When it comes to welcoming a new employee into your company, you want to do what you can to make them feel part of the team. You want it to be a smooth transition where they can get to know everyone, where they can learn the ropes and feel integrated in your business. Having a successful onboarding process as opposed to just throwing them in the deep end can be a real help when it comes to making their time with you a success. In this article, we share some of our top tips on how you can successfully onboard new employees into your business and what you can do to make it an easy transition.

Create an orientation program.

An orientation program is a great way to onboard new recruits to your business. This is a specific set of activities that can help your new hires settle into their roles and make sure they feel comfortable at work. This could include giving them a tour of the office and workplace, introducing other team members and providing them with the tools they need to get the job done. You could provide them with things such as their own mug, notebook, and desk and show them where things such as the tea and coffee and staff room is.

Ensure they know your policies and legalities. 

Either within the orientation or as a standalone procedure, you need to make sure your employees know the policies and legalities of your company. Have handbook documents they can read through and sign that helps them learn your processes. They will need to know the tech side of stuff such as how to avoid being scammed via email or on the computer, how to protect IP address and other technical information. This will keep your company secure and ensure they know what to do in the case of being hacked. Let them know of any rules for your company they need to be aware of and how things such as holiday or sick days work.

Establish goals and guidelines.

When you have a new employee start with you, it’s a good idea to establish goals and guidelines of what they want to achieve when working with you. This will help ensure their longevity at the company and you’ll both be on the same page for helping them get where they want to be. You can let them know the steps they need to take in order to hit these aspirations and ensure there are regular check in meetings to see how they are progressing.

Have a welcome lunch with the team .

One of the biggest parts of having new employees is ensuring they feel welcomed in and part of the team. If you have a small team, you can take the whole company out for lunch to get them to know the new recruit. If you have a larger team, it might be better to just get them out with the people they will be immediately working with. If you don’t decide to do lunch, why not take them for a team building day? Anything you can do to encourage them to all get to know each other better will help make for a more cohesive team that works better together.

Get their feedback .

Feedback, both good and bad, is always useful for you to know. Check in with your new recruit after their first day, their first week , and then their first month to see how they’re getting on. You should ask if there’s anything that isn’t going as expected and what is working well. This will ensure you can change things or lead them in the right direction so they feel it’s all working out. Use any negative feedback to help make it a more positive experience going forward both for them and for other new recruits. 

These are just a few things you can do to help successfully onboard your new employees. Getting them to feel part of the team and know the different processes is a really important step in giving a positive welcome. The better they feel right from the off, the more likely they are to want to stay with your company and put in a better performance. This means a positive onboarding can make a real difference for both you and them. What are some top tips you have for successfully onboarding new employees to your business? Let us know in the comments below, we’d love to hear from you!