Onboarding is what keeps employees happy and motivated to stay with a company. Unfortunately, when employers drop the ball, new hires are already looking for a new job, sometimes within the first year of employment.
ADP’s Evolution of Work study from December 2015 found that 91% of managers, 81% of HR administrators, and 75% of employers believe their organization does not do onboarding well. So when the majority of higher-ups know they don’t have a good onboarding process, what can they do? This is where data comes in.
Let’s see how you can start measuring your quality of onboarding and where you can make improvements:
Check In Frequently. Help get new hires acquainted immediately. Arrange for each new hire to work alongside an experienced employee. They can help introduce them to the team, show them around the office, set up their workstation, and even go out to lunch together.
You’re helping them build a rapport with a new office friend so they feel comfortable. They’re able to turn to someone who is more accessible and less formal than a manager.
Throughout the first few weeks, it’s wise to check in regularly to offer any assistance or to clarify anything they do not understand. This is crucial to set them up for a successful official evaluation.
Provide a 90-Day Evaluation. Be consistent with your anniversary-based reviews. Schedule them for at least three months after their first day, and start gathering performance metrics immediately. You will need this data to understand how their skills and competencies are matching expectations and to use as points for discussion.
Approach this review with a positive mindset. Remember that evaluations are crucial to motivating your new hires and guiding them to success. You are supporting their development and helping them succeed, which is important to both the company and the employee.
Learnkit’s 2015 report, “Creating a Win-Win-Win Learning Strategy for Your Organization,” found that 89% of employees feel it is important their employers support their learning and development. When you show them that you’re invested in their success and want to help them grow, they are more motivated to work and get the most out of their performance reviews.
Ensure that you cover all the bases so they receive a comprehensive, documented evaluation. Your frequent check-ins leading up to this should positively impact the review and help you give constructive feedback. However, this shouldn’t be a one-sided dialogue.
Encourage Self-Assessments. During performance reviews, encourage employees to assess themselves by asking them about how they feel about where they are and how they are performing. Are they meeting their own expectations? Do you feel stuck in a specific area? What kinds of tasks are they interested in doing?
Strong employees want to grow and will be happy to proactively find ways to improve performance. You can gauge their passion and commitment when you see how they answer and how involved they are in finding solutions to the obstacles they are facing.
Make sure you capture their self-assessment in a documented form. Surveys are a great tool for recording their thoughts. Plus, you can revisit them in the future. Reflect on them during their next review after you implement changes to help them improve.
Maintaining regular check-ins will ensure that they are growing. Just as official 90-day evaluations are two-sided, your check-ins need to be as well.
Ask for Feedback. You need to understand how employees perceive your onboarding process so you know where to make adjustments. Chances are, if you used a standardized, one-size-fits-all process, they are not going to be engaged or satisfied.
Use their feedback to create a solution that works for you and for new hires. You should be customizing training for each role. For example, your onboarding for a sales rep should be different than the process for production managers.
Measure three things: goals, community and logistics. How are they understanding their purpose? Are they equipped with tools necessary to succeed? How are their colleagues helping them?
When you have this data, you can identify what needs to be improved. If they say that they struggle to complete their tasks due to tech issues, consider updating your office software. When new hires aren’t seeing the big picture, look at your mission statement and core values and determine how your employer brand messaging can be more detailed.
Quality onboarding metrics help everyone — new hires can show how they are succeeding and learn how to grow and learn new skills, employers are able to improve team performance and retain employees, and executives can rest assured that a properly trained new hire will stay longer and contribute to company growth faster.
Are you measuring your quality of onboarding? How are you improving your process?
