Operations executives are often tasked with developing new talent and teams. Effective onboarding is required to ensure talent in retained, motivated and productive in their career. Below you will learn 14 steps for an effective onboarding process.
As reported by Forbes on January 19th, 2022 by an Expert Panel.
14 Essential Steps For Effective And Efficient Onboarding
From proper protocols to company culture and everything in between, new employees have a lot of information to absorb in a short period of time after they’ve been hired. To ensure that they reach the highest level of proficiency possible as quickly as they can, it’s up to company leaders to create an effective and efficient onboarding process.
There are some critical factors that must be considered and incorporated into an onboarding process for new hires to ensure their success. Below, 14 members of Forbes Coaches Council discuss essential steps, methods and activities that are key components of the most useful onboarding processes.
1. Focus On Relationships
Onboarding should focus on relationships. Engage people together and in teams so the culture can seep through; point out good practices so people can track what success looks like; and promote feedback loops throughout the process rather than abandoning employees to a schedule of meetings. Finally, have the first career conversation so you know more about their goals. – Adena Johnston, CCI Consulting
2. Include KPIs In Training
It is important to incorporate modern selection methods that allow the best candidates to be selected. The process of incorporation must be backed up by strong training to enable them to perform their jobs properly and key performance indicators to measure their performance. It is essential that they know what is expected of them to achieve maximum performance and avoid frustration. – José Luís González Rodriguez, ActionCOACH
3. Promote Partnerships
Partnership is key. Ensure each new hire is partnered with a passionate and dedicated employee. Provide time for the current employee to engage, mentor and bond with the new employee for at least two weeks. Train your employees on what to do and how to help the new hire acclimate. This helps your new hire feel connected, clarifies who they go to for questions or advice, and supports a strong culture. – Candice Gottlieb-Clark, Dynamic Team Solutions
4. Include Department Intros
Onboarding new hires should include an introduction to each department of the company. Allowing new hires to experience a few hours in each department will provide a better understanding of how integral each department is to the success of the company overall. If new hires are indoctrinated into the functionality of each department, it will foster better team building and internal relationships. – Lori A. Manns, Quality Media Consultant Group LLC
5. Ask For Their Feedback Up Front
Set an expectation from day one that they will be asked to share their feedback and at least one idea to improve how work is done and one idea on how to improve a new employee’s experience. This lets new employees know their opinion and ideas matter and establishes an expectation within them that they are responsible for helping the company improve. – Shane Green, SGEi
6. Build A Support Network
Many organizations are moving toward a work-from-anywhere model, which makes it easy to feel isolated. Everyone who starts a new role will need help—who they should ask questions of and where to get help from are common questions employers need to anticipate. Introducing new hires to their support network and helping them break the ice, especially if it’s remote work, will go a long way toward retaining employees. – Chuen Chuen Yeo, ACESENCE Agile Leadership Coaching and Training Pte. Ltd.
7. Integrate Your Mission, Vision And Values
Integrate your core mission, vision and values statements into the onboarding experience of new employees, and reinforce them often with real-life examples of them being applied in challenging organizational contexts. This will help you to establish clear values congruence, person-job fit and person-organization fit from the beginning, creating a foundation for the remaining onboarding process. – Jonathan H. Westover, Utah Valley University & Human Capital Innovations, LLC
8. Have One-On-One Meetings
Every new hire should meet one-on-one with someone on the senior leadership team to welcome them aboard and provide some words of inspiration. What’s the most important thing they need to focus on to become successful? How should they demonstrate the company values? New hires tend to be overloaded with information, but these words of welcome and inspiration can cut through the noise. – Steve McIntosh, CareerPoint.com
9. Immerse Them Into The Organizational ‘Why’
Onboarding is not an action; it is an integrated process that needs to embrace technical, organizational and social aspects. One essential part is immersing the new person in the organizational “why,” defining what success looks like in the organization for them. Another is to create a sense of community by identifying “onboarding buddies” who will help the newcomers feel accepted. – Katarzyna Gardapkhadze, Responsible Leadership Academy
10. Systematize The Onboarding Process
Systematize your onboarding process conversations and the relaying of background information so that the person has an incremental roadmap of their first 100 days. The map would include which relationships to prioritize when, how accountability is integrated into the organization, and the expectations you have of them in relation to fostering accountability and achieving desired results in an equally desirable manner. – Marguerite LeBlanc, The Leaders’ Kitchen Inc.
11. Embrace Digital Adoption
Embrace digital adoption as employees face an increasing number of applications to perform their tasks. There are numerous studies on the benefits of digital adoption and resulting employee productivity. They can be a great way for an organization to understand bottlenecks in processes and obtain the necessary real-time feedback to improve employee engagement. – Stuart Andrews, SMA Consulting
12. Create Standard Operating Procedures
Create an SOP binder that includes information to help the new employee easily reference who people are in the organization or on their team, systems and processes to help their workflow, and often-accessed elements to help them do their job. The SOPs can be referred to during upcoming projects and on a day-to-day basis, and the employee will feel more confident daily. – Rosie Guagliardo, InnerBrilliance Coaching
13. Set Up A Mechanism For Periodic Feedback
Setting up periodic feedback at critical intervals—one week, one month, three months and one year post-hire, for example—is essential. No news is never good news when it comes to our people. We need to give them the mechanism to let us know where we’re getting it right and where we can do better. – Kathi Laughman, The Mackenzie Circle LLC
14. Prioritize Talent Management Strategies
Organizations seeking to maximize excellence with their onboarding process should consider prioritizing talent management strategies at the board and executive leadership team levels. Talent optimization initiatives, as one example, help align new hires to the company philosophy and strategy and provide HR and managers key people data for leading, developing and realizing business success. – Lori Harris, Harris Whitesell Consulting
Having a talented, but effective team is key to running a successful company; that is why you have an operations team to help build up your employees to success. Reference working with HR?
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