker and find out more about them. - Show your new team member around
Don’t leave your new hire feeling lost on their first day. If you all work together in an office, give your new team member a tour of the building, show them where the facilities are, and let them know who to go to for help. - Match your new hire with a buddy
One of the best things you can do for your new team member is to pair them with a buddy or mentor. This will be their go-to person if they need help, have a question, or simply want a friendly face to talk to. - Provide space and time for orientation and training
Make sure there’s plenty of room in your schedule and the new hire’s schedule for orientation and training. Give them access to online tools, company policies, workflow details and an employee handbook if you have one. - Share details about your company culture and perks
Put together a guide on your team culture and company benefits and perks, and share it with your new hire. This makes it easy for them to explore what’s on offer without having to ask every time. - Host a welcome lunch or social event
Schedule a team lunch on your employee’s first day or at the end of the first week, depending on how your employee feels about it. The first few lunch hours in a new job can be lonely when you don’t know anyone.
Three onboarding steps for the first weeks
- Set some goals for the first few weeks
After your new hire has had some time to settle in and get familiar with how things work and their job description, catch up with them to set some goals for the first month. Set some personal and professional goals that motivate them. - Check in with your new team member regularly
Keep up the engagement with your new team member and check in with them often, so you can identify challenges, discuss goals, and support them in the best way possible. - Ask for feedback on the onboarding experience
A successful onboarding process takes time and gets improved by feedback and iteration. To make your onboarding process steps better, you’ll gain from the people who have just gone through it.
Often, they’re the ideal person to mentor or buddy the next new starter who comes along, because they’ll know exactly how it feels.
Employee benefits and new starters
Employee benefits are a key part of staff retention. New hires will feel assured that you look after staff with a host of benefits that save them money and support them at important stages of their lives.
You can include details of your benefits in your hiring process, boosting staff attraction, and letting new starters know about all the perks you offer as part of their welcome to the organisation. And you can include all the details in your employee handbook if you have one (something we’ll look at in an upcoming post on this blog).
And it’s a good idea to keep reminding staff about the benefits you offer, either in a newsletter or at team meetings and events. Managers can also be cheerleaders for staff benefits, signposting them to employees when they feel particularly relevant.
Staff perks and rewards can feel very valuable to employees, and it’s never too early to let staff know about all the help and support that’s on offer.
About Us
At Enjoy Benefits, we have great experience in helping companies of all sizes introduce benefits that are suitable for their workplace.
Benefits are easy to set up and ongoing administration is then run through a hub, allowing employees to manage their own benefits while the employer can see which benefits are proving popular and what level of take-up each has had.
If you would like an obligation-free chat to discuss which benefits might work for your business and your employees, please contact us by calling 0800 088 7315 or using our Contact Form.
Ready to start working with us?