Onboarding process

Employee onboarding is mostly referred to new employee’s socialization within the company. Employee onboarding workflow is a mechanism and set of procedures defined by the company to help new employees socialize, acquire necessary skills and knowledge, and get acquainted with the company’s culture and procedures.

According to an HR experts, employee onboarding should be not just formal procedure, but a strategic process lasting at least one year. High retention of employees is highly dependent on how new employees get on during the first few months of work. Employee onboarding workflow helps new hires to integrate into the organization and become effective part of the team.

Prior to starting a formal onboarding program and developing employee onboarding workflow , HR and management of the company should take into account several key points:

1. When will onboarding begin?
2. How long will the employee onboarding process last?
3. What do you want new employees to feel and what impressions to have on the first day of employment?
4. What would be the role will HR play in the onboarding process?
5. Who else should be part of onboarding, like direct managers, co-workers, anyone else?
6. What should new hires learn about corporate culture and work environment within the company?
7. What goals do you set for newcomers? Do they differ from the goals of the rest employees?
8. How do you plan to feedback on employee onboarding program and measure its success?

During the hiring process

Recruiting and onboarding processes are separate workflows, though they often overlap. Recruiters and the recruiting process is the prospect employee’s first touch point of your company. They form the first impression about the employer during the hiring process, so every detail matters.

New employees get their first impressions of your company during your hiring process, so make sure to create the experience  for them.

• Provide a clear job description with specific list of employee’s responsibilities;
• Communicate how your hiring process is structured and how long each step takes;
• Follow up and communicate with applicants on each step of the hiring process;
• Make sure that applicants have your attention and get answers to any questions;
• Provide applicants with detailed information on how professional reference and background checks are performed in your company;
• Provide clear and polite feedback letters in both negative and positive hiring results.

Even when the hiring process is over, onboarding should not finish on setting up the desk and issuing passes to the office. You could extend the onboarding workflow up to 6-12 months to harvest more of its benefits. The latter include workplace learning, performance monitoring and improvements and keeping higher retention rate by transforming your company to and continuous learning experience.

Each company is unique and each company develops its own employee onboarding workflow processes. PeopleForce provides flexibility to set up automated employee onboarding workflow according to you company processes. You can define different onboarding workflows for different employee levels or even departments. Set up once, use unlimited and forget about excel sheets and paperwork.