Candidate Onboarding is not just about filling in a few forms and then saying ‘job done’. This is a critical time when you have the opportunity to both introduce the company’s culture to the new hire and embed it into their brain for future reference. A job well done saves hours of expense down the line. Here are some important factors in driving great candidate experience on your onboarding journey.
Why is a Good Onboarding Experience Important?
A good onboarding experience is important for several reasons. First, it helps the new employee feel welcomed and valued. A positive onboarding experience can also help the new hire learn about the company culture and adapt to their new role more quickly. Good employers understand that improving the candidate experience is essential to peak productivity and maintain retention. When employees feel valued in a simple onboarding process, they are likely to enjoy working with the company. If recruiters take feedback from such new hires, they will have a good opinion about the formal processes. A good candidate experience is also necessary to promote your company’s brand experience through word-of-mouth.
How to Improve Candidate Onboarding Experience?
Some of the best practices that can be followed for an amazing employee onboarding experience are given as follows:
Making New Employees Feel Welcome
You must make your new employees feel welcome at your agency. Enthusiasm is good as it will have a positive and lasting impression on your recruits. A proper welcome and cooperation will drive better engagement on the part of the newbies. Sending them a generous welcome mail will make them feel like a part of the team.
If they do not feel right at the onset of work, they might decide to leave in search of other opportunities. According to a survey done by TINYpulse, 22% of turnover occurs within 45 days of hiring new employees. Therefore, you must ask the employees and particularly the team to make the recruit feel welcome.
Ensure Better Engagement from Recruits
You must keep your new hire engaged before their day 1 of work. There are chances that they might shift to other opportunities if they are not kept engaged. Here comes the need for pre-boarding plans that you must carry out. It is reported that 80% of newbies struggle with anxiety during the pre-boarding phase which dampens their enthusiasm. Ensuring better engagement stokes their enthusiasm and also builds a better employee-company relationship. You may invite them over for an informal get-together to break the ice and have a good chat over happy meals.
Guide Recruits with their Initial Setup
While taking care of the major onboarding experiences, the small needfuls might get skipped. Ensuring that new hires have a proper set-up before they commence their work is also essential. Therefore, help them with technology like laptop, mouse, phone, keyboard etc. If they are facing any issues with such requirements, sort them out at once. You should also help them out with other basics like creating employee ID, gym memberships or other perks and benefits.
Pairing New Hires with Internal Candidates
Pairing new hires with existing employees is one way to ace the onboarding procedure. Introducing your new hire to the team is important. Once recruits establish a friendship with an internal candidate, they will get to know more about the team, the training sessions, the working environment and the culture. They will have a good vibe working in a friendly atmosphere that is sure to boost productivity. Apart from that, the new employee will also get to know other quirks, good lunch spots or any other experience that the seasoned employee might share.
Easing the Stress Level with a Good Laid-Out Plan
Planning ahead regarding candidate onboarding is a good decision for recruiters. The beginners often feel stressed out starting with a new company where they come across new faces and an unaquainted working environment. To make them feel at ease, we can plan for the onboarding. For example, by sending them welcome goodies we can get them excited about their new job role. It will also give them a fair idea about the incentives that might come their way once they are ready to commit themselves to their work and the organisation. Efforts to take care of every detail are bound to be noticed and appreciated by the hired individual.
Extending the Onboarding Process
An onboarding process is very different from an orientation. While orientation is all about paperwork and compliance, onboarding is providing ample support to the recruit in various ways. It has been reported by surveys that it takes a total of 8 months to reach full productivity. Most of us remain unaware of this fact and our onboarding programs last only a couple of days or months. Therefore, such programs must be extended with frequent check-ins from managers and proper feedback. This is an excellent procedure for candidate onboarding.
One-on-One Time Interaction
The manager must introduce themselves to the recruit. Despite tight working schedules, they must take their time out to make a good impression on the new hire. There should not only be good engagement with colleagues but also with the manager. According to a study by Microsoft Workplace Analytics, employees who received little to no one-on-one time with their managers were the ones who disengaged themselves from work. Doing otherwise boosted manager-employee relations. Therefore, to initiate smooth induction, one-on-one time interaction proves beneficial.
Better Management of the Onboarding Process
If you want to make your company prosper, you must take care of the details. Chalking out an onboarding plan is important but the appropriate implementation is more needful. As a hiring manager, you must supervise the candidate onboarding. If there are any flaws, you must immediately rectify them. One-on one-interaction where you receive valuable feedback from new hires is one way of recruitment management.
Feedback from the New Hires
Accepting honest feedback from new hires is important to know if the onboarding process is working fine or up to the mark. It also shows that the recruiting agency is interested in what the employee has to say. They should be free to share their experience and valuable suggestions with the company.
When you have proper feedback coming from recruits, you will be able to work on areas that need attention and improvement. Employees must be motivated to provide their valuable feedback as it is one way to ensure smooth candidate onboarding.
Automating Onboarding with a Recruitment Management Software
With recruitment management software, you can give the candidate a good experience onboarding. For example, recruitment software that provides automation and an ATS (Applicant Tracking System) system will be fruitful for both the HR department and the employees.
Automation will help to speed up the onboarding process and employees will be better enabled to immerse themselves into the work culture. The Applicant Tracking System will help to track the entire recruitment process. With the use of Artificial Intelligence, ATS will be able to create profile candidates, identify skills, and enhance visibility into the hiring cycle.
Going paperless is key to a smooth onboarding process. Hire Me is one software that streamlines your entire recruitment process including onboarding. It provides a plethora of such services to ensure that you have a happy time recruiting. If you haven’t tried recruitment software like Hire Me before, now is the time!
Final Thought!
Now, that you have learnt about candidate onboarding or candidate management, it is time to apply these simple yet effective rules to your next onboarding process. Make sure to be consistent and not simply apply them only to a handful of new employees. As you already know that extending a candidate onboarding is very beneficial, you must also be certain that it gives the new talents ample reason to stick to your organization. Additionally, if you need more help, there is a recruitment management software like Hire Me that you can adopt to ace the hiring process.
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Frequently Asked Questions(FAQs)
What can be done to improve the candidate experience?
To enhance candidate experience, some of the best practices involve planning everything and send them a generous welcome email, being enthusiastic about receiving them in your office, introducing them to your team, taking care of the tech setup, scheduling a one-on-one experience with the team manager and using a recruitment management software like Hire Me for smooth onboarding.
What are the 4 C’s of onboarding?
The 4 C’s of employee onboarding are compliance, clarification, culture and connection. Compliance means filling out the formal paperwork of the organisation. Clarification is about clarifying the new hires on roles and responsibilities they are about to embark on. Culture refers to introducing new hires to the work culture. Connection is about forging relationships with other organisation members.
How do I get the best onboarding experience?
The best onboarding experience is achieved when the HR department streamlines your recruitment process. This may include sending welcome goodies, having an enthusiastic approach, showing cooperation, better engagement and one-on-one interaction with the manager.
What are the three phases of employee onboarding?
The phases of employee onboarding include the pre-boarding phase where you help them with the paperwork and make them aware of your organisation. The second phase is the orientation phase where you talk about topics like attendance, payroll, incentives like medical insurance etc. The third phase is the role-specific training phase where you chalk out a well-drafted training plan for employees. The last phase is about transitioning your new hire to a full-fledged employee by helping them set smart goals.
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