Employee onboarding
What is employee onboarding?
Employee onboarding is a planned process aimed at introducing a new employee to a new workplace so that they can start performing their duties efficiently and comfortably. This process usually begins from the moment the contract is signed, or even earlier – already at the recruitment stage – and usually lasts from several weeks to several months. The purpose of onboarding is not only to familiarize the employee with the procedures in force in the company, but also to integrate the employee with the team, work environment, organizational culture and company strategy.
The importance of the onboarding process in an organization
Effective onboarding plays a key role in building employee engagement, loyalty, and productivity. Its goal is to efficiently adapt a newly hired person to a given organization, so that they know from the beginning what is expected of them, how the company works and what its principles, goals and values are – including the company’s mission, work culture and scope of responsibilities in a given position.
An important element of onboarding is the preparation of the workplace, granting access, providing the necessary tools, documents and information concerning, for example, leave requests, security rules or the scope of compliance. Onboarding also includes health and safety training, occupational medicine tests and personnel formalities.
What are the stages of onboarding?
The onboarding process can be divided into several key stages:
- Pre-onboarding – preparing the process before the start of the first day of work, e.g. sending a welcome email, inviting to a meeting with the team, sharing materials about the company and the company’s organizational culture.
- The first day of work – welcoming the employee, showing around the office, introducing team members and key people, training in formal and positional areas.
- Adaptation process – supporting new responsibilities in learning, helping with social integration, building relationships with future co-workers, discussing tools used in everyday work.
- Onboarding completion – setting goals, providing feedback, and gathering conclusions on the implementation process, often after a few weeks or months.
In modern organizations, onboarding is also carried out as part of employer branding activities, which are to show the new company as an attractive employer, from the first contact with the candidate.
Benefits and challenges – how to conduct onboarding planning
The onboarding carried out brings numerous benefits to the company:
- faster achievement of full efficiency by the new employee,
- reduction of turnover in the first weeks of work,
- building relationships in the team,
- positive impact on the employer’s image,
- facilitate human resource management in the long term.
Challenges related to onboarding include, m.in: failure to adapt the process to the specifics of a given organization, lack of standardization of onboarding processes, insufficient involvement of superiors or lack of regular feedback, which can reduce employee motivation and negatively affect their relations with the company.
Onboarding is much more than just dealing with formal issues. It is a comprehensive process that supports a newly hired person in a new company in gaining the necessary information, skills and contacts that are needed to properly perform the tasks entrusted to them. Proper onboarding planning, tailored to the needs of the employee and the organization, has a positive impact on their effectiveness, engagement and decision to stay in their organization for longer.
