Welcome to your new job! Employee onboarding is a critical process.
From the very first moment your eager new hire walks into your business ready to start work the clock is ticking. And these crucial seconds can spell the difference between a long term productive working relationship or one that doesn’t work out and can end in tears or worse.
Think of Onboarding as “preboarding” and prepare before the new joiner starts.
It doesn’t matter how small your business is, there will be a quantity of information that you need to get over to your new team member. Recently, studies have shown that the difference between an employee who is onboarded effectively and one who is not can be worth 50% in terms of their productivity in the first year of their employment with you. For a relatively small amount of effort, getting 50% more return on someone’s salary has got to be worth the investment of your time! We’ve saved you the headaches by producing a free onboarding checklist.
Who will be doing the onboarding?
Depending on the size of your business, the employee onboarding process is usually handled by someone senior. At the very least, there needs to be a process in place, and everyone needs to ensure the checklist is followed. Its an important role, as the saying goes, “you only get one chance to make a first impression” on your new employee.
The legal stuff
First, get the basics right and be legally compliant. You must provide HMRC with some data and you must ensure your employee has an employment contract, or a “written statement of employment particulars” which must include some essential details.
Free employee onboarding checklist
We’ve onboarded hundreds of employees, and this checklist covers the essential, tried and true practicalities to help you carry out a seamless employee onboarding process. We’ve split the tasks up into what must be done before day one, on day one and during the first days or week. Air can handle all of this for you and automate tedious tasks with seamless new employee onboarding.
The fun and quirky stuff
This is the good bit. Now, you can let your imagination run wild and really develop empathy with your new starter. If possible, get your team involved and ask them what they would have liked to know when they started. This might not be at all obvious to you! Also think back to when you started work – what would you have liked to know? We’ve seen some really great examples of onboarding in businesses we’ve worked in. Ideas you might want to include are:
- More details about the people and the team, particularly people they will be working with. What about having a bio for each person, including their birthdays, hobbies, career highlights, favourite sandwich, most embarrassing moment? Air’s team directory can display this on a beautiful platform.
- Hugely important in most workplaces is lunch – and those after work drinks – make sure you include the new person in celebrations, treats, cakes. Create a map, Facebook Group or slack group on office lunch spots and share it.
- If everyone has a favourite hangout, make this part of the first day – treat the person to lunch or a drink.
- Create an informal office rules list or do’s and don’ts. This can be funny/quirky – like don’t ask John about his football team or do ask Jenny about her dog…
- Your company culture guide – and how people work together, the shared norms and beliefs that make your business unique.
- Some businesses treat their employees to a joining gift pack containing a few surprises such as snacks, company t-shirt and baseball cap, plant and photo frame for their desk. Something personal to your business that really sends a nice message from the moment they sit down in their spot. Its also great employer branding, these are exactly the type of pictures that your new hire will share on social media with all their friends – with your company logo on – great advertising for you!
Don’t forget these first hours and days are critical and can be make or break. If an employee doesn’t complete their probation successfully, the reason can often be a poor onboarding experience. Read more about the next stage, induction, here.
