“If you are lucky enough to be someone’s employer, then you have a moral obligation to make sure people do look forward to coming to work in the morning.” – John Mackey
Onboarding is one of the first steps toward building a successful team, so it’s important you start off on the right foot! Between paperwork, software, tours of the office, and learning new names and faces, the first day on the job is overloaded with information. It’s unfair to assume your new teammate will ask enough questions, because most people won’t know what they don’t know until days, weeks, or months into their new role.
Rome wasn’t built in a day! It takes about a year for most employees to feel completely onboarded – which means your role in onboarding should also take about 12 months. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to onboarding a new employee, but consider whether it would be helpful to:
Meetings with supervisors can be a little intimidating, especially as new relationships are forming. However, having these casual conversations to see how they’re progressing in their role helps bring some normalcy to receiving feedback, and creates optimism around one-on-one meetings with their supervisor. Assign an Onboarding Buddy (a peer that they will work closely with) who can schedule check-in meetings, too!
The HR Toolbox contains helpful conversation starters for every stage of onboarding. The HR Toolbox has a checklist for the first 18 months of a new hire’s onboarding experience (including different steps for supervisors and onboarding buddies.) The HR toolbox is a one-stop shop of helpful templates and links to meet all of your onboarding needs.
No matter what level of experience your new hire has, every agency, department, and team has its own set of best practices to learn. Being willing to teach, and having patience and resources readily available, encourages new hires to stay with us long-term, and helps your team find success faster.
Enterprise Talent Development (ETD) offers Skills Development Courses on this topic. Review upcoming scheduled courses on the ETD website.
From Human Resources
