Alexandre Diard According to a study led by Brandon Hall Group, organizations with a strong onboarding process improve new hire retention by 82% and their productivity by over 70%.
Nonetheless, according to another study led by Gallup, only 12% of the employees agreed that their company is doing a great job at onboarding new employees
If we take this data into consideration, an optimal employee integration process is mandatory for a business to thrive and avoid high staff turnover.
In this article, we’ll go through a list of tips and tricks that will help you facilitate your company’s employee integration process and turn this tedious task into a simpler one.
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5 Tips to Facilitate Your Employee Integration Process
1. Optimize your onboarding process
The onboarding process is a critical component of your new employee’s perception towards your business but often gets overlooked by most organizations.
According to a recent study, 88% of new hires are unsatisfied with their company’s employee onboarding.
This data puts into perspective that there is an enormous room for improvement on this action. To begin with, you can start by implementing various points such as:
- Multiplying team building initiatives.
- Prioritizing one on one time with direct manager or a team member on a recurrent basis.
- Giving the new hire a run through of the company’s culture & values.
- Defining a list of people to meet & setup meetings with them.
- Giving your new staff an explicative outline of their objectives.
- Building a comprehensive plan for employee integration.
All those additions have a common aim, to build a personalized onboarding plan by taking into consideration the new hire’s wants & needs and to make the employee feel at ease as quickly as possible. If all those implementations are made properly, it will result in a higher employee satisfaction and therefore, improve their productivity.
2. Make sure you prepare the environment for their arrival
Employee integration does not only refer to training and meeting with new co-workers. It is also important to feature some other perks and actions before, and on the day your new staff arrives.
First, it is mandatory to keep your workforce in the loop when you are ready to welcome a new employee. On the day that they arrive, the team will already be aware of their arrival and will be ready to welcome them to the company in the best way possible. Sending out a welcome e-mail and introducing them to their new team on the arrival day are also common HR department tactics.
Adding other perks are also very appreciated by new staff members, like a welcome package or a hiring benefit for example. It adds to the whole experience and serves two main purposes:
- Gives your new hires the materials they need to start their job properly (work computer, IT credentials, other tools depending on their position, etc.)
- Adds excitement by showing that your management team cares about your staff by featuring some extra benefits. It can be anything from a free gym membership to a sweatshirt, or even a personalized coffee-mug.
It does not need to be extravagant objects nor expensive features; the idea is to give something that was not planned in the employment contract that would improve their work life and that the new employee didn’t expect. It’s the perfect way to get their first day at work started from the employees’ point of view and a very effective way to improve employee retention rate on the company’s side.
By welcoming your new hire optimally, you’ll set the tone that you do consider all the little things that will be positive towards your employee integration. In a stressful moment like the start of a new job, these factors are greatly appreciated; it will help boost morale, lower the first day stress and kickstart the new position in the best way possible.
3. Understand the expectations of your employee
Improving the employees’ integration into their his work content is very important; making sure you understand their expectations is also mandatory. According to a recent study featured in the Candidate Experience (CandE) Global Research Reports, only 26% of new hires recall being asked for any feedback on their onboarding process.
Understanding the expectations and the feedback of your new employee is key to boost retention, productivity, lower employee turnover and keep your top talent within your workplace.
In order to facilitate this task, it can be done in multiple ways:
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Running online surveys
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Setting-up onboarding feedback sessions with direct manager
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Add a suggestion box either digital or physical
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One-on-one sessions with direct manager on a regular basis during onboarding
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End-of-onboarding feedback session
Finally, by addressing the personal development of your new hires in the company’s environment during their integration, you’ll help boost their productivity by nearly 3.5 times. Make sure your new staff is happy and they’ll give it back to you by delivering quality work!
4. Digitalize your employee training
Integrating a new employee can often be seen as a lengthy, time-consuming process. By digitalizing some of these processes, it will result in a much more flexible approach and give the possibility to the new hires to learn at their own pace and manage their time at their convenience. On top of that, it will also require less manpower and cut down on costs such as one on one trainings, workshops or other trainings that are often much more expensive than digital features.
Digitalizing your employees’ training will also improve their engagement effectively as it will be easier for them to take control of the tasks and enable them to pace their training themselves. This will also help on your new employees’ momentum as they will feel that you trust their competencies by allowing them to manage their training programs.
Another perk of the digitalization of your employee integration is that they will have access to all the required information & documentation (e-books, learning bootcamps, certifications etc.) directly on their HR platform. Available 24/7 without having to request access and lose time in the meantime.
