5 Onboarding Mistakes You Can’t Afford to Make
You’ve spent weeks (or months) wooing the perfect candidate and you’ve officially received that signed offer letter. For far too many employers, a couple of pages of paperwork later, they’re done with the whole process.
The problem? Without structured onboarding - or with onboarding that’s weak - 25% of new employees will depart within the first year. On the flipside, Gallup’s onboarding report found that companies with formal onboarding processes can see 50% greater employee retention and 62% greater productivity among new employees.
Be among the 12% of companies who do get onboarding right by avoiding these five common mistakes.
Mistake #1: Starting Onboarding on Day One of Employment
It’s all too common for employers to sit on a new hire between the signing of the offer letter and the day they start work. This is problematic, because 91% of new employees are willing to quit a new job in the first month post-acceptance. Keeping new folks engaged in this dead period between offer and employment is vital to keeping the new recruit engaged and enthused about their new job.
Avoid it!
Once your new hire has signed, enlist folks on your team to reach out at periodic intervals to express excitement about them joining the team and offer to answer questions or check in. As a manager, you can also offer to take the new hire out for coffee or lunch to get to know one another better. Other smart tips? Allow soon-to-be employees a peak at what’s to come with a welcome video and their onboarding schedule.
Mistake #2: Forgetting the Connection “C”
Dr. Tayla Bauer from the SHRM Foundation defines The Four Cs of Onboarding as “Compliance, Clarification, Culture, and Connection.” Most organizations do a pretty decent job with the first three (teaching the rules and norms of the organization, and making sure that new recruits are clear on their job description), but struggle to support them with meaningfully building key relationships at the organization. This challenge is compounded by employees who are working remotely, or at scattered organizations.
Image credit: Dr. Tayla Bauer for the SHRM Foundation
Avoid This!
Proactively schedule time for your new employee to meet with as many colleagues as possible in the first couple of weeks. If you’re virtual, ensure they involve video calls (bonus points if you set the new recruit up with a Starbucks or UberEats gift card and encourage them to make these chats over coffee or lunch.) Make sure that all involved know that the purpose of these chats is simply to build connection - no ulterior motives.
Mistake #3: Shunning Short-Term Goals
If you’ve created OKRs for your employee, that’s fantastic. But forgetting to provide short-term markers of success can spell discomfort for both you and your new hires. While their yearly goal may be to increase sales by X%, that’s obviously not going to happen in the first 30 days. Providing benchmarks specifically related to onboarding tasks is vital to ensuring you can measure your employee’s success and provide feedback to them.
Avoid This!
Create short-term goals for the first 30, 60, and 90 days of your new recruit’s tenure. Make the goals related to onboarding tasks, not to their long-term or annual goals. For example, “Have a coffee or lunch date with everyone on the Marketing Team,” or “Learn to use our time tracking system and track your own hours.” These goals are vital to long-term success at the organization and should be clearly laid out during the onboarding process.
Mistake #4: Keeping Leadership Out of the Picture
It is an often overlooked step to make an introduction between your CEO and your new hire. Neglecting this connection can contribute to a lack of authentic enthusiasm and clarity between new folks and the organization. Given that employees who get this direct window into the leadership at your organization are more likely to stay there, skipping this is a bad idea.
Avoid this!
In a smaller organization, it’s ideal to schedule a one-on-one between the company’s leader and the new employee. When that’s not possible, consider a town hall with the executive team and other new employees to provide a space for them to get to know one another and have a forum to ask questions. However you do this, make sure your CEO is prepared to share your company’s mission and goals in a meaningful way.
Mistake #5: Doing it All Yourself
The most untapped resources at your company are likely the people who already work there and are happy doing it. Not only do these folks have great things to say about your organization, but they also have institutional knowledge that can be hard to capture. Don’t make the mistake of thinking the onboarding process needs to be owned solely by the manager!
Avoid this!
Assign other members of the team to be responsible for aspects of the onboarding. Your HR Manager can support with company policies and clarifying expectations about the handbook. Your Counsel can speak to areas of challenge that the organization has faced and how they have been addressed. And colleagues doing similar work to the new direct report can teach systems or offer opportunities to shadow their workday.
Need more?
With decades of experience providing effective, impactful onboarding to employees at all levels of organizations, we’re here to help you flip current practice - especially if current practice is nonexistent!
