Developing an Effective Onboarding Program: The Key to New Hire Retention

Having a strategic onboarding plan in place can dramatically impact your business. Investing in an onboarding process will help reduce turnover and increase new hire effectiveness. An onboarding program isn’t just more than a routine checklist; it should be a comprehensive process that makes the new employee, as well as the company, confident they made the right choice and confident they can succeed in their position.

An effective onboarding program is important because it introduces the employee to the company’s culture and expectations and gives the employee the vital training and information needed to succeed in their new role. How badly do you want to retain your new hires???

It takes your recruiting staff, HR group, and hiring managers a lot of time and money to sift through resumes, conduct interviews, find the person with the right skills who will also be a good cultural fit to narrow it down to one person. But you finally found the right person, made an offer, and the candidate accepted it!

After all that time-consuming and expensive effort, you have your new hire in the office equally excited and nervous on their first day of work. What you may not realize at this point is that your job is far from over. You now need to direct your efforts to “recruiting” your new hire through his or her critical first few months on the job.

Traditional orientation programs usually consist of a data dump of information (policies and procedures, benefits information, safety information, etc.) on the new hire’s first or second day on the job. This one-stop, one-time approach results in an information overload problem for your new employee. Utilizing a phased approach enables new employees to build relationships with co-workers and with those who will have a part in managing, coaching, mentoring, and supporting them.

Onboarding occurs in the period between offer acceptance and full integration into your organization. Your job is to have an effective onboarding program in place to assist your new employees in acquiring the necessary knowledge, skills, and behaviors to become effective members of the organization. In addition to dotting all the compliance “I’s” and crossing all the paperwork “t’s”, onboarding should also help new employees feel like valuable members of the team. A warm welcome from teammates and a smooth introduction to the expectations of the new role can promote engagement and retention right from the start.

• Understanding the differences between “Onboarding” & “Orientation”
• Why effective onboarding is so critical
• Benefits of an effective onboarding program
• Obtaining senior leadership buy-in when revising a current program or developing a new program
• A step-by-step approach to creating an effective onboarding program
• Developing and utilizing onboarding checklists
• Preparation work you MUST do before your new hires’ first day
• HR, Managers, IT and others’ responsibilities throughout the process
• Developing a “Buddy” program
• Onboarding new hires in virtual locations
• Asking for feedback from new employees
• Evaluating your new program

Effective onboarding leads to positive outcomes for the new employee in terms of higher job satisfaction, better job performance, greater organization commitment, and reduction in stress and intent to quit.  Introducing a comprehensive onboarding program into your hiring process can mean the difference between retaining top new hires or watching them walk out the door after several months.

By demonstrating the company cares about its employees throughout the onboarding process, you are also reinforcing what a company values most – its employees, their opinions and their retention. Participation in this webinar will assist participants in learning the steps to create an effective onboarding program that will help their organizations reduce turnover and increase new hire effectiveness.

• Senior Management
• HR Professionals
• Recruiting Professionals
• Learning and Development Professionals
• Operations Professionals
• Managers & Supervisors

Diane L. Dee, President of Advantage HR Consulting, has over 25 years of experience in the Human Resources arena. Diane’s background includes experience in HR consulting and administration in corporate, government, consulting, and pro bono environments. Diane founded Advantage HR Consulting in early 2016. Under Diane’s leadership, Advantage HR provides comprehensive, cost-effective Human Resources solutions for small to mid-sized firms in the greater Chicagoland area. Additionally, Diane conducts webinars on a wide variety of HR topics for various training firms across the country. Diane holds a Master's Certificate in Human Resources from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations and has attained SPHR, SHRM-SCP, sHRBP, and HRPM® certifications. Diane is a member of the National Association of Women Business Owners and the Society for Human Resource Management. Additionally, Diane performs pro bono work through the Taproot Foundation assisting non-profit clients by integrating their Human Resources goals with their corporate strategies.