An onboarding plan for new team members is a key ingredient to ensure a smooth process of onboarding new team members into the workplace.
Onboarding starts as soon as a new employee accepts a job offer. It involves a series of events, such as the new hire orientation on day one, and helps them learn more about the company and their role. You need to prepare an onboarding plan for new team members to set them, and your company, up for success.
Onboarding Tools from Malloy Industries
- START HERE: Onboarding Plan for New Team Member Template for creating a cohesive and thorough onboarding experience for each new team member who joins your company
- Checklists for Internship Host Companies for guidance on what to do before the internship, onboarding the intern (or FTE), during the internship, and after the internship
- Start, During, and COB Checklists Template for templates on how to set communication, task processing, and close of business reports for managers
- Timesheet Full Name Template for a Google Sheet that you can copy for each team member to track their own time and use to invoice you at the end of each pay period
- Onboard yourself in 30 days is geared specifically for Chiefs of Staff, it can be applied to any hire who is onboarding through Matt Mochary’s shadowing process. To learn more about the shadowing process from the CEO perspective, please click here.
Client Testimonial
“Working with Malloy Industries is tremendously helpful to think about the business from a new perspective because identifying unknown unknowns is the most challenging thing to do on your own. For example, we recently hired a new team member with no plan or process to onboard her. We mentioned this to Malloy, and they generously shared all their onboarding resources and templates. Less than 24 hours before she started, we built a cohesive set of onboarding activities for her first day, first week, and first month. The new hire was super impressed! The onboarding resources will help you avoid the ‘Hey, I showed up and don’t know what to talk about’ problem during a new hire’s first week and future 1:1 meetings.”
– Rachel Zayas, CEO of AGED Diagnostics
Benefits of employee onboarding
- Provides ongoing support to help new employees integrate into the company
- Encourages early relationships between new hires and current employees
- Speeds up the process of acclimating new employees
- Improves the candidate experience, which can help your company retain top talent
- Increases productivity by helping employees learn the job faster
- Boosts new hire confidence with regular feedback and support
- Provides a clear understanding of job roles and expectations
- Reduces the chances of miscommunication and confusion
Topics typically covered in new employee orientation include:
- Mission, vision, and values statements and how they apply to employees
- Company policies and procedures
- Safety procedures
- Benefits
- New hire paperwork
- Facility tour
- Introduction to coworkers
- Workstation setup
- Instruction on using software and equipment
- Setting up logins, security clearances, and other requirements
- Other required new-hire training
Some of the things involved in employee onboarding include:
- Regular meetings with a supervisor
- Buddy system with a coworker
- Training or instruction on specific job tasks
- Test or beginner projects
- Evaluations to assess the new hire’s performance and customize additional training
- Goal setting
Tips for new employee orientation and onboarding
Employees need a quick version of all key information they receive from orientation to get started quickly. But they also need ongoing support that comes with a strong onboarding process to help them settle in. When done well, orientation and onboarding complement each other and help employees succeed in different ways.
Use these tips to make employee orientation and onboarding more successful:
- Make it fun: Orientation and ongoing training tend to have a reputation of being boring. Make it interesting, so your new hires are excited to get started.
- Ask for feedback: Create surveys for orientation and onboarding to get structured feedback from your new hires. Use it to determine what you’re doing right and what needs improvement.
- Keep evolving: Your orientation and onboarding processes are always a work in progress. As your company grows, you’ll have new components you need to add. Feedback from employees also helps you improve your process.
- Involve more people: Instead of handling all orientation and onboarding planning yourself, get input from others. Managers, HR staff, and current employees can give insight that helps. Having those people present at orientation and having them interact with new hires also helps develop relationships.
- Develop standard processes: Create checklists and policies that define the specifics of orientation and onboarding. This creates continuity across departments and gives all new hires a similar experience.
Avoid making it overwhelming
New employees have a lot of information coming at them. Break up orientation and onboarding into digestible chunks, starting with the most crucial information. Mix in building tours and team introductions with intense information sessions to balance the activities and give new hires a mental break.