The Top 10 Onboarding Tips For Smooth & Successful Employee Onboarding

Onboarding is the process of acclimating new hires to your business’s routines, culture, and climate. Small businesses might need some onboarding tips to make the process smoother for everyone involved because when a new employee joins the team, onboarding efficiently might be the key to employee retention.

The reality for employers is that it’s expensive to lose workers, and in today’s hiring landscape, smooth onboarding is an opportunity to set expectations and set up all employees for success in your company.

Here are some tips on how to make that onboarding process as easy as possible.

10 Practical Onboarding Tips For Businesses

Small businesses can use these 10 onboarding tips to better prepare new hires. These are practical ways to guide new employees through required paperwork and documentation in addition to information on how to navigate the ins and outs of your company culture.

When new employees finish with onboarding, they should have completed any final legal requirements, adopted a full understanding of the company and job description, and know where to go to ask questions in the future.

Tip #1: Create & Implement An Onboarding Plan

It might sound simple, but the first step is to recognize that your small business needs an onboarding plan and to sit down and put together a thoughtful, organized, and comprehensive onboarding process for all new employees. If you are starting from scratch, it might help to think about Professor Tayla N. Bauer’s 4 Cs of Onboarding, which include: Compliance, Clarification, Culture, and Connection. Professor Bauer explains that when it comes to onboarding, the four Cs are listed in the order of the most important (compliance) to the least important (connection) — although, each of the 4 Cs is ultimately crucial to employee retention.

Create a list of important compliance issues and all required legal paperwork needed for employment; move to what the employee might need to clarify about their job, job description, daily expectations, workflow, or other work-related issues, demonstrate what the culture of the company is like and offer the new employee a chance to connect. Using this model, any small business can plan what onboarding might look like.

Tip #2: Assign A Mentor/Provide A Colleague To Help With The Process

Starting a new job is overwhelming. It’s better to have a new friend or mentor to help guide the way. One of the best ways to onboard someone smoothly is to give the new employee a person as their point of contact for all their questions and initial concerns. This person could be someone designed to model the workplace and be available to assist with everything from job duties to practical questions (how do I take PTO? What do evaluations look like here? Who is the leadership team and what are their roles?), and more.

Tip #3: Plan A Special Welcome For Day One

All new employees are a little bit scared, anxious, and vulnerable on their first day. One onboarding tip is to create a special welcome for your new employee to make them feel at home. This can look like different things depending on your company culture and climate. Are you a casual and relaxed company? Your welcome could reflect that vibe. Put together a basket of company swag or take the new team member out to a special lunch. Part of the onboarding process on day one should be about the celebration of joining the community.

Tip #4: Tailor Onboarding To Meet Each New Employee’s Needs

There should be a component in your onboarding that is directly tailored to each specific employee. Think about the audience for your information. Does each employee need these specific directions? Are there resources one department uses and another one doesn’t? Don’t make each new employee sit and process a bunch of information that doesn’t pertain to their job. To keep onboarding smooth, create a funnel and flow of information that makes sense to the new employee.

Tip #5: Blend & Diversify Training Methods

Not all humans learn the same way. So, not all information in the onboarding process should be delivered the same way. This period of time is about education and preparing a new hire for success. Diversifying learning methods is one way to make sure the onboarding materials are accessible to all types of learners.

Do you have videos? Articles? Are there various ways for a new employee to demonstrate an understanding of processes or key information? Are you stopping to check for understanding? How do you know the employee has learned the material? Diversify methods for checking in, too, and don’t be afraid to ask your new hire how they learn best.

Tip #6: Make Onboarding Tools Easy To Access

Customize your onboarding workflow and give all new employees easy access to all the tools they will need to do their job. If your employee is a remote worker, create a central library for them to use during the onboarding process. If you are located in a physical location, also create a central location to store all your onboarding tools and resources. If new employees need to reach out and access the materials later, they will know exactly where they are.

Tip #7: Make Room For Fun & Breaks

Learning new things can be overwhelming and our brains can reach information overload. Understand that a new hire might tire out and become emotionally exhausted during the onboarding process. Build-in fun brain breaks throughout the day/week. Balance both the learning and the doing, and then give employees time to breathe. A new hire should end their first week feeling invigorated, prepared, and excited for the job ahead. Too much information presented in a haphazard way will not stick with your new employee long-term.

Tip #8: Ask New Employee For Feedback Along The Way

Another onboarding tip is to normalize asking questions and confusion among new hires. Create easy ways for the new employee to ask questions or express confusion. By building in ways to check in with new employees and how they are feeling about their days, you are validating their experiences while also creating room to prevent miscommunications and frustrations further down the road. New employees are anxious. Model a healthy work environment by demonstrating it’s okay to not know things and to ask questions.

Tip #9: Use An HR Company To Assist With Onboarding Basics

Paychex offers employee onboarding.

Compliance issues are a huge component of onboarding and some HR companies provide assistance for their clients in that area. If you use an online HR or payroll service like BambooHR, Paychex, or Gusto they offer onboarding services as part of their programs. Often, a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) will also offer assistance with employee onboarding, too.

Tip #10: View Onboarding As A Longterm Process

Don’t think of onboarding as a day one to day seven type of experience. Onboarding a new employee is a long-term process and to make it smooth, stretch out the information and acclimation over time.

Get Started With These Onboard Tips & Our Other HR Resources

Each of these onboarding tips is designed to create a smooth experience for the people you are bringing into your company. Onboarding is about education and introduction; it’s also about telling your business’s story and finding the right people to join your team. Employee turnover costs money, resources, and hurts morale. And if a solid onboarding process can increase employee retention by 20%, according to the Harvard Business Review, then it’s time to invest in an onboarding process that works.

Look into companies that offer the best HR onboarding for small businesses and research what features in onboarding are the best fit for you: Do you want something that is straightforward and focused on compliance? Or are you on the hunt for a full program that might include built-in brain breaks and pre-set activities?

Also, take some time to understand what small business HR is and how it can function. When you learn how best to use your human resources (the people who help run the day-to-day of your business), you can enrich the work experience for the people you employ.

FAQs About Onboarding Tips For New Employees