Employee onboarding system for your company

The first days at a new job mean stress, agitation, excitement and a host of other emotions. However, they can quickly turn into fear, insecurity and a sense of isolation if no one takes care of the new employee. In order to give the new hire comfort while familiarizing him or her with the team and smoothly introducing him or her to the responsibilities, onboarding is used. A well-thought-out and properly implemented onboarding system pays off from the first day of cooperation.

What is onboarding?

Onboarding is the process of introducing a new employee to the company – to responsibilities, tasks, how to deal with typical and emergency situations. It’s also to familiarize the new recruit with his surroundings – introduce him to his co-workers, point him to his superiors and departmental contacts. In other words, it’s about ensuring that the employee adapts to his new environment, gets to know his new colleagues and, after all, knows what to do and how to do it. The very word “onboarding” means from English “boarding,” “checking in,” which pretty much captures the meaning of the whole process. If we metaphorically liken a company to a ship and its employees to a crew, “coming aboard” will be the moment when a gradual familiarity with the general functioning of the organization should be expected. The entire process is overseen by the onboarding leader – as a rule, this is the new supervisor or a designated, competent person from the HR department.

The principles of good onboarding, or 7P

Like any mechanism, onboarding can be conducted properly or improperly. To make sure everything is going in the right direction, the onboarding leader should follow the 7Ps:

• Prepare – yourself, the new hire and his colleagues for onboarding and his future workstation (desk, computer, chair, etc.);
• Introduce – yourself, the associates of the new hire, discuss the path of the hierarchy, that is, tell who is who and who to contact;
• Inform – a newly hired person about the rules of the organization, the specifics of the position, daily tasks;
• Plan – together with the new hire, outline the onboarding plan, set milestones and settle them within a strict timeframe;
• Lead – implement the employee to work independently by showing him how he should perform the given activities;
• Help – pay attention to how the new hire is already working while performing his duties independently;
• Ask – make sure the onboarding stage is understood, ask yourself if any difficulties have arisen, which elements need to be discussed again.

Ad hoc benefits of onboarding

The first experience of a newly hired person very often affects further perceptions of the job and attitudes toward the organization and co-workers. Onboarding provides a sense of care and concern, which increases commitment and willingness to cooperate from the first days. It’s also a quicker adaptation, which means a shorter period of achieving the ability to perform duties independently. Onboarding benefits not only the newcomer himself – his colleagues will also be the beneficiaries of the situation. It will be much easier for them to establish contact and find a common language, which will again increase the willingness to cooperate and allow the new link in the team to merge faster. The whole process also has benefits for the employer – both image and financial. In terms of image, we are talking about employer branding – the organization gains the image of being employee-friendly, which will certainly be appreciated by the newly hired person. The financial benefit, on the other hand, refers to faster employee self-reliance, which contributes to faster profit generation.

Long-term onboarding benefits

Onboarding – while it is a process that involves individuals in a short-term manner – translates into the long-term horizons of the organization. By “long-term” we mean such activities that are measured in statistics year-on-year, that is, they reveal certain long-term trends. The first is the decrease in turnover in the 0-6 month period. According to a survey of HR professionals, 4 out of 10 employees resign from a given job even before the first six months are up. Onboarding can reduce this rate by up to 80%, meaning that not 4, but just 1 new employee will leave the company. This, in turn, translates into reduced recruitment costs. It is no secret that it is easier and cheaper to retain an existing employee than to find another person to replace him. Proper onbarding is also the basis for building teams for years to come – and these teams are often pillars, a reliable link and an added good for the entire organization.

Onboarding system – IT program or human?

For many organizations, onboarding still means a job done solely by a human being. However, as it turns out, current technological advances make it possible to digitize and automate onboarding. This is served by special onboarding systems that comprehensively explain the peculiarities of functioning in a given position. The whole thing can be compared to a tutorial in computer games – the system makes sure that the user learns the mechanics, and the first movements (identical to those that will be encountered in further functioning) are made under supervision. Such a solution in the form of an onboarding system is a significant relief for the HR department and the team manager, as well as an assurance that the implementation process is maintained at a uniformly high level. However, nothing prevents the creation of hybrid solutions – a person as an individual responsible for onboarding into company life and social aspects, while the system will be responsible for implementation into procedures and performance of duties.

Summary – is it worth implementing an onboarding system in a company?

Onboarding as a process takes – depending on the job specifications – from two weeks to as long as three months. However, it is worth looking at this time as a holistic investment in your own organizational environment. This is because we are investing in a newly hired employee, in whom satisfaction, attachment and productivity grow. We invest in existing employees, who become familiar with the change faster and do not feel discomfort or stress. After all, we are investing in our own brand – an effectively conducted onboarding process has a positive impact on the organization’s attractiveness as an employer. So there is no doubt that onboarding is worth implementing in a company, but it must be a fully conscious and well thought-out action. Establishing a consistent onboarding system that uses both human labor and IT automation yields the best results. Even with a limited budget, it is possible to find the optimum – hard competencies recorded in the form of an application, knowledge base, while soft competencies presented by the onboarding tutor.