Looking to improve your employee onboarding process? Simply follow these 3 great tips!

Why should you improve your employee onboarding program?

Employee onboarding is a very method used in talent acquisition.

If done right, the employee onboarding process can easily become your secret weapon for hiring and retaining talent.

A successful employee onboarding program ensures that your best candidate actually shows up on their first day at the new job.
This is because a successful employee onboarding process starts at the moment your best candidate accepts your offer. If you don’t engage you best candidates until their start date, they might accept a better offer or a counteroffer from their current employer.

It also helps to improve retention, engagement, satisfaction, and productivity of your new employees.

According to the Society For Human Resources Management (SHRM):

• 69% of employees are more likely to stay with a company for three years if they experienced great onboarding.
  
• Organizations with a standard onboarding process experience 50% greater new-hire productivity.

• 54% of companies with onboarding programs reported higher employee engagement.

3 best employee onboarding tips

Here are the best 3 tips that will help get the most out of your onboarding program:

Tip #1: Plan and organize

If you want to maximize the power of your onboarding process, you need to carefully structure it. To learn how, check out our step-by-step Guide on how to successfully onboard new employees.  

Keep in mind that:

1. A successful onboarding is a process
   A successful employee onboarding is not an event that takes place on your new employee’s first day at the office. It is a continuous process that starts at the moment your best candidate accepts your job offer.
   
   
2. A successful onboarding is people oriented
   A successful employee onboarding is not focused on tasks, but on people.
   The human touch drives onboarding success.  The secret of great onboarding is the fact that it makes your new employees feel welcomed and integrated into your company culture from the day one!

Tip #2: Automate

Automating your employee onboarding process will help you save time and your nerves. There are many different employee onboarding tools you can use to easily automate your onboarding process.

There are 3 main types of employee onboarding tools:

• Checklists
  Checklists are the most simple and straightforward tool that can help you onboard new employees.
  
  
• Specialized tools
  Specialized employee onboarding tools are tools created for the sole purpose of improving the employee onboarding process.
  
  
• Integrated tools
  Integrated tools are comprehensive, all-in-one tools that offer solutions for your whole HR management process, including payroll, benefits, time and attendance, etc.

Tip#3: Be creative

To make your new employees’ onboarding experience truly unique, you need to get creative! Luckily for you, we compiled the best and the most innovative employee onboarding ideas and examples from experts to inspire you!

Here are 3 simple, but creative employee onboarding ideas you can easily implement:

1. Welcome GIF or video
   Gather your team and create a welcome video for your new employee!
   If your employees shy away from a camera or you don’t have enough time on your hands, go with the quicker version - create a welcome GIF!
   
   
2. Decorate your new employee’s desk
   Decorate your new employee’s desk with some balloons, welcome sign and maybe even some cake! You can also pack your company swag (such as branded notebook, pens, T-shirt, water bottle, etc.) as a present!
   
   
3. 100th-day party
   Throwing a 100 day on the job party for your employees is a great opportunity to shower them with some attention and remind them how much you are happy to have them joined your company.