Secret to a successful employee onboarding experience

A slick employee onboarding process is a sure-fire way to increase retention rates and productivity. Here’s the most important thing small businesses can do to get it right.

First impressions count. When it comes to small business, this is as true for your clients and customers as it is for new hires.

So whenever you’re bringing new staff onboard, you’ll want to make sure they have a seamless experience that aligns them to your venture’s objectives and sets them up for success.

Doing so will bring real-world benefit to your business, with research from Glassdoor showing a strong onboarding process can contribute to a positive employee experience, improving new hire retention by 82 percent and productivity by 70 percent.

Don’t make the mistake of leaving effective onboarding on the table — small businesses have as much capability for succeeding in this area as enterprises with entire HR departments. To get employee onboarding right every time, keep the following success factor in mind.

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Success or failure depends on what happens before Day One

The onboarding process begins the moment a new employee is hired and for the most successful organisations, it continues well beyond the probation period.

That means having all your ducks in a row before Day One is of utmost importance to the success of your hiring process.

Here are the types of information your new worker will want to have in hand before their first day on the job:

• Getting to work — Where are they going to be primarily located and what details about local transport options can you offer to make their commute straightforward from the start.
• Dress code and cultural notes — You should ideally set the tone for what your employees can expect of your company culture from their first interview, but it’s worth reiterating key pointers before Day One to avoid the potential for an awkward moment.
• Workspace and required tools — Your employee wants to know what they’ll be provided to work with, and letting them know in advance will help them prepare for productivity from the off.
• Orientation details — Whether you’re planning for formal introductions, tearoom announcements or a team lunch, give your new hire some indication of what’s to come, along with any important meeting times so that they’re confident and clear on what to expect.
• Don’t forget the paperwork* — While there’s a lot to remember, forgetting key documents in the onboarding process can slow things down and leave your new hire with a bad first impression. Not only should they know the details about what to do on their first day, but you’ll want to have all your admin work done ahead of time to guarantee a smooth experience (such as the collection of pay details, TFN and superannuation).

*NB: Regarding paperwork

Paperwork is critical, but it shouldn’t be the only focus of your onboarding program. Instead, the best onboarding programs are structured and strategic, according to the Human Capital Institute.

One way of making the onboarding process simpler for both you as an employer, as well as for your new hires, is to implement digital solutions to traditional administrative challenges.

Employee management solutions like MYOB Team include onboarding features that offer an efficient, compliant onboarding journey for new employees that also delivers time savings for business owners.

Employees can submit or update their pay, tax and superannuation details through MYOB Team — effectively eliminating the traditional paper trail, and giving your new hire complete transparency over the onboarding process at the same time.

MYOB Team is now a feature of the MYOB product suite for businesses of up to 20 full-time employees. For bigger businesses, you’ll find everything you need for payroll, rosters and timesheets in MYOB Advanced Workforce Management.