Training program digitalization also reduces all the physical paperwork your HR team must deal with. With a digital approach, you’ll be able to generate a bigger information database regarding your employees’ training and keep track of their performances during their orientation & training.
It will also enable you to focus more on other important things, such as making sure whether the new hire is happy and comfortable within the organization. After a certain time, your company will be able to determine a listing of best practices and continue to improve on employee integration. It will help maintain the workforce satisfaction level as high as possible and address problems and pain points faster.
5. Assign them a company mentor
A company mentor is the person that will guide your newest team members during their employee integration that will serve as a counselor and not as a supervisor. The mentor already knows about the company and how the work environment functions. In this case, they will be:
- The person in charge of facilitating the onboarding of your new employee
- An important source of information & advice
- A quality intermediary to link your new hire with your existing staff
Assigning a company mentor to your new employee can result in a multitude of benefits, not only for your newly hired employee but also for the mentor himself.
Mentor: They will feel like they are giving back to the company by sharing the knowledge they accumulated within the years. About the organizational culture, the policies, and procedures or about the job itself.
New members: Feel that they are being guided through the company culture, receiving guidance and useful tips in the meantime, helping them get used to the ways of working quicker during his first workdays.
Finally, the company mentorship program will have an important influence on the new employees’ perception of the organization and whether they will be likely to recommend the company or not. If the mentoring process is made properly, it will set the tone on the rest of the professional experience your new hire will be receiving within your company and turn your onboarding training as a competitive advantage for your company.
How to Use an HR Platform to Facilitate Your New Employee Integration
If you decide to use an HR platform to help with your employee integration, it will greatly help in order to take to a digital approach and automate your onboarding process.
If you take PeopleSpheres HR platform for example, we offer a full solution on how to optimize your new employee workflow integration within your company, from a digital pre-boarding approach to the onboarding of your new staff. This workflow feature also allows you to off-board employees when needed and offer you a step-by-step approach for each section of your employee integration.
By using an onboarding tool, it will also enable you to get a better grip at your new staff integration with other features like a milestone tracker.
You’ll be able to give them a voice by featuring a feedback & survey integration on your platform or keep them in the loop on your company activity with a notification center.
The main advantage of such a digital solution is that all those features are at the tip of your finger, directly on your employee’s work computer & mobile app. It will, at the end, facilitate the gathering of useful insights regarding your employee integration and smooth up the whole process by digitalizing the operations.
All the points mentioned in this section, aiming to optimize your employee integration are available on PeopleSpheres HR Platform.
Employee integration is proven to be an essential process for workplace improvement. If a company uses an HR platform and implements most of the points we mentioned in this article, paired with automated workflow and onboarding, it will enable them to be much more reactive if any problems appear. In order to boost the involvement and the productivity of your new employees, it is mandatory to make sure their onboarding is optimal, resulting in a paired improvement, both for the new staff and for the organization itself.
To summarize, the 5 effective ways to to optimize your employee integration are:
- Streamline your onboarding process. Make sure that you personalize your employees’ onboarding as much as possible. Bring a tailor-made solution to them and help them get used to the company’s way of working as soon as possible.
- Make sure you prepare the work environment before your employees’ arrival. Get their work tools ready for usage and don’t forget to give them some extra perks to make their first day at work memorable.
- Understand the expectations of your employee. Feedbacks and continuous support is mandatory during employees onboarding. Make sure to check on how they feel towards their formation and how to improve the process.
- Digitalize your employee training. If you’re trying to bypass time consuming physical steps for your employee’s onboarding, turning to digital is the solution you’re looking for. Not only will it help your company save time and money, but it will also give all the tools to your employees in order to take control of their formation and pace it according to their needs.
- Assign them a company mentor. By assigning a mentor to your new employee, you’ll ensure that their ongoing progress is overlooked by someone that has experience within your organization. Therefore, you will make sure that the newcomer will have all the required tools and company knowledge in order to thrive.
To conclude, HR digital solutions represent the future of employee integration within companies. They allow you to overlook all the mandatory steps of a new employee integration, from their preboarding workflow to their onboarding, while also giving them feedback tools, action & notifications centers via a personalized HR Portal. All those modules are available on PeopleSpheres’ HR solution, based on the needs of your company.
Our final advice: Make sure to integrate your employees in the best way possible, it is a win-win situation; if they are happy with their onboarding, their productivity levels will also be optimal and the perception of your employer brand will de facto increase.
