We’ve taken a look at some innovative ways you can add value to the onboarding process in the early days of an employee’s tenure with you—even before he or she actually starts the job—but the process can and should continue to have maximum impact. Here are five additional best practice tips for effective onboarding:
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- Involve senior leaders! Employees don’t just want to get a sense of the colleagues they will be working with but are curious about their leaders as well. Involving senior leaders has a positive impact of employee perception of the onboarding process, ATD has found. Even if senior leaders can’t be part of the official onboarding training sessions, they can take part. Set up a schedule of one-on-one interactions between employees and key leaders they’ll encounter in their jobs. It’s a great way to break the ice, especially for employees who may be inexperienced and intimidated by their superiors.
- Don’t give up too soon. L’Oreal offers an intensive 2-year onboarding process, recognizing that it can take some time before employees feel fully acclimated. Two years may not be the right time frame for your organization, but somewhere between the more typical 2-day and 2-year point lies the sweet spot!
- Make sure they fit. Zappos famously uses their onboarding process to screen out those who are not truly a good fit for the organization. After an intensive 5-week training program, employees are offered $2,000 if they decide not to remain employed. Amazon, which owns Zappos, has taken it a step further with their “Pay to Quit” program. “Once a year, we offer to pay our associates to quit,” Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos told Time Magazine. “The first year the offer is made, it’s for $2,000. Then it goes up $1,000 a year until it reaches $5,000. The headline on the offer is ‘Please Don’t Take This Offer.’”
- Gather feedback. In a spirit of continuous improvement, don’t miss the opportunity to ask employees what they thought of the onboarding process and whether they have recommendations for improvement—not only immediately after the training but also once they’ve been on a job and have time to really consider the value of the training they received.
- Offer redos. Employees are understandably overwhelmed during onboarding, especially if the process is crammed into a few short days before they really understand their roles at the company. And, things change! Because of this, don’t limit onboarding opportunities just to new employees. Old pros can need refreshers too.
Onboarding is key to ensuring success for employees and helping them quickly learn the ropes of the company and the individuals they’ll be working with. Take steps to make sure you’re thinking creatively about ways you can go above and beyond the traditional to have a measurable impact on employee satisfaction, engagement, and tenure with your organization.