Do You Know the Difference Between Ineffective and Effective Onboarding?

Everyone gets a case of tunnel vision occasionally. Stuck heads-down in our own work, we forget how valuable an outside perspective can be. We need other people to help us find the mistakes we miss, whether you’re writing an article or employing more effective onboarding at your company. If you want another look at your onboarding, consider us your second opinion. We may not be able to look at your onboarding directly, but we’ve provided some guidelines about the differences between effective and ineffective onboarding when it comes to some of the most important aspects of hiring new employees.

When it Comes to Timeframes

Ineffective Onboarding: You want everything done on the first day. You can’t afford to have your new hire stuck in the drudgery of getting to know the workplace, their coworkers, or what their role at the company will be outside the job description. Companies with bad onboarding tend to have a very narrow view of the roles they’re hiring for and won’t implement onboarding that allows the new hire to see themselves as someone performing a job for the company. It’s part of why 60% of companies don’t set onboarding milestones for their employees. They don’t think it will matter as long as the candidate can do the job.

Effective Onboarding: You know getting an employee up to speed takes time, and what you do as you’re teaching a new employee the ropes of the job does matters. The first few months of an employee’s time at a company are crucial, and guiding new hires on a high-performance path is a leading sign of effective onboarding. The biggest thing 53% of people who left their job within six months of getting hired cited as a problem? “Review and feedback of early contributions.” You can’t give an employee a set of instructions and leave them alone because good employees can and will do more than follow them.

When it Comes to Paperwork

Ineffective Onboarding: You hand an employee their W4s, i-9s or 1099s on their first day and leave them to it. This is isn’t a terrible idea, per se (you should always make sure your employee has their paperwork done). It’s just ineffective. There are much better ways of handling compliance, and the faster you finish new hire paperwork, the more time you have to get through that new employee onboarding checklist (you have one of those, right?).

Effective Onboarding: You make sure paperwork is never a concern, for both the company and the employee. The candidate fills out the paperwork before the first day, which many companies advise their employees to do. Because all of the paperwork is online, candidates have access to automatic form-filling; for example, they entered their name, birthdate and SSN on the first page, so they don’t have to fill it in again – the platform automates it for them. This reduces the amount of time employees spend on forms, then you can focus on the other parts of your new hire’s introduction to the workplace. 

When it Comes to Cost

Ineffective Onboarding: You take the easy route. You don’t want to spend on any sort of onboarding because it’s not worth it. “We’re a great company,” you might think, “we don’t need to jump through all the hoops others do. We’ll hire so well everyone will be productive!” That’s a nice dream to have, but the reality is that those companies are going to suffer the costs later in a form of increased turnover and lower employee morale.

Effective Onboarding: You make all of the appropriate stops. The best things in life are free, but there are plenty of good things worth paying for, including effective onboarding. When you pay for onboarding, you leave a good first impression on your new employees, and this is crucial to developing the kinds of relationships that build loyal employees. Spending on onboarding now will develop your employees faster, make them more productive, and pave the way for longevity. In essence, effective onboarding pays for itself.

So can you tell the difference? The differences are sometimes obvious, but there’s a fine line between ineffective onboarding due to lack of budget and due to a short-sighted view of the problem. But once you have someone else taking a look at what you’re doing (or offering helpful advice), you should be able to do everything you can to ensure your onboarding is as effective as possible.

Ready to transform your onboarding process to be as effective as it can be? Contact us for a demo of Click Boarding, employee onboarding software, to see how we can improve new hire engagement and efficiency.

Do You Know the Difference Between Ineffective and Effective Onboarding?