- 69% of employees choose to stay in the company as a result of onboarding program.
- It takes 1 year for an average new employee to become fully productive.
- 49% of millennials claim they need a better onboarding process.
In this white paper you’ll get:
- 10 tips on better onboarding with infographics.
- Best practices from global brands (IBM, Toyota, Master Card, etc.).
- 2 big onboarding mistakes you are likely to make.
1. 10 Tips on New Hire
Orientation & Onboarding
A New Employees
Welcome Guide
2. Start Onboarding Before
Day One
Introduce New Employee to
Your Team
Emphasize Company’s
Current Projects and Goals
Instruct on All Company’s
Systems
Use 30-Days Checklist
Assign a Mentor
Invest in Training
Try Gamification
Provide Some Branded Gifts
Invite New Employee for
Lunch
TOP 10 ONBOARDING TIPS:
Download this slide in JPG
3. Explore These Cases in the Paper
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World-renowned brands are quite aware that
employees make up an important part of their success.
Find out how these giants onboard their newcomers:
4. Why Do You Need an Onboarding Program?
35% of the US companies spend nothing on
onboarding new employees. Hope, you are not among
them at least for these reasons:
of employees choose to stay in the
company for up to three years as a result
of onboarding program.
of millennials claim they need a better
onboarding process for new hires.
an average new employee needs to
become fully productive.
If you want new employee to become a productive
part of your team, make his onboarding in the
company easy and comfortable using our top 10 tips
and best practices.
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69%
49%
1 year
1 in 6
Employees quit or consider quitting
a new job due to ineffective onboarding
5. Onboarding starts before the Day One in a job.
1. Provide the new employee in advance with
information about the company, its main products,
values and internal rules.
2. Phone the newcomer a day before to confirm the
details: arrival time, logistics, parking place. Assign a
colleague to meet him.
3. Send the new employee his agenda on the day one in
the office, so that he knows your expectations.
Bank of America’s onboarding process includes
orientation program. New hires receive a
welcome package and are guided end-to-end
through the onboarding process with guides and
a website that serves as a ‘one-stop-shop’.
There are options available from instructor-led
learning and web-based training to eBooks,
videos and everything in between.*
Start Onboarding Before Day One
CULTURE
CASE STUDY. BANK OF AMERICA
LOGISTICS VALUES HISTORY
* SHRM Foundation’s Effective Practice Guidelines Series, 2010. Onboarding New Employees:
Maximizing Success / https://www.shrm.org/about/foundation/products/Documents/Onboarding%
20EPG-%20FINAL.pdf
5
TIP 1.
6. When a new employee comes in the office and you
use a “sink or swim” strategy, that’s definitely not
right. No one wants to be a stranger.
1. Send information to your team about the
new employee with his photo and professional
background. If you add the newcomer’s
interests into this document, your colleagues
will surely find something in common.
2. Introduce new employee in a creative way:
add to his profile “true” and “false” statements,
so that others get interested and engaged.
Introduce New Employee to Your Team
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, IBM managers
realized that new employees often bring fresh
ideas and help to develop the business. So, they
started personally meeting newcomers on the day
one, and introducing them to the entire office
team.*
CASE. IBM
*SHRM Foundation’s Effective Practice Guidelines Series, 2010. Onboarding New Employees:
Maximizing Success / https://www.shrm.org/about/foundation/products/Documents/Onboarding%
20EPG-%20FINAL.pdf
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TIP 2.
7. Save an hour of your time or assign a member of the
new employee’s department to tell the newcomer
about the company’s processes, main stakeholders
and current projects. That is the easiest way to make
the new employee familiar with the situation and
involve him into working process.
In case you don’t arrange such a current projects’
introduction, you or your team can spend half of a
day answering questions “What is that?”, “Who are
these people?”, “What’s my role here?”
What are
the current
projects?
Who are we
working with?
What result
we want to
achieve?
What is a new
employee’s
role?
What are the
deadlines?
