New Employees Need Onboarding

Unless you’ve only worked in a family business you grew up in, where the lines between work and family time blurred, we all remember being new to a job. The first day can be intimidating! Not only do you need to learn your job duties and make a good impression, but you also have to meet many new people and figure out where the break room is! That’s why every new employee needs onboarding.

Onboarding may sound like corporate speak and feel like something only big companies need to do, but in reality, it’s very down-to-earth. It could easily be replaced with words like introducing, explaining, and paperwork.

And onboarding can be the difference between whether an employee is happy (and thus retained) or you need to refill a position every few months.

Here are some of the basic tenets of an effective new employee onboarding program.

Paperwork

Don’t get on the wrong side of regulations.

Every new employee needs to fill out paperwork so you can properly file their taxes, include them in unemployment insurance, and prove a legal right to work.

Examples of required forms in every workplace are the I-9, tax forms and job applications.

Other forms you can consider are items like emergency contacts, non-disclosure, and anything else relevant to your particular business.

Handbook

Your company should have a handbook. Handbooks give an opportunity to share company values and culture as well as to officially provide resources and guide personnel.

Your handbook should also include regulations, rules, expectations, and consequences.

Employees can’t succeed if they don’t know what they’re supposed to do.

Job Duties

Speaking of setting expectations, everyone working for your company should have a job description. You’d be amazed how often employees get reprimanded for not completing tasks they never knew were part of their job duties!

Even if you have a small business where everyone pitches in, you should include the specific tasks essential for a particular position as well as other duties where people often help each other.

A good catchall to include is “other tasks may be assigned as necessary” or something similar.

Introductions

Many employers, department heads, and employees at companies large and small say the same thing, “it’s the people that make this place special.”

So, don’t leave out people when you introduce a new person. Introduce new employees to the other people and departments in the building. Tell them not only who everyone is but what they do.

Most importantly, tell them who to go to for specific things. For example, who do they report to, who do they collaborate with, and does anyone report to them?

A Physical Tour

Don’t forget to tell the new person where the bathroom is!

You’d be surprised how sometimes the things we all take for granted get left out. However, a key aspect of helping someone feel welcome is giving them the lay of the land.

Do you have community snacks? Let new employees know. Otherwise, they might miss out on months of pretzels and camaraderie.

Are there any designated smoking areas? Introduce them. It’s always easier to tell someone they can’t smoke outside of a door before they’ve done it than it is to correct them afterward.

Ideally, provide a whole building tour, and if you’re not sure where to start, ask current employees what they wish they had found out sooner!

Ready for New Employee Onboarding?

As you can see, onboarding doesn’t have to be complex to be effective. Most of it is being considerate of someone entering a new space.

If you include these basic steps when bringing on a new employee, you will already be ahead of the curve in small business hiring practices and employee satisfaction.