Employee onboarding is the first impression a new employee has of your organization, and the experience can either make or break the success of that employee in their new role. With the cost of replacing employees being so high, it's imperative that new hires are set up to succeed. New hire orientation plays a pivotal role.
Two key elements of a successful onboarding program are:
1. New hire training should build your employees' confidence that they can be successful from day one. One way to do this is to communicate that they are valued by the company. We call this “engaging their head and heart.” Your employees must believe the training has value, for them and for the company.
2. New hires need to know they are going to be supported as they learn their new job. When developing an onboarding program, think about what that new team member is thinking and feeling. Then provide a framework that includes both people and information, to allay the new hire's fears, help them acquire the skills and knowledge they need to succeed, and give them confidence to ask questions.
The result: maximum retention of your most valuable assets.
Effective new employee training shouldn't be a huge information dump built from an onboarding checklist. Instead, an effective new hire training program should:
On the journey, employees should be able to monitor their progress on their road to proficiency and see the overall progression of their learning.
Ideally, the roadmap would begin with need-to-know information, layering in intermediate to advanced content over time. In addition, new hire orientation is the time to “teach your learners to fish.” Training is not a one-and-done event. By providing additional or supplemental content as performance support, you can ensure employees have the answers to their questions in the moment of need when they’re on the job. New hire orientation is great time to introduce these tools and how to use them, thus teaching them to fish, and providing the pole.
The following are suggestions on implementing best practices into your new hire training program.
