5 Key Benefits Of Onboarding New Hires
It’s not all bad news. New hires reasonably go through an adjustment period before they can perform at their best. And research by Glassdoor has found that organizations with a formal onboarding process improve new-hire productivity by 70%. Informal onboarding lacks a solid plan for employee integration, but formal onboarding has carefully coordinated steps. The goal is to help new employees get familiar both with their job duties and the company culture. When onboarding new staff, help newcomers socialize and embrace the company values and goals. Why? Introducing employees to the company culture can have a massive impact on job satisfaction, productivity, and retention.
An effective onboarding experience helps new hires get up to speed faster. This way, your organization can keep moving forward without disruptions. In this post, you’ll learn more about the benefits of onboarding new hires, especially in regard to keeping your organizational standards consistent. Let’s get started.
1. It Keeps Compliance Top Of Mind
Compliance topics are often repetitive and uninteresting. Health and safety regulations are rigid, while cybersecurity training is a drag. As for internal policies on harassment, discrimination, and the like, it’s probably not the first time your new hires have gone through them. Every company has its own internal rules, so they just sound like more of the same. Compliance is a core concern for industries that are heavily regulated or data-sensitive, like healthcare or banking and finance. But even when that’s not the case, internal policies should always be respected to maintain a stable and positive work environment. More important than following regulatory or company policies right away is understanding the significance of doing so. Your goal is not a workforce who is blindly compliant, but rather one that understands how misconduct or neglect can not only disrupt the workflow but also hold your company liable.
That’s why focusing only on the consequences of noncompliance is a mistake. New employees should understand the reasons behind these policies. They should be able to see how they benefit everyone in the workplace and your company as an entity. But how can you achieve that? Take your time with compliance training. Give employees a chance to familiarize themselves with their new workplace. Otherwise, they won’t fully understand how this new information ties into their role and tasks or why compliance matters. Touching on compliance topics during new hire onboarding helps employees realize their role in achieving both organizational compliance and a functioning workplace.
Remember that consistency is key. To make sure there are no misconceptions, use an employee onboarding training LMS where you can additionally find ready-made, standardized content. An online learning platform also makes it easier to update training material when new regulations or policy changes occur.
2. It Establishes Role Clarity And Expectations
One of the biggest benefits of onboarding new hires? Your newcomers learn their exact tasks and responsibilities early on. New employee onboarding is also the time to communicate the work processes they should follow as well as the desired goals and expectations.
Another point to address during onboarding is the relationship between different departments. New hires should get an idea of what other employees work on and how all tasks are eventually related. This will help them better understand where their role stands and how it contributes to company growth. Role ambiguity can lead to confusion, blame-shifting, and wasting time. Role clarity, on the other hand, establishes transparency and accountability. These two components help build trust among employees and reinforce the team spirit.
You’ll also notice a substantial increase in job performance since everyone will work focused without unnecessary delays or misunderstandings.
3. It Ensures All New Hires Understand The Way The Organization Works
Without a doubt, new hires should first and foremost know their tasks and related job specifics. They also need to learn about the procedures that apply when unexpected things happen.
While training new employees, show them how your organization operates as a whole. For example, you might provide a fluid work environment where responsibilities shift between employees depending on the workload or a less flexible one, where every employee performs specific tasks only. The way your organization works reflects your company culture. So, it’s driven by your values, ethics, and mission. If your new employees don’t understand the organizational structure of your company or appreciate your goals, they will have a hard time adjusting. That’s why training should be your key investment from day one.
Sure enough, some employees might decide that your management style and organizational norms are not for them. But the sooner this happens, the better. To help new hires understand how you like things done and why pair them with a mentor. An experienced employee will not only offer them first-hand knowledge but also help them socialize in the company.
4. It Offers New Hires Continuous Assistance
You’ve shown your new hire around and made sure they’ve met everyone. The HR department has informed them about your policies, and their manager has shown them their job duties. Next, you cross your fingers and hope your new employee has grasped everything and is ready to dive into productive work. Are they, though?
Whether it’s done at a slow pace or a faster one, in person or online, onboarding has left your new employee’s brain with a lot to process. Inevitably, a good part of it will succumb to the forgetting curve. While it’s important to give new employees many opportunities to work independently and blossom, doing so too soon can leave them feeling overwhelmed and stressed.
During a structured new-staff onboarding program, you can gauge their knowledge to determine when they’re ready to work with minimum supervision. This is another reason you should assign a mentor to new employees. A mentor will also provide feedback along the way and answer questions they hesitate to ask their manager.
Your LMS can be particularly useful in terms of employee assessment too, especially if you use TalentLMS. Through quizzes and assignments, you can determine whether new hires are on track or need further assistance. Online training material can further support employees at the point of need. Especially when it’s developed in bite-sized format and is available on mobile.
You can’t completely eliminate the possibility of mistakes. But access to online tools or mentorship can help newcomers pump up their performance while they’re still building their strengths.
5. It Minimizes Employee Turnover
If you’re still doubting the importance of onboarding new hires, here’s an interesting fact: almost one-third of new hires quit their jobs within the first six months. Looking further into it, it appears that those who have a poor onboarding experience are twice as likely to look for another job in the near future. The absence of a formal onboarding process indicates disorganization and a lack of development opportunities, which, apparently, puts new employees off.
Continuously training new hires takes its toll on your workflow and productivity. That’s true no matter how well organized your onboarding program is (not to mention the financial consequences of replacing employees). So, basically, onboarding is essential, but that doesn’t mean it’s a process you want to go through every so often.
Employee engagement isn’t achieved in a day. Anything can happen down the line. But onboarding new employees shows there’s potential for career development. This grabs the attention of quality hires, which would otherwise be discouraged and look elsewhere. And the less turnover you have, the more likely it is that your company will continue to run like a clock.
Conclusion
So, why is onboarding new hires important? Because there’s a lot to gain from a positive first impression. Onboarding helps employees follow organizational policies and contribute productive work fast and with greater confidence.
Remember that when it comes to onboarding, it’s best not to lose the formalities. A well-thought-out and structured plan is the key to reaping the big-time benefits of onboarding new hires.