5 W’s Basis
Emphasize Company’s Current Projects and Goals
At Birchbox, a group of new employees goes
through “Life of a Birchbox”. It is a kind of training
program that provides newcomers with useful
information on everything that is going on at the
company.*
CASE. BIRCHBOX
*Getting New Employees Off to a Good Start/ Bryan Burkhart/ http://boss.blogs.nytimes.
com/2013/03/13/getting-employees-off-to-a-good-start/?_r=1
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TIP 3.
8. 1. Don’t let your company look unprofessional –
prepare the new employee’s table with all
necessary equipment in advance and ask IT-
specialists to get settings ready.
2. Assign your IT-masters instruct the new hire
on company’s programs and software: how to
use, what are possibilities, what are the
buttons never to push…
3. Already have internal social network? Invite
the new employee and show its interface.
This process is not just about giving
newcomer a password – that’s the first brick
in building communication.
Instruct on All Company’s Systems
MasterCard Inc. pays much attention to new
employees. Newcomers receive a welcoming email
with links to videos from the CEO, and access to the
application where they can fill in their professional
details, upload a photo, read about training
opportunities and prepare the papers for starting a
deposit account in the company.*
CASE. MASTERCARD INC.
*Onboarding: Tips and Best Practices for Bringing New Workers on Board/ Sara Fisher Gale/ http:
//www.workforce.com/articles/19977-onboarding-tips-and-best-practices-for-bringing-new-
workers-on-board
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TIP 4.
9. First 30 days in the company can be presented as
milestones the newcomer has to go through:
1. acquaintance with the office teams
2. every week’s lunch with colleagues
3. learning about company’s products
4. necessary software
5. safety procedures
After a month, review the list and discuss what was
done and what wasn’t.
Certainly, you can extend 30-day checklist and
include, say, a one-hour meeting with the company’s
management. They can explain company’s values
and mission in more personal and motivating way.
Use 30-Day Checklist
Toyota’s vice president Tim Platt says that such
a checklist allows managers and HR-specialists
to find out how the new employee can
professionally develop. What is more, that’s a
perfect way to regard employee’s goals and
achievements.*
CASE. TOYOTA
*Get New IT Pros Up to Speed Fast With This Onboarding Checklist/ Rich Hein/ http://www.cio.
com/article/2384870/careers-staffing/get-new-it-pros-up-to-speed-fast-with-this-onboarding-
checklist.html
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TIP 5.
10. A new employee will always ask questions, and you
can’t answer them all at once. Provide a mentor that
will clarify the organizational rules to the newcomer
and answer his questions. That’s crucial to have a
person to ask in a new working environment.
A mentor can drop some useful hints to help new
employee to avoid troubles that can occur during the
first time. That is also a possibility for the new
employee to integrate faster into your company.
Assign a Mentor
IBM provides newcomers with the Assimilation
Process that includes three parts: affirming,
beginning and connecting.
Affirming part consists of welcoming the new
employee, preparing a workplace and assigning a
mentor. This person answers employee’s
questions, instructs on company’s software and
tools usage and transfers the intangible company’
s values.*
CASE. IBM
*SHRM Foundation’s Effective Practice Guidelines Series, 2010. Onboarding New Employees:
Maximizing Success / https://www.shrm.org/about/foundation/products/Documents/Onboarding%
20EPG-%20FINAL.pdf
MENTOR
INTEGRATION
COOPERATION
COMPANY’S
VALUES
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TIP 6.
11. Training often is the most costly part of onboarding
process — but it doesn’t have to be.
Consider replacing initial instructor-based trainings with
interactive online courses. You will save budget, while
new employees will be fully engaged in eLearning.
Create an individual training program that allows a new
hire to close his most crucial skill gaps.
That’s easy: test newcomer’s knowledge and
automatically get recommended training program.
You can find all these features and even more in
Eduson. Try it for free and see how training becomes a
part of the successful onboarding.
EMC created “Fast Start” online-program for
employees that provides all the needed
information about the company. What is more, it
includes the so-called “roadmap to success”, that
shows the new employee steps that allow him
grow in the company.*
CASE. EMC
*Case Study: Fast Start – EMC’s Onboarding Program/ Carol Morrison/ http://www.i4cp.
com/productivity-blog/2013/06/11/case-study-fast-start-emcs-onboarding-program
Invest in Training
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TIP 7.
