Make Your Onboarding Process Run Smoothly - Common Mistakes To Avoid

Between 2020 and 2021, companies spent over $92 billion on training and onboarding for their new employees, in the US alone!

The cost of hiring a new employee includes their salary, recruiting and training costs, benefits, and more. But there are many costly mistakes that companies make during the onboarding process that can make it even more expensive. If your company is onboarding new hires or is dealing with high staff turnover, learning more about these mistakes can help you save money and make the process run more smoothly.

Do you want to learn more about how you can make onboarding more efficient? Keep reading this article for onboarding tips to avoid these common mistakes during the onboarding process!

Thinking of Onboarding as Administration

Thinking of onboarding as a simple administration process is one of the biggest mistakes you can make with new employees. Many companies think that onboarding simply involves filling out paperwork and providing new hires with the right technology and tools.

However, there is much more to the onboarding process. It is a chance for your company to make a great first impression with your new hires and show them that they made a good choice when joining your team.

Thinking of onboarding with this lens will make it easier to provide your new hires with everything they need, not just helping them with the administrative tasks!

Not Connecting New Hires With Peers and Mentors

It is also essential that companies connect their new hires with other people in the company. Finding peers and potential mentors will help your new employees get to know the company culture and will provide them with a support system at work.

Mentoring in the workplace is especially important because it allows your new hires to get help in advancing within your company. Many people leave their employment because they feel there are no opportunities for advancement.

Giving your new hires a mentor or someone to connect with will help them learn new skills and find ways to progress and develop in your company. It will also help them feel valued and learn to fit in during their first few weeks of work.

Giving Poor First Impressions

Managers also must avoid giving poor first impressions when working with new hires. If you don't start with your best foot forward, your employees will have a poor impression of your company and may be more likely to quit earlier. 

Instead, you should show them that you are taking the onboarding process seriously! Make sure that you are organized and have put a lot of thought into their first few weeks of working with you. 

Having high-quality onboarding training will help your employees improve their productivity. Plus, it will make them respect your management from the get-go. 

During this first impression, you can also introduce your new hire to the company culture. Make sure they know your business values! How does your team think about challenges and opportunities? How do you communicate as an organization?

Answering these questions will help your employees start off on the right foot and make it easier to adapt to your company culture.

Throwing New Hires Into Projects 

As a manager or business owner, it can be tempting to give your new hires responsibilities immediately. However, if you throw them in at the deep end straightaway, it can easily make your new employees feel overwhelmed and may result in them leaving your company. 

Rather than giving your new employees tasks right away, you must first teach them how to handle the daily tasks of your workplace. This will help them feel equipped to do their best work in the future and will prevent unnecessary frustration. 

Make sure you provide your employees with plenty of help and resources rather than leaving them to figure it out on their own. 

Treating Onboarding as a Short-Term Project

Another common mistake that businesses make is to cut the onboarding phase short. Many people treat it as a short-term project and typically end the process at the end of the first month of hiring new employees. 

However, onboarding training can take several months to complete properly. This is typically how long it takes for employees to be fully productive and comfortable in their new position. 

If you make the onboarding process too short, your new hires may feel overwhelmed, neglected, and ready to fail. Instead, you should continue to check in with your new hires for months after they start working.

Forgetting to Set Onboarding Goals

You should also always set onboarding goals with your new hires! When you hire a new employee, they will often have some type of career goal that they are hoping to advance towards. They likely applied for their current position because they thought it would help them reach their goals. 

Tying your new hire onboarding process to their goals will help them feel more engaged with their work and will increase their motivation as an employee. 

To help them advance more quickly, you and your new hires can set goals for their first few months. 

Not Checking In on New Hires

Not only do you need to set goals with your new employees, but you also need to regularly check in with them. If you set goals with your employees and never revisit them, they may not feel the encouragement or motivation to work towards those goals. 

In addition, checking in on your new hires is essential to help them feel connected and to keep them from feeling frustrated or overwhelmed with their work. By checking in on them, you can learn more about their onboarding experience and find ways to improve for the future. 

You should check in with your new employees regularly. This includes at the end of their first day, the first week, the first month, and more. You can even just stop by during the week to see how they are acclimating. 

Checking in can be a formal meeting, but it can also be a quick email, video call, or chat in the break room. Checking in frequently will make a big difference to your new hires and will show them that your company truly cares about them. 

Failing to Automate Onboarding

To make the employee onboarding process more effective, companies should also improve onboarding automation. This can be done with employee onboarding software, which automates administrative tasks. 

This type of software can improve your workflow. For example, it can automatically send out onboarding checklists or welcome messages to new employees. 

It can also help with learning management as your employees learn new skills. By automating your onboarding, you can save time and money! Plus, it reduces the potential for onboarding errors.

If you are looking for onboarding software to manage your team training, you can start a free trial with Intuto. 

Using the Same Process for Every New Hire

Something else that can negatively impact your onboarding is using the same process for every new hire. Onboarding should regularly be adapted and tweaked. Each employee will have different learning methods and needs. 

Learning how to adapt your training will ensure that it is most effective for each of your new hires. 

While you can have a general outline for your onboarding, you should still be flexible and able to adapt when it comes to the needs of each of your employees. 

Not Measuring the Success of Your Onboarding Process

Finally, it is essential that you learn how to measure the success of your onboarding process. Many organizations work to create a great onboarding process, but will never evaluate the performance of their programs. 

By measuring your performance, you will be able to learn what steps of the onboarding process are most effective and what steps provide the best return on investment. 

Asking your new hires about the effectiveness of your onboarding is an easy way to measure the success of your process. Do they have any suggestions for how you could improve? What can you do to make things run smoother? 

Need Help Improving Your Onboarding Process? We Can Help

When you are onboarding new employees, it is essential that you learn how to avoid these common mistakes. By following this onboarding checklist, you can get help improving your onboarding process and making it smoother for your new hires!

Do you want to learn more about improving your onboarding process with onboarding software? Intuto can help! We provide you with the tools, expertise and resource that you need to get your staff training online. This will help you build your business and safety culture.

Check out our free manager's guide to onboarding today to learn more about best practices and avoid common mistakes! If you're ready to think about the next step in your onboarding process, meet with us today!