Top 3 Practices for Onboarding New Hires

Correctly onboarding new starters is a critical moment, and how you build an onboarding programme can significantly impact how your new hires’ perform.

Creating an impactful onboarding process can enable your new hires to improve their employee retention by 82%, but sadly, only 12% of organisations are building a successful onboarding process. 

Whether you’re new to the onboarding process or you’re a seasoned veteran, check out these five best practices you can do to get your new hires ramped up faster and deliver better results.

Creating an experience from the first point of contact

Onboarding doesn’t begin on an employee’s first day. Instead, it starts when they first arrive on your website to apply for the job.

Top tips:

• Your website must clearly communicate your values and ethos, creating a positive image of your organisation.
• Always stay in close contact with all candidates throughout the hiring process. Make sure they are always in the loop and always feel important.
• Once they have made it to an interview on-site or remote, make sure they feel welcomed and excited to speak with you. They should be left eager to work at your company.

After any contact with the candidate, whether through a phone call or in-person, follow up. Send an email to follow up on your meeting with a summary and next steps. You’re allowing the candidate to continue engaging with you and feeling important to your organisation, which can help you stop those pesky competitors from stealing them.

Communicate with your new hires before their first day.

Once the new hire receives and agrees to the job offer, you’re not finished. You have to keep continuous contact with the new hire between the acceptance and their first day on the job. How engaged do you think they’ll be when they start if you don’t?

Top tips:

• Have all necessary paperwork in check before the first day, so they’re not sitting there for hours filling it all in.
• Welcome the new hire on social media platforms. For example, LinkedIn. So all other colleagues can welcome them to the team.
• Hiring managers should directly contact the new hire to welcome them in. This will help create a good starting relationship, ultimately allowing them to pick up things quicker and be less reluctant to ask questions about the role. 

Set up current high performers as mentors for the new hires

During the onboarding process, new hires must observe high-performing sales representatives to understand the system and techniques firsthand.

Top tips:

• During their time within the introduction and training period, ask one of your best reps to give a practical example of a call or meeting and get the new hires to analyse and work out how they can adapt it into their style.
• Throughout their first two weeks within the organisation, the new employee can shadow the top performer to learn their day-to-day regime and valuable tips and tricks.