How to Onboard Your New Employees As Successfully As Google

On-boarding, the process of  conveys your organisational brand values, explains your people and professional culture, highlights organisational expectations and performance and provides the tools for the employee to be successfully placed into his or her position. Therefore, as an in employer it’s important to get this part right if you want employee longevity and loyalty. 

Onboarding isn’t just the first step in hiring of collecting the relevant human resources, payroll and benefits forms. It’s a lot more than that. The onboarding process follows the employee lifecycle from first step of orientation through to mentoring and development of their first month to the completion of their first year. 

What’s the process?

Google found that new hire time to productivity can be improved by a full month by just a simple reminder alert email sent to the employer or recruiter the Sunday before the new hire starts. Tasks that should be included in the email alert are:

• Have a role and responsibilities discussion
• Match your new hire with a peer buddy
• Help your new hire build a social network
• Set up onboarding check-ins once a month for your new hire’s first six month 
• Google also does eight things to on board their new hires, which you can adapt to your organisation:
• In-person Training

Google, provides their new hires with a two-week in person training and orientation program that explains all things organisational and the ‘need to know’ functions of the organisation and job. Your organisation may not be able to provide such a lengthy in-person training period, but some in-person training is better than none, and it helps you as an employer establish rapport. 

Thorough Introduction to Company Culture

Google offers a class which help develop new hires to the norms and practices of the existing employees. The purpose of this, is to implement a way of learning into the new hire which reflects the way in which the organisation works and ensures the new hire is productive in his or her new employment.

Checklists

Checklists help new hires to understand what is expected in the first week to the completion of their first year. It is a lot less daunting for new hires if they’re given a checklists as they don’t feel pressured to memorises systems, practices, and events in the first week.

CodeLabs

Codelabs are a great way for engineers to get up to speed through hands-on tutorials. They aren’t just for new hires, but can be used by the most experienced engineers to refresh their knowledge.  

Extensive Resources

No doubt there is a language to your industry so everyone is speaking the same language, just like Google – so a company-wide glossary and handbook is provided for reference. A similar resource but be useful for your industry in getting your new hire up to speed on the terminology, or every-day goings on of your company so they can fit in smoothly. 

On-the-job Training

Without a doubt, whatever your organisation is, on-the-job training provides a good introduction to the field and provides greater realism of application when in the real world of work. 

Mentorship Program

Assigning a new hire to a mentor who is successful within the company and can act as a trustworthy role model. The mentor can initially act as a friendly face which welcomes the new hire to the company and show them the facilities. This mentor can also be a point of call for questions or queries for the new hire if they don’t feel confident to ask a supervisor or manager. More importantly, it provides a friendly welcoming for the new hire to feel more comfortable in their new place of work. 

Check-in

Google employee send weekly snippets entailing what they did that week and take part in a self-assessment and set goals at the end of every quarter. The purpose of this, is to demonstrate the productivity of the new hires week or so forth and to high their achievements. As an employer, you may not follow this exactly, but it is recommended to have frequent check-ins with your employers to see what they’re achieving, how they’re progressing and whether there are any queries. 

Follow those simple steps to ensure that your hiring process is smooth and efficient, whilst also improving your chances at retaining loyal, trust Worthing and hard working employees.