

Growing a business is hard, and finding the right people to help grow your business is even harder. So, when you’ve found exceptional talent for your business and you’re ready to welcome your new team member, how can you make their first impression a great one?
How can you give new hires an onboarding and induction experience they’ll remember for all the right reasons?
The answer? A stellar onboarding process that makes new hires feel like they belong, even before their first day.
This ultimate guide to employee onboarding will show you the best practices in creating a great employee onboarding process and will cover:
Download The Ultimate Employee Onboarding and Induction Guide now.
Onboarding is often an underrated part of the employment process, but it’s a critical one. An onboarding process — good or bad — can set the tone for your new employee’s career with your business. It has the potential to fast-track a person’s transition into a business, or slow it way down.
All of this is to say, there are a few core goals to consider regarding your onboarding process:
With three essential goals of onboarding to manage, you’ll need a great onboarding process to make sure everything’s covered. This free guide can help you establish just that.
Read more:Â Employee Induction and Onboarding Checklist Template
What’s an induction?
Induction is typically a shorter and more focused process that occurs immediately after an employee joins the organisation. The primary goal of induction is to provide new employees with basic information and essentials they need to start working effectively. It is a brief introduction to the company, its policies‌ and the immediate work environment. The key features of induction include:
What’s onboarding?Â
Onboarding, on the other hand, is a more comprehensive and extended process that takes place over weeks or months. It is designed to help new employees assimilate into the company culture, understand their roles in depth‌ and establish relationships within the organisation. The main objectives of onboarding are:
What do the best onboarding programs from the world’s leading companies have in common? They all reap these amazing benefits. But why should only big companies enjoy these? Our guide can help companies of all sizes enjoy these great results.
Your new team members can say farewell to the first day jitters. An effective employee onboarding process will help make sure that new hires are feeling happy and productive from their first day on the job.
The most successful onboarding programs are supported by great communication with new hires before their first day, to make sure that they have everything they need in the lead-up. This way, they can embrace everything about your business from day one – with no time lost to admin or confusion.
When you’re following a structured onboarding process, there’s no need to fear that you’ve missed out on acquiring important information from your new employees.
An onboarding checklist (like the one in this guide), will make sure that you collect all necessary payroll, HR and personal information. Whether you’re doing this manually or with the help of an HRIS — you can be confident that you have everything you need to employ your new person compliantly.
Read more: Your complete guide to taking HR digital
On the flip side, an effective onboarding process can also help your employees receive all the important information that they need.
Whether it’s communicating company policies, an employee handbook, dress code information or the details of an onboarding buddy – it all happens in the onboarding process.
What powers your team, and your whole business, towards success?
It’s not the break room coffee (although that can really help), it’s your company’s mission and values. And these should be communicated to your new hires from day one.
Sharing your mission and values with new employees won’t only motivate them and have them eager to get started — it will also make sure that their work will be immediately aligned with the company’s goals.
Sharing your company values and mission aren’t the only things that can get your new hire feeling excited and ready to hit the ground running.
During onboarding, many teams also show their new hires the great work they’ve been producing lately, or share the details of exciting projects coming up. It’s onboarding processes like this that can get your new employees excited about their contribution.
A study from BetterUp found that workplace belonging can lead to an estimated 56% increase in performance, a 50% reduced risk of turnover‌ and a 75% drop in sick days. With stats like these, why wouldn’t you prioritise belonging from day one?
No one likes to be the new person, but a positive onboarding experience can do a lot to help your new hire feel welcomed ‌and part of a team. It’s an essential time for building relationships and creating a united work environment.
A job description can only do so much. New employees need to understand not only what their job entails, but how it fits into the larger picture of the entire company.
Onboarding is the perfect opportunity to give new employees a bird’s eye view of their department, how it works with other departments and what the company’s overarching goals are.
When new employees feel supported and valued, they are less likely to look for other opportunities.
Foundations are everything, right? To feel valued within a business, you need to feel like you’re being invested in from day one. This all starts with onboarding. The experience that your new hire has during their first week can put them on a path to long-term success at your company.
So what are the key mistakes every employer should avoid during the employee induction process and when introducing a new staff member into the team?
Providing a great first impression to a new starter is vital for your business – it ensures a low staff turnover rate and overall higher employee satisfaction, engagement and wellbeing.
That’s why I’m here to tell you all the BIG employee onboarding and company induction mistakes I’ve seen over the years, so you don’t make them when the time comes.
You don’t need to pester your new hire every day until they start with countdown-like announcements – but checking in a few days before their first day just to remind them of anything important they might need to bring, or giving them a run through of how the day will go might help them feel more at ease.
Always be prepared. If someone is coming to start a new job, it’s your responsibility to make sure they have everything they need to get up and running as quickly and seamlessly as possible.
This includes;
Remember, it’s all about setting a good first impression so another tip is to make sure all the equipment you have given them actually works.
