“Onboarding is a one-time event ” – This is one of the most common onboarding myths that overburdens a new hire with tons of information on the first day. Several such myths sabotage the onboarding of a new employee.
An effective onboarding process can help the new hire acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and tools to transition into the new role smoothly. However, if the onboarding is ineffective, it can propel the employees to look for new opportunities.
Amidst the global war for talent, hiring new employees is challenging. However, once you hire the right talent, you cannot afford to lose them by falling prey to the long-standing onboarding myths.
This article brings out the five most common onboarding myths that you must stop believing to boost new hire productivity and improve retention.
The top 5 employee onboarding Myths and the realties
Onboarding is a valuable way to improve your new hire’s experience and empower them to become efficient contributors to the team.
Below are the top onboarding myths and realities that can help design and execute a successful onboarding process.
Onboarding Myth 1- Onboarding is the same as orientation
Often companies confuse orientation with onboarding. This leads to them only providing a brief introduction to the company’s culture and policies to the new hire.
Reality – So, how does orientation differ from onboarding? Well, orientation is just 20% of the entire onboarding process. The onboarding process ideally has three phases.
1- Orientation
The new hire orientation entails-
- Providing an overview of the company’s vision and values
- Acquainting the new hire with the team and various stakeholders
- Giving a guided in-person or virtual tour of the workplace
- Disseminating knowledge about the product, company, and the buyer persona
2- Training
After the initial orientation, the next step would be to provide job-specific training-
- Familiarizing the new hire with the positions’ requirement
- Offering a clear picture of the daily responsibilities
- Providing product demos and use cases for various features
- Knowledge sharing on the role, project, and processes
- Conveying objectives and expectations
3- Development
This is the third phase that focuses on the ongoing development of the employees. Here it is crucial to track on-the-job performance and identify strengths and improvement areas to provide real-time feedback. Have regular check-ins to understand the challenges the new hire faces after completing three to four months and design learning programs to fill the performance gaps accordingly.
Onboarding Myth 2- Onboarding new employees should be done in-person
It’s 2022, isn’t it? Yet most companies are clinging to the obsolete onboarding techniques. They still think that new hires have to be physically present for successful onboarding.
Reality – In this digital-first world, where employees work in a remote or hybrid work model, you can easily conduct onboarding virtually. In fact, you can blend in-person and virtual onboarding for a hybrid workforce.
For instance, have initial in-person orientation and conduct live sessions to disseminate product knowledge. With a modern LMS solution, you can easily curate content and assign learning modules to the new hire.
Moreover, an advanced learning solution like Disprz LMS enables you to make your onboarding sessions livelier and more interesting by giving your the flexibility to gamify your onboarding. Using its Gameinar tool, you can effortlessly onboard multiple new hires virtually and engage them with features like a roulette wheel, live leaderboard, and breakout room.
Onboarding Myth 3- Onboarding should only begin once an employee joins the company
The knowledge transfer from the existing employee to the new hire often takes a backseat due to a lot of onboarding paperwork. This often happens because companies wait for the new hire to join the company to commence the onboarding process.
Reality – Pre-onboarding is a smart strategy to welcome employees before they join the company. The period between signing an offer and joining a company is very critical. The new hire might contemplate if they’ve made the right decision and have second thoughts on an offer by another company.
Hence, through pre-onboarding, engage the new employees to prepare and make them feel confident about the new role.
Below are a few ways to pre-onboard the new hire right after they accept the offer
- Send a welcome email
- Ask the new hire to provide feedback about the hiring process
- Start the paperwork like document verification and sharing company specific-documents
- Share daily bytes about the company culture, product, and processes
Onboarding Myth 4 – Onboarding is time-consuming and costly
This is one of the most common onboarding myths that hold back companies from offering effective onboarding to the employees.
Reality – The cost of not having an onboarding process is more as the employees quit within a few months due to dissatisfaction, and you have to start the hiring process from scratch.
Employee onboarding isn’t as costly or time-consuming as you think if planned effectively. For instance, with a cost-effective LMS, you can effortlessly create a 30-60-90 onboarding drip journey where the modules will be assigned directly to the learner. So, this spares you from the hassle of sharing documents and various job-related information everyday with the new hire.
All you need to do is create/curate data and streamline it in a drip journey. The new hire will be assigned a new module daily. For instance, Day 1- Induction kit, Day 2 – Video by the CEO on company’s mission, Day 3 – Documents on roles and responsibilities, Day 4 – Case studies on various use cases, Day 5 – Assessment, etc. Moreover, you can track the onboarding progress and take real-time actions to make the employee onboarding successful.
Onboarding Myth 5- Onboarding is only confined to knowledge workers.
One of the biggest onboarding myths that only white-collar workers need onboarding.
Reality – The frontline workers are the face of the company as most of them directly interact with the customer. Their performance can affect the customer’s experience.
For instance, a customer has some coupons, and so while paying the bill, he asks the waiter (who has newly joined) if the restaurant accepts it for discounts. However, the frontline was clueless and said he would check and get back. The customer gets exasperated as he has to wait.
If the new hire was offered a proper onboarding, he could respond instantaneously and offer a great experience to the customer. Hence ensure you create an effective onboarding process for the frontline along with the knowledge workers to improve time to productivity and offer utmost satisfaction to the customer.
Conclusion
The cost of hiring new employees is much more than the cost of onboarding. Get rid of this and many other onboarding myths that are hindering your path in offering an effective onboarding to the new hire. To know more about why onboarding is important and what are the onboarding best practices check out the blog – Employee Onboarding for In-office, Virtual, And Hybrid Work Culture
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