Ultimate Guide to Employee Onboarding

Employee onboarding is an essential step of the entire workforce-building process. If your The organisation ends up with a dedicative, hardworking workforce that adheres to its cultural rules and regulations, nothing can stop it from imminent success.

However, onboarding the right employees is a challenge on its own. You have to be careful about who you hire, how you hire them, and how you handle them to meet your Expectations.

This guide is all about the onboarding process — from the beginning to the end. And for clear understanding, I’ve divided the guide into three phases.

Let’s dive in.

Phase 1: Finding & hiring the candidate

The first step is to find the right candidate and bring them over to your organisation. You start by laying down your requirements and needs into a document.

Go looking for the ideal candidate on different platforms like social media and job boards. Depending on the type of open position, you could also look into freelancing platforms to find contract-based workers.

Conduct an initial analysis to narrow down your search bucket. Then, take initial interviews to trim down the number of candidates even further. Finally, hire the person that meets your expectations and sign the contract.

Phase 2: Making your new hire a part of your Organisation

It's recommended to schedule the first week for the employees. By doing this, you save yourself time down the line and use this time to go through what the employee will be doing, who they will be talking to for anything they may need, where they will need to go, etc.

New hires don’t come pre-trained, and they often lack position-specific skills that they need to have while working for your firm. That’s where the next phase comes into play.

Initialise the "buddy program."

When new employees join your company, they may have many questions popping up in their minds. However, they don’t feel comfortable asking these questions directly from the manager or other leadership members. That’s where the buddy program comes in.

You assign a buddy, a close friend, to the new hire. The buddy is usually an employee whose position is more relative to the new employee. It enables both of them to bond at a personal level. In the majority of cases, the new hire would feel comfortable asking questions from the buddy.

Make sure that all the new hires know where all the facilities are as they may need a cup of coffee or the nearest place to eat, and therefore its important to inform them ahead of time.

Position-specific training

As said earlier, employees don’t come pre-trained, and you have to hook them up with personalised training programs to build a skillset valuable for your organisation.

As an HR representative, you can inform the training program members about the new hire’s strengths and weaknesses and suggest training sessions best suited for them.

Phase 3: Performance management and dismissals

You have the right to analyse your new hire’s performance and dismiss them if they’re not performing expectedly.

Probation period

The probation period is the first few months of the employment when you test out the new hire’s performance and see if they’re an excellent fit for your needs. If they’re not, you can dismiss them with little to no notice depending on what the contract says. In most organisations, the probation period comprises three months, but it may vary from company to company.

Performance management

Performance management is the process of calculating an employee’s performance and taking steps to improve it. However, their performance may also be suffering due to their sub-par skillset and not just their efforts.

If the new hire is performing underwhelmingly, you have the option to dismiss them.

Dismissing the employee

You could arrange a meeting between the employee and their department’s manager before the actual dismissal. Empower the employee to communicate any solid reasons they have for underperforming. If their reasons are valid, it might be a better way to solve their issues instead of dismissing them altogether.

However, if there seems to be no tangible way to fix the hindered performance, it’s ideal to terminate the contract and dismiss the employee.

Key takeaways

Employee onboarding is a sensitive process; it takes many resources, including time and money, to proceed. You have to make sure you’re making the right decisions during the entirety of the onboarding process.

This guide gives you an insight into all the three major phases of the onboarding process.