For a well-designed online induction program, check out how to create a killer induction program.
Don’t overwhelm your new starter with too much information. This could result in them feeling disheartened and that they’re not a good fit for the role.
Instead of having a full-on induction day, why not try an induction week? So that your new starter has plenty of time to learn the ropes at their own pace.
The classic mountain of paperwork imagery that we all know and love is back… but it’s still as true as ever. No new employee wants to start off their new career with a large amount of paperwork to sieve through.
This is where our paperless onboarding solution can help you eliminate this stack of paperwork for your new starters – recruiting, onboarding, and managing employees can be done 100% digitally with our cloud based hr software.
Make your new employees feel like one of the team, not just another number to the business payroll.
Think outside the box for ways you can personalise their induction process into your business. Whether that’s a welcome pack on their desk, a name card hanging in their work station or a friendly email to the rest of the workforce introducing them to the business.
This leads us nicely onto our next mistake that’s all too common. Mistake number 6 is not introducing your new starter to the team and wider business.
You want them to feel at home as soon as possible, so make sure everyone knows who they are, why they are there and that they are welcomed.
Your team might not be using universal or industry-specific language, so you shouldn’t assume that your new starter knows what you’re talking about.
If you regularly abbreviate words or use acronyms a lot in your day-to-day duties, try and remember to explain them. Or, why not go that extra step for your new starters by creating a cheat sheet or glossary?
Feedback is key for any growing business, and this is the same as growing your people. Don’t bombard them with feedback questionnaires on their first day.
We suggest sending them a few brief questions at the end of their employee induction process and again at the end of their probation to get some honest feedback about how they found the process.
Here’s some great tips on getting honest employee feedback from your workforce.
If the new starter finishes the new employee induction or onboarding process without knowing their main responsibilities of the new role, something wasn’t made clear to them. And that fault is on you.
You want them to have a firm understanding of how the team operates, how their role fits into that and what their key goals will be throughout their time at the company.
Just because the HR induction process is over, don’t stop supporting your new employee with their professional development.
Make sure there’s always a way for them to learn more information – whether that’s about the company or specific to their job role.
To do this successfully, it’s recommended you get a good idea of their goals from the start and then you can schedule regular catch-ups with them and their working manager for a progress report.
There you have it! An onboarding checklist to keep in your back pocket for when you have new employees starting in your business. Remember, first impressions count.
Small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) often run into similar challenges when onboarding their new team members. Let’s unpack some of the most common issues before we jump into our actionable steps that can help you improve your onboarding process for good.
There’s nothing less inspiring as a new employee than arriving at your workplace, full of first day energy and enthusiasm, only to find yourself neck-deep in paperwork. Not only can this kill the excitement, completing paperwork on a first day when it could have been managed prior is not an effective approach.
You know you have this problem if;Â your new team members are spending hours completing and sourcing information on their first day, and appearing confused or disengaged around piles of paperwork.
When it comes to a new hire’s onboarding, who’s managing their administration? Who’s booking a team lunch? Who’s introducing them to senior leaders and who’s managing their key priorities? Effective work is all about delegation, but too many cooks working to an unstructured plan can quickly see things go haywire.
You know you have this problem if; your new employees seem unsure who they should direct their questions to, or they don’t seem to know who’s who in the team. They also might miss a critical part of the process because it’s being managed by someone who hasn’t had a proper briefing.
When we onboard new talent, we have to balance their introduction to a business with all of our other priorities and deadlines. If there’s one thing we know for sure – it’s that onboarding takes time. It can be very challenging for a hiring manager to give their new hires the attention they need, but without it – their first few weeks could be chaotic.
You know you have this problem if; new hires at your business seem to be trying to navigate things on their own, or if your hiring managers can’t report back on how the new employee is progressing due to existing high-priority projects.
For growing SMEs, it’s important to recognise that onboarding – along with your other business processes – should always be evolving.
What worked for you when you had five employees probably won’t be as effective once you have 20 employees. If you’re finding it hard to solicit feedback or embrace modern technology, you’ll quickly run into more problems with this essential process.
You know you have this problem if; you’re still relying on outdated tools like paper policies and snail mail. Your program and management style has remained unchanged, you’ve outgrown your current systems and you haven’t sought feedback to improve your employee onboarding process.
With so much information to take onboard, a new workplace to navigate and a new culture to dive into – it’s no wonder that many employees finish their onboarding process feeling overwhelmed.
This feeling of bombardment can impact new hire productivity and initial job satisfaction, making it more challenging for employees to feel confident in their role.
You know you have this problem if;Â your employees are sporting glazed-over looks at the end of their first week, or they seem exhausted and confused when you ask them about their experience so far.
So what makes an onboarding experience positive or not? Let’s look at the best practices
From the moment a new employee accepts their job offer you need to make them feel informed and empowered. This means regular and effective communication every step of the way to get them up and running smoothly.
