Your new hires should experience an excellent onboarding process so they can become more productive and engaged. However, most companies don’t properly integrate their new employees into the organization. As a result, your talent wouldn’t be performing at its best, which can be crucial to your company’s success.
If you think you’re doing it right, try to check these common problems during the onboarding process that you may unknowingly be committing:
1. Not Prioritizing The Onboarding Process
After hiring, you may think your new talents can go about and do their job after welcoming them. Well, that’s your first mistake. Employees need more than just a simple greeting. They need to feel acknowledged and well-informed at the same time.
It’s like going to battle without knowing who your enemies are. As new employees, they need to know your expectations, company culture, and specific responsibilities. That way, they won’t tiptoe because of the fear of committing a mistake. Instead of becoming efficient, they may not perform at their best because they’re not well-oriented about what they should do.
To resolve such issues, be clear about everything. Onboarding Software can help make your new hires more engaged and happier on their first day. Use this tool to send the onboarding package to your new employees. The package must contain all the paperwork they need to get started, the norms of your company, and their specific tasks, so they can begin working without any hesitation.
If you have office space, then let one person tour your new hires around. That way, not only will your new employees feel welcomed, but they’ll know the facilities.
2. Lack of Role Clarity
As mentioned, your onboarding process must include orienting new hires on their roles. It mustn’t only be on a broad scale, but it must include the specifics. For instance, the general position of your IT technician is to assist the whole team’s tech needs, but this isn’t clear enough.
Your new hire should know the boundaries of their responsibility, including when they should say no and what areas they should focus on. Don’t give them the ‘Perform other miscellaneous tasks.’
Add the specifics: attending daily huddles, communicating updates, completing IT certifications, and the like. It may even help to add these specifics to your job postings on various platforms. By doing this, you can filter those talents who may not like the roles.
There are multiple platforms or ways to post your job ads. Alternatives to Indeed.com and others help you attract a wider pool of talent. These allow you to communicate easily so you can set expectations even before processing their application.
3. Not Implementing One-On-One Mentoring
However, don’t let the technology do all the onboarding steps. One of the critical mistakes most companies make is sending the onboarding package to the new hire. Period. Some don’t even bother to coach them.
What you should do is to have at least one manager conduct one-on-one time for each new hire. It doesn’t need to take hours for the coaching. What’s important is to make the new employee feel valued as they’ll appreciate it more when their manager helps them through the onboarding process. This practice also shows that the company values its people, and this can be a way to retain employees.
As a result, the new hire will be at ease on the transition and would know they have someone whom they can ask for help.
4. Ignoring Signs Of Workplace Culture Shock
While some may quickly ease into their new workplace, others may feel overwhelmed. You mustn’t ignore this as you may lose valuable talent. Don’t wait for the worst, but immediately orient your new hires. Signs your new employee doesn’t fit into your company culture include being isolated, disoriented, irritable, and often leaving work due to an unknown illness.
Instead of becoming infuriated, show them you care for your employees. Acknowledge their difficulties and advise them on what they can do to get over the workplace culture shock. Offer your assistance as well. That way, your new hires may do their best to understand how your company works.
Conclusion
There are many job seekers out there, but only a few are passionate and talented enough to make your business more prosperous. Thus, don’t lose the chance to keep your talents because of the mistakes you may commit during the onboarding process.
Check out the common problems above, and consider implementing the best practices. That way, you won’t waste your time and budget on hiring employees who may just resign in a couple of months, if not weeks.