12. If you give the new employee a huge book about your
company or tell him all the company’s goals and
values in one lecture, that won’t stay in his head for
long. But if you make it interactive and intriguing,
integration into the company’s life turns out to be
memorable and engaging.
Put an employee into a game context and let him
perform his future duties, learning through mistakes.
Interactive simulations bridge the gap between
theory and practice and obviously demonstrate where
and how you can apply this new knowledge.
DBS Bank created an induction training for new
recruits. The course is based on a travel theme
and is driven by a mentor.
With a boarding pass, the learner starts from bank’
s global branches, goes further to the corporate
HO and eventually finishes at the office desk
allocated to him. During the journey, he learns
about organization values, internal systems, and
policies that govern the bank culture.
To maintain learner’s interest, developers applied
Stereoscopic 3D effects to add the element of
inquisitiveness to the induction program.*
CASE. DBS BANK
*Best practice onboarding - trends and examples in managing talent acquisition/ http://www.
slideshare.net/MCROPPER/best-practice-onboarding-trends-and-examples-in-managing-talent-
acquisition
Try Gamification
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TIP 8:
13. There is a very small possibility that you hired
someone who doesn’t like gifts. It’s the most
obvious but still very pleasant way to show you
value your new hires.
1. Think of little things which can be helpful in
the office everyday life: branded notebooks,
pens and laptop-stickers. You will certainly
feel like a team member when everyone
comes on a meeting with the same notebook
as yours.
2. If you want to be more creative, consider
such gifts as the company’s founder
favourite book, box of sweets or gift
certificate.
Provide Some Branded Gifts
Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency provides
newcomers with branded red-colour boxes with
David Ogilvy’s famous book “The Eternal Pursuit
of Unhappiness” and his eight habits of highly
creative communities.*
CASE. OGILVY & MATHER
*Check Out the Amazing Welcome Kit This Ogilvy Office Gives Each New Hire/ Tim Nudd/ http:
//www.adweek.com/adfreak/check-out-amazing-welcome-kit-ogilvy-office-gives-each-new-
hire-164196
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TIP 9.
14. Lunch is a perfect opportunity to put employee in a
comfortable friendly atmosphere and introduce to
colleagues. When having meals, people can talk on
subjects not related to work such as hobbies,
interests, travelling experience.
That’s a situation when the newcomer can find
something in common with his colleagues and
become a valuable member of the office team.
A Warby Parker’s developer invented the “Lunch
Roulette”. That’s an application that every week
randomly chooses two groups of four people that
go for lunch together. All people are from different
departments.*
CASE. WARBY PARKER
*Getting New Employees Off to a Good Start/ Bryan Burkhart/ http://boss.blogs.nytimes.
com/2013/03/13/getting-employees-off-to-a-good-start/?_r=1
Invite New Employees for Lunch
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TIP 10.
[In]troduction — LinkedIn’s new hire orientation
program includes collective lunch for all new team
members. Usually there is a dedicated table with
cheerful balloons where new employees can sit
and eat together.
The lunch culminates with a session called
“Investing [In] You”, covering the typical
orientation topics like corporate, medical and
financial benefits, etc.**
CASE. LINKEDIN
**7 Elements of a Good New Hire Orientation / Stephanie Bevegni / https://business.linkedin.
com/talent-solutions/blog/2015/03/7-elements-of-a-good-new-hire-orientation
15. Every employee is a unique member of your stuff
with personal experience, view and style of life. If
you use one approach to all the employees, it is
likely to be ineffective.
To overcome such a mistake you can assess the
newcomer’s knowledge and skill gaps and
arrange an individual training for him.
Mistake 2. One-Size-Fits-All Strategy
2 Big Mistakes When Onboarding Employees
When a new employee comes to the company, he
needs to know as much as possible about it.
However, if you try to provide all the information
on the day one, a pour employee will only have an
unclear mix of safety instructions combined with
current company projects in his head.
Onboarding is not a one-day process — provide
the new employee with some time to
comfortably “settle down” in the company.
Mistake 1. Overloading with Information
Even during perfectly planned onboarding some
troubles can occur. Try to avoid the next two
mistakes, and the newcomer will really appreciate it!
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