Employee Onboarding: A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Program

Employee onboarding might just sound like an admin tick-box — collecting P45s, ID and other documentation, but it’s so much more than that. It’s a chance to properly connect with new hires, and integrate them into your established teams without making them feel like outsiders. It’s about giving them the best start in your company. 

Crafting your onboarding program isn’t something you can quickly do overnight, so how can you build an onboarding program, and why should you bother? Keep reading to learn more.

What is employee onboarding? 

The employee onboarding process is about integrating new employees into the organisation, ensuring they feel welcomed and supported in their new role. 

The process is one that sets the tone with new employees. It helps them find their feet quickly, understand company culture, their job role and expectations and sets them on a path of training and development. There's plenty to do through the onboarding process. 

The process can take anywhere from a few months up until their first year at the company and aims to set them up for success. 

The importance of employee onboarding 

Can a positive onboarding experience increase long-term job satisfaction? Yes, by more than 2.6 times. This demonstrates the direct link between employee satisfaction and a great onboarding experience is clear and should be a priority for hiring managers.

What are the other benefits of effective onboarding?

• Better employee engagement

• Quicker time to productivity 

• Increased job loyalty/retention

• More cohesive company culture 

And the great thing about building an excellent onboarding journey is that most of it can be digitised, helping you automate the tedious, time-intensive tasks and building a smooth journey for the user. But, to do this, you need access to the right employee onboarding software.

What are the five cs of employee onboarding? 

The onboarding process can be categorised into five cs: compliance, clarification, culture, connection and checking back. 

So, if you're wondering “how can I create an onboarding program?” Follow these five cs. 

Compliance 

You need employees to comply with your policies. Policies help maintain fairness and consistency with how you treat your employees. But to be able to comply, they need immediate access to all company policies. Digitising these policies, such as in an employee handbook can provide instant access, and digital versions can also be edited easily.

Clarification 

To do the job well and integrate with the rest of your staff, the new hire needs clarity on your expectations as an employer. Clearly outline job roles and responsibilities and performance expectations so there's no ambiguity. These documents can be stored in your employee onboarding software.

Culture

Having a great company culture is what retains, and attracts, great employees. For example, if you’re known for valuing your staff and the work they do, who wouldn’t want to work in a supportive environment like that? Your onboarding program should include documentation on company values, company history, mission statements etc. so make sure your staff all have digital access to this. 

Connection

Without social connections, team members can easily feel alienated, particularly if you’re onboarding remotely. But as the HR representative, it's your job to facilitate this. Give new hires access to organisational structures and consider implementing a social comms platform like Slack or Asana to help foster an environment that prioritises collaboration and connection.

Checking back

You won't know whether your new hires are integrating if you don't check in with them. Whether it's a monthly performance meeting or 1-to-1s or informal catch-ups, ask them how they're finding life at your organisation and see if you can better support them with training and development opportunities.  

Four best practices for effective employee onboarding

Effective onboarding doesn't just happen overnight, so consider these best practices when implementing your program.

Don't dismiss pre-onboarding activities

Although their first day might be officially the day they start, consider starting the onboarding procedure before then. Set up an automated onboarding checklist to ensure you collect all relevant documentation before the big day and ensure a smooth transition for everyone. 

For, example, you can collect their P45 and bank details to make sure their first payday is prompt and accurate.

Consider a buddy system

Mentorship is a big part of helping new starters settle in at PayFit. We believe introducing a buddy for each new starter helps build those formative relationships between staff and the process helps the member of staff feel included from day one. 

Implementing a buddy system helps with knowledge transfer from the existing employee to the new one. This means the new starter is instantly more engaged and connected to the company.

Empower employees with tech 

Using HR software like PayFit means each employee gets access to their very own employee portal. This portal empowers employees to take ownership of their data, payslips and annual leave requests. Everything is managed through the same platform, making all HR-related processes cohesive, automated and stress-free.

Get feedback from employees

If your onboarding process doesn’t work for your employees, it’s rendered useless. So whether you think your employee onboarding program serves its purpose or not isn’t important. Ask for feedback, even if you’re worried about negative comments. It’s those unbiased experiences that will help you shape a better employee onboarding experience going forward.

What does the future of employee onboarding look like?

Organisations face a lot of competition when it comes to building a workplace culture that attracts and retains top talent. That’s why personalising your onboarding experience via seniority or job role is key to onboarding success.

A one-size-fits-all approach to onboarding severely distances the employee from the company. Instead, companies are starting to use automation to build these personalised experiences. Using employee data, you can create personalised learning pathways to help support and develop each employee.

Other employee onboarding trends to look out for:

• Virtual office tours. This approach to your office tour makes it accessible to every employee, whenever they need it. They can familiarise themselves with your company space before their first day. This reduces the time spent by HR showing each employee around the office.

• Gamified learning experiences. Even something as simple as a visual celebration when onboarding tasks are completed can help engage your employees throughout their onboarding journey. A great example of this is from the project management tool Trello; you can enable confetti celebrations when tasks are completed, giving employees a boost after each task.

• Remote onboarding. With many employees now working more flexible schedules, including remotely or in a hybrid capacity, it’s important your onboarding program can cater to all types of employees. That’s where employee onboarding software comes in handy; everything is digitally stored and managed from a centralised database.

Get off to a strong start with PayFit

Getting your onboarding experience right means everything to your organisation. It boosts productivity, which can improve your bottom line, and it helps you retain fantastic employees, giving you a competitive edge, amongst many other things. 

The good news is that PayFit can help you manage this experience by empowering your employees to self-onboard:

Send employees a pre-start date questionnaire - they can fill out as part of their onboarding, so you can gather all the relevant information you need

Get them to work through their onboarding checklist - this interactive checklist will be the first thing they see when they log on to their employee portal. They can tick off actions, such as uploading documents, as they complete them.

Use PayFit to collect and store important documents safely - as we just mentioned, new hires can use Payfit to upload documents documents such as a copy of their passport using through their secure password-protected portal, so you can skip the long email chains.  

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