Engaging new hires in uncertain times for enhanced onboarding
Apply these tips to your onboarding process to engage with your new hires even in uncertain times. Even in uncertain times, companies need to make sure that onboarding goes well so that new hires start giving ROI as early as possible.
Importance of an enhanced onboarding process The onboarding process in HR management holds vital importance. The process is done to familiarize the new team members with the work environment, job expectations, company values, and colleagues. Onboarding employees is essential to make them understand what is expected out of them and what they can expect from the company. It is one of the factors that determines how fast the new hires are going to prove productive for the recruiting company.
Many new hires decide whether they made a good choice by accepting the job offer or not based on the onboarding process. This is why it is important to leave a good first impression. A good onboarding process also increases the employee retention rate of the organization.
Impact of the new normal on the onboarding process
With the new normal or the post-pandemic era, it has become a more effort demanding process. This is because when onboarding happens through screens, human interaction is reduced and engaging requires being more active.
The pandemic has resulted in hybrid workplaces. Hybrid working style refers to a combination of work from home and work from the office. Uncertain times mean that we have to do something different from the normal. For example, when there was no COVID, new hires would be taken on a tour of the office and introduced to all their colleagues. But when employees can’t come to the office during the pandemic, new hires would be introduced to their colleagues through virtual meetings.
Here are some quick tips that can be used to engage with new hires during this uncertain time:
- Train your managers to effectively onboard employees in a flexible working model. Train them to be more empathetic, listening, transparent, and flexible.
- Ensure that they are comfortable using the software you are using to manage projects.
- Walk them through the tools that you are using for working in the hybrid model.
- Assign them a mentor. It can be a senior person or a colleague at the same level. This also helps them to socialize.
- Take care of their mental wellbeing. The pandemic has affected us in many ways and it has deteriorated the mental health of many.
- Get on frequent calls in the early days to stay updated on their progress.
- Ask for their feedback. Ask if anything more can be done to make their onboarding a better process.
- Communicate with them your values and culture.
- Clearly state what is expected from the new hires in the new job role. Provide them with any tools that’ll help them do their jobs in a better way.
- Don’t rush anything during the onboarding process. Give your new hires enough time to complete their orientation training.
Alok Nidhi Gupta has built this high tech company from scratch as Co-creator of the organization and lead the organization that filed patents in Smart Metering fields. He has been instrumental in the entire design & development of TalentRecruit’s software offerings, it is under his leadership that recruiters across industries have come to rely on TalentRecruit’s robust solutions.
