The onboarding process (besides the interview) is an employee’s first experience with your organization. The objective of an onboarding process is clear, to help an employee get settled in and familiarised with their new role. This includes offering relevant training that helps them carry out their daily tasks and empowering them with tools that will make them more efficient at their jobs.

At the same time, training may also be required to understand the use of said tools, and to understand how to use them to their advantage.

A comprehensive onboarding program can help make life easier for new joiners and enable your organization to squeeze out maximum productivity from a new employee.

On the other hand, a poorly designed onboarding program can result in increased employee turnover, lower overall productivity, and in worst cases, a blemished brand image of an organization that doesn’t care about its employees.

If you’re wondering where you’re going wrong with your employee onboarding efforts, here’s a list of the most common onboarding mistakes organizations make:

Designing An Overwhelming Onboarding Process

Joining a new organization, getting out of one’s comfort zone, starting working with new faces all around, can all easily be overwhelming for anyone.

While an onboarding process is important, if it lays down a never-ending set of instructions on new joiners, it can add to the overwhelming feeling of joining a new organization.

In worse cases, it may even drive your new employees away. As individuals, we need time to get accustomed to new environments and an onboarding training process needs to factor in this time.

Take advantage of an Employee onboarding content development process which focuses on providing training material in smaller, easily digestible chunks. This way, the onboarding training may take longer, but it will ensure a comfortable transition for your new employees.

In fact, having short and information loaded onboarding courses is the next common problem we will discuss in this article.

Treating Onboarding Like Just A Requirement

Many organizations have an onboarding process for the sake of it. Having a short process that only focuses on bringing new joiners to the forefront of operations as soon as possible is a recipe for failure.

According to research, it is natural for employees to take up to 12 months to reach their full potential at a new job.

As an employer, it is your job to understand the same and create an onboarding process that not only gives your employees the knowledge and the tools they require to excel at their jobs but gives them the time they require to truly “learn the ropes” of their job.

No Participation Of Managers In The Outsourcing Process

Finally, one of the most common mistakes that organizations make with their onboarding process is to make it all about the perspective job of the new joiners. Sure, providing training for the job should take the centre stage in your onboarding process, but the process itself is about more than just enabling new joiners to perform their jobs.

The other function of an onboarding process is to make the employees adapt to the change in their work environment, to help them get comfortable with your organization’s processes and culture.

The best way to tackle this aspect of onboarding is to get existing employees to participate in the onboarding process. From letting them help out new joiners with their training to helping them understand the culture of your organization, existing employees can help new employees learn quickly.

Not to forget, this way, it will also be easier for new employees to gel with their new teammates and managers.

Conclusion

These were the common flaws found in most onboarding programs. Are you doing these things right? Still wondering where you’re going wrong? Share your experience in the comment section and we would be happy to help!