Ensure all the necessary paperwork (e.g. providing personal and payroll information, logging certifications, acknowledging policies and signing contracts) is sorted prior to their start date so they can focus on getting acclimatised to their new role.
Make them feel welcome into the company and team, and ensure there’s a good mix of learning and one on one time. During this induction, the new team member should ideally feel inspired and motivated by the company’s values and mission.
A proactive approach will see onboarding reach beyond day one. The first week and the first month should still have plenty of learning opportunities, getting-to-know you sessions and knowledge sharing. The entire experience should wrap up around 30 days in.
A well-designed welcome pack can enhance the onboarding experience, making new hires feel valued from day one. Discover 10 welcome pack ideas to make your new employees feel special.
You’re always looking for better ways to run your business, and your onboarding process needs to be part of those considerations.
Track the positive impact of your onboarding over time; do new hires seem to be embracing the business and their roles, resulting in great productivity, minimal absenteeism and a good rate of new hire retention? There are plenty of people analytics you can use to get a better sense of the employee experience within your business.
From the data and feedback that you collect, you can start to make tweaks to optimise your process. We recommend reviewing your process annually or biannually to make sure that the experience is evolving at the same rate as your business.
If you’re unsure on how to best collect feedback to review your onboarding process, we have a simple solution. Ask your new hires.
How can you make sure that you’re getting honest responses? Issue an anonymous survey. This is your best way to source feedback that will be properly actionable. With Employment Hero’s anonymous survey feature, you can collect actionable data quickly and easily. Your employees can fill out their survey on the desktop or mobile app, delivering you results in one centralised location.
What questions should you consider asking? Here are a few of our favourites to get you started…
Functionality that’s changing the way businesses think about employee onboarding admin is automation, enabled through automated hr systems (like Employment Hero). Automation creates a new onboarding process flow that can relieve HR teams from admin and reduce human error. Most importantly – it gives your team valuable time back to focus on welcoming your new hire.
At its core, automation alleviates the headache of organising and completing new hire paperwork. It works by triggering a series of actions when you enter a new employee into the system. When your employee accepts their job offer, they will be sent a link to create an employee profile on the platform.
From there, they can access their digital employment contract which will be stored on-platform, and be able to begin uploading their personal HR and payroll information. They’ll also be instantly assigned policies, training and more. All information is then stored securely on the employee onboarding platform.
Remember that ‘too many cooks’ pain point we spoke about earlier? The reality is, great onboarding programs will require a team effort. But, to avoid the chaos and make the most of everyone’s time, you need to create a structured program located in a central source of truth.
What does it mean to have a central source of truth? Well, this generally refers to having one location where important information is stored and updated.
Everyone working on a project (which, in this case, is welcoming a new employee) can see the status of tasks and communicate updates or flag important details. With everyone having full visibility over the same process, your team can easily avoid the double-handling of tasks and make sure that nothing is missed.
You can create a centralised source of truth on cloud-based documents, but we definitely prefer using a HRIS (human resources information system). With our smart, cloud-based software, the involved members of your team can be assigned relevant checklist tasks, look at due dates and have visibility over a new employee’s entire onboarding process.
This is one of our favourite onboarding hacks at Employment Hero. Start your new hire on a Wednesday.
This incredibly simple change to an onboarding program can make a big difference to your team and your new hires. By doing this, you reduce the risk of overwhelming your new team members by limiting their information intake to three days and giving them the weekend to digest everything they’ve learned.
You also help your existing team by giving them time early in the week to dedicate to important tasks, with the second half of the week cleared for supporting new employees.
Give this easy hack a try and watch several onboarding pain points melt away! It’s definitely worked for us.
We can’t speak for other software! But here’s the breakdown of how Employment Hero can help. Our HRIS system offers:
But it’s not just the onboarding process tools our platform offers. It’s the ROI — 85% of business leaders agree: Employment Hero makes managing employment easier.
Maybe the Ultimate Guide to Onboarding is not quite what you need right now, or you’re looking for other helpful tips for onboarding and recruitment. Here are some highlights from the Employment Hero resource hub.
At Employment Hero, it’s our mission to make employment easier and more valuable for everyone. Beyond the recruitment process, onboarding is your new hire’s most important interaction with the business.
Employment experts built Employment Hero specifically for small to medium-sized businesses. We identified that SMBs often don’t have the tools to make tasks like onboarding into a streamlined and effective experience for their new hires, while big businesses with big software systems reaped the benefits. Seamless onboarding leads to better employee retention and we all know how important that is.
That’s why onboarding software is a key feature of our product for SMBs. We want to help you reduce the time and effort it takes for you to successfully run your onboarding process, paperwork and admin — and as a result, save time and money!
Download The Ultimate Employee Onboarding and Induction Guide now.
Other helpful resources: