- What would you say is your preferred length of time for onboarding new employees? Is this something your organization never prioritized? Has it never been planned? This unplanned onboarding might be successful in a few cases, but in most cases, new employees are left feeling clueless in the new, unfamiliar environment. So, the question then arises, "How long should an onboarding last?" There is no simple answer, though. It can go from 3 months up to a year or more based on how in-depth the company deems necessary for it to be.
A shocking finding by Gallup revealed that 88% of employees do not believe their onboarding was done well. Onboarding is the first impression a company leaves on an employee, helping them build an emotional bond with the new environment and team. A lengthier or detailed orientation might cost a bit more, but it is nothing compared to how much it would cost to recruit and train their replacement. Research by the Society for Human Resource Management stated that the existing employee's replacement cost would be equivalent to their salary of around six to nine months.
Suffice it to say that compromising quality while trying to speed up the onboarding process can be detrimental to the company in the long run. This blog will discuss some critical components of onboarding. These directly impact the length of onboarding process, and more importantly, help improve its quality. There are a few tips shared as well, detailing how to swiftly manage this process while making it more engaging for the new hires:
Onboarding Objectives and Planning
To organize a quality onboarding, developing an onboarding plan is critical. This ensures that the new hires receive a consistent treatment rather than just leaving it onto different managers to conduct it however they deem fit. Planning also reduces onboarding time length in the long run as a structured process is in place. Research has shown that creating a standardized onboarding process will increase the chances of new employee retention by 50%.Well-thought-out onboarding objectives are necessary for creating a plan. Two important things to keep in mind while deciding objectives are:
- Employees should get well-acquainted to their job roles with clear guidelines and expectations.
- Employees should be conveyed the company-wide goals and long-term direction.
Objectives clearly define which employees will be involved in the onboarding program, what will be the duties of everyone, what journey is to be followed, etc. Above all else, always remember to take feedback for future improvements. All success measures should be pre-defined for evaluation at the end of each onboarding.
Efficiently Relaying Office Guidelines and Equipment Assistance to Reduce Onboarding Time Length
There are some consistent office guidelines followed, and specific equipment and apps used organization-wide. Create a video guide or, at the very least, create PDFs to accurately convey all critical guidelines before the employee's first day. An orientation can then be held on the first day to address any remaining queries and to show the employees their desk and equipment placement. Decrease the length of onboarding time by preparing these simple things beforehand while maintaining quality.
Setting New Employee Goals and Expectations for the Onboarding Time
Clearly convey all the expectations to the new employees regarding their role and the company. It is a new environment. Let them know how their team operates and how their role fits in. Assign appropriate goals as soon as possible so that they are not left idle for the first few weeks.
Surprisingly, about 60% of organizations have admitted to not assigning short-term goals to new employees. Here are some tips that you can follow as a guide for assigning them initial goals that utilize their skillsets productively:
- Assign and time-bound the goals that need to be fulfilled in the first quarter and convey what can then be achieved each quarter.
- Initial tasks can be assigned accordingly based on what the new hires excel in.
- Have daily check-ins with them to address any queries that arise.
- Once the employee gains a good grasp of the initial tasks, steadily raise the level of difficulty to slowly bring them up to the level that the job entails.
- Check-ins can then be made weekly to show that you recognize their progress and trust them to take more responsibility.
- Finally, encourage them to freely ask questions to speed up the process of learning and reduce the onboarding time.
Integration with Your Organization's Culture During Onboarding
Most companies evaluate cultural fit during the recruitment process only. But this alone is not enough. It is necessary to immediately acquaint the new employees with the company's values and culture. Focus on understanding their stories and values. Link these up with the company's journey to establish a connection. As the company objectives and goals align with their own personal and professional goals, the new employees feel motivated to achieve them. This ensures long-term retention of employees, improves overall teamwork, and reduces onboarding time.
Knowledge Transfer in Onboarding Through Training Resource Pack
For every onboarding, transferring knowledge and conducting trainings takes the most time. This knowledge transfer must be done accurately without compromising quality as it directly links to an employee's job performance. Every organization should have a structured knowledge management system.There is rarely any employee hired that does not require training for their work requirements. Plus, every organization has its own unique workflow system, which incorporates various apps and software. Hence, job-specific training to bring them up to speed.
This training resource pack can be in the form of a document or a through a structured training video library.
Technology Incorporation to Automate the Onboarding Process
Organizations nowadays have an ever-increasing number of tasks and data. A study estimated that an average of around 54 activities is involved in the onboarding of most employees. Automating this process as much as possible is necessary to fasten it up without diminishing quality. Here are a few ways in which technology can help:
- Rather than giving new hires stacks of paperwork detailing policies and guidelines, take the process online so that they can read it all up in their own time and get back to it whenever the need arises.
- Use technology to make all organizational security matters more accurate and safer. For instance, an automatic card system can be used for entrance as well as attendance purposes.
- Make trainings more fun and engaging using videos. Organizations can use a good video platform for all their training and learning needs.
Additional Factors that Influence Onboarding Time Length
- For technical jobs, technical onboarding is required to demonstrate how to use specific software. Do share some samples that showcase the expected output level.
- The new employee's position level also plays a part in determining the length of onboarding as the amount of information to be conveyed increases as seniority rises.
- Onboarding time length also differs for external and internal hires. External hires require more time and effort as they are new to the company.
Video as a Means to Improve the Onboarding Process
These were the main components that are required to give a quality onboarding experience. As mentioned earlier, one major way in which onboarding time length can be reduced is by streamlining training and onboarding in an organized manner through a video library. A well-planned video playlist can deliver things like orientation, company history, guidelines, policies, benefits, trainings, and messages from higher management. Imagine how much time this can save for all the employees.
VIDIZMO offers an internal training and learning video platform that is perfect for all organizational onboarding needs. Some useful
features of VIDIZMO's video solution are:
- Multiple Deployment options are available where you can store training videos on cloud, on-premise or in a hybrid infrastructure. In the cloud option, there is flexibility to host on Azure, AWS or any other cloud of your choice.
- Integrate VIDIZMO with Zoom to automatically ingest meetings onto your video portal. This way, orientations and different training meetings can be saved for future use.
- Make videos more interactive by incorporating quizzes, surveys, annotations, and handouts within them.
- Quick searchability can be done through titles, metadata, tags, and even in-video spoken words, faces and objects.
- Training analytics are also viewable for tracking views and checking if any employee has failed to watch a video.
- It has top-notch privacy and compliance features. Access to different videos can be limited to different user groups and password-protection can be enabled.
With such a video solution handling the most basic repetitive components of onboarding, the focus can then be brought to activities linked to cultural integration, social interactions and team building. Research has shown that an effective onboarding process would make it more likely for about 69% more employees to remain in a company for three years. Hence, quality onboarding truly aids in retention and should be a top priority of all companies.
Learn more about VIDIZMO's corporate learning solution.
