5 Productivity-Boosting Tips for Onboarding New Employees

The importance of onboarding new employees cannot be overstated.

Training and onboarding set the stage for an employee’s future performance, and the data shows it.

New employees who participate in well-structured onboarding programs are 69% more likely to stay at a company up to 3 years.

Given the fact that organizational turnover costs can reach 300% of that employee’s salary, it should be shocking that some companies spend zero dollars on onboarding.

Below, we’ll look at a few problems associated with poor onboarding, then explore 5 productivity-boosting tips to make your onboarding more effective.

Dive Deeper: How Poor Onboarding Can Become Your New Hire’s Worst Nightmare

Poor onboarding causes big problems

Onboarding is like a first impression — you can only make it once.

If you make the wrong impression, fixing it can take serious time and money. Then again, if onboarding misses the mark, employees are likely to leave anyways…

There are a number of problems that result from bad onboarding programs. A few of the biggest:

• Bad onboarding drains money from your company’s bottom line
• New employees become less productive and less engaged
• Motivation and morale plummet
• Turnover rises, and the costs of recruiting new hires increases

Of course, a good onboarding program isn’t a cure-all. But it does go a long way towards improving workplace culture, turnover rates, and hiring-related business expenses.

5 tips for creating a successful new hire onboarding plan

Onboarding is critical…

If you want to contribute to a better work environment, get better results for your company, and help employees succeed.

Here are a few productivity-boosting tips to help you do just that:

1. Create a formal onboarding program

Formal onboarding is critical for adequately getting your new hire prepared in their role and fitting into the company culture.

On the other hand, in an informal onboarding program, employees get pushed into their job, play it by ear, and fly by the seat of their pants. Needless to say, informal programs don’t bode well for the future of that new hire.

Formal programs, however, are the opposite.

They provide guidelines, policies, and procedures. They help employees adjust to their jobs and their new workplace. They assist with job tasks and socialization.

Create a formal onboarding program to get the best results.

2. Take advantage of digital learning solutions

Digital training is more effective, more affordable, and more productive than traditional classroom-style training.

Perhaps this is one reason why “e-learning” methods continue to grow in popularity.

Digital Adoption Platforms (DAPs), learning management software, and other online training solutions should be explored by every onboarding professional. Tools that enable contextual learning allow users to learn new software while they perform tasks via on-screen guidance and real-time support. 

By making use of innovative training methods — such as in-app training and on-demand learning — they make training more relevant and useful than ever before.

3. Use training plan templates 

Employee training plan templates can be a huge help when onboarding new employees. They provide the basic outlines and structure, upon which you can build customized training and orientation.

Training managers have a lot on their plate. With a template to guide them, they can successfully integrate the new hire into the team, teach them the relevant information, and empower employees to become productive faster.

4. Personalize training as much as possible

This is particularly important if you use training plan templates. Remember, these are meant to serve merely as a guide. Each employee requires a personalized approach to training based on their learning style and responsibilities in their role.

The best way to personalize your approach to onboarding is simply sitting down with each employee and asking them how they learn most effectively, how they prefer to receive feedback, and the reinforcement mechanisms that work best for them.

5. Measure your onboarding program

Metrics and feedback are vital to understanding your program.

Employee KPIs can give you a quantitative measure of onboarding effectiveness, as an employee’s ability to fulfill their duties is a reflection of how they were trained.

However, don’t just use numbers. Qualitative feedback from the new hire him or herself is also important. Follow up with employees throughout the process and ask if they have any suggestions for improving the onboarding.

Better onboarding produces higher productivity

Effective onboarding is a win-win. It helps employees acclimate to their new role, reduce stress and nerves, and do more interesting work faster. For employers, it enables your new hires to become meaningful contributors much earlier on.