Employee Onboarding: Making First Impressions Count

It's your first day in your new job. You walk into the office and spot your name on a 'welcome' sign. The receptionist is expecting you and shows you through. You chat with your friendly new team and find your workstation already set up, complete with branded merchandise and a green plant.

Your team lead starts the day's agenda. You get the low-down on the company's culture, goals and systems. And when it comes to lunch? Your new buddies make sure you don't have to eat alone. How does this make you feel? Excited, motivated, valued?

First impressions matter. A positive employee onboarding experience can increase retention by 80% and productivity by 70%. It creates that positive workplace culture that we believe is crucial for long-term retention, and allows new recruiters to start putting numbers on the board faster, by spending less time  being anxious and unsure about your working practices and how they're going to fit into them.

Here are some ideas to help your new hires hit the ground running:

Streamline the paperwork

Great recruiter onboarding starts the moment the contract is signed. And yet 58% of companies focus on paperwork and processes when their new employee starts. Consider which forms your new hire can fill in before starting. That way you can fill their first day with people time.

A pre-onboarding checklist can help your whole team to prepare. Our list has 13 items on but at its core it includes:

• Ordering a laptop, preparing system log-ins and allocating a desk
• Ordering branded apparel
• Sending a first-day agenda for the new starter, including a CEO presentation and lunch with the team at a restaurant of their choosing

Got any team socials planned during pre-onboarding? Make sure to invite your new colleague.

Start right

Make the first day a day to remember, for all the right reasons. Invite creative suggestions from your team on how to add the 'wow' factor.

HR, Finance and IT often take up big chunks of time. But try to fit in a tour of the office, introductions with the wider team and, if possible, a chat with senior management.

If your senior team are hard to pin down, why not record a video greeting? When I'm away on a new starter's first day, I'll always record a short 2m video welcoming them and promising a sit-down together at a later stage.

30-60-90

Setting clear expectations helps your new recruiters understand what they need to achieve. Set out a 30-60-90 day development plan that defines key milestones and agreed goals. Ask them about their ideas for this role. Talk about review points and available support.

Depending on the size of your company, look at organising departmental inductions. This helps your new hire build a support network and understand how they/their role fit in.

Don't forget to celebrate successes together. You could try customisable real-time TV displays or even event flashes. And your existing team will love it too.

Fresh eyes

New hires can be your greatest asset in identifying opportunities for improvement. Invite them to question existing processes and suggest new ideas. You'll be surprised by what you can learn.

Be clear that feedback should go both ways. Employees who feel heard by managers are 4.6 times more likely to feel empowered to do their best work. Peer mentoring is also a good idea. 87% of companies say that a buddy system helps to speed up the learning process for new team members.

Keep on learning

Creating re-usable training materials and checklists  streamlines the employee onboarding process by freeing up more time for people contact. It also means that you can ask your new recruiters for feedback, look out for incremental improvement, and avoid getting complacent once you do have a set onboarding process in place.

After all, in order for your agency to grow, your recruiters need to continuously improve and work harder, but they can only do so if you do too, and give them the tools and resources they need to do so.

So, ask yourself, "How could your onboarding processes work harder to help your new recruits hit the ground running?"

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Photo by Samuel Zeller and Pablo Gentile on Unsplash