Guided Onboarding

What is Guided Onboarding?

Guided onboarding is a structured process that helps new employees settle into their roles smoothly. It begins when a candidate accepts a job offer and continues until they're fully integrated into the organization.

What Does Guided Onboarding Entail?

Guided onboarding consists of the following steps:

• Pre-boarding: Before the first day, employees receive the welcome email, essential company resources, and guidance on the necessary paperwork to get started. This sets expectations and reduces anxiety.

• Orientation: The designated HR team member introduces the new employees to the organization's structure, mission, values, and culture during their first day or week.

• Role-specific Training: Employees receive role-specific training sessions, workshops, or online modules to develop the necessary skills, knowledge, and expertise required for their positions so that they can perform their job responsibilities both efficiently and effectively.

• Mentorship/Buddy System: Here, the new hires are paired with experienced colleagues for guidance and support. The buddies handhold the new hires into the nuances of the processes, clarifying their doubts and stepping in when they encounter challenges.

• Regular Check-ins and Assessment: Check-ins and performance assessments are carried out at scheduled intervals. During these initiatives, the management looks into every specific concern that the new hires have raised, takes measures to address them and also provides performance evaluation feedback and guidance for improvement.

What Are the Gains of Guided Onboarding?

• Guided onboarding is a proven employee management strategy that helps organizations not only ensure that new hires start to contribute to the company from day one but also that their employee experience is good. Here are some of the major gains of implementing it.

• Improved Employee Retention: Through guided onboarding, businesses can reduce early turnover as it helps the new hires feel valued and supported with minimal confusion or complexities in getting started.

• Higher Employee Engagement: Guided onboarding is a good solution to build strong connections between new hires and their teams. When they are bonded well with the rest of the team, they will be motivated to engage in team responsibilities.

• Faster Time to Productivity: The productivity of new hires is closely linked to their learning curve. Setting clear expectations and providing necessary training resources streamline this learning curve.

• Adaptation to company culture: Guided onboarding helps new hires understand the company culture and values faster than it usually takes otherwise. When there is a chance for them to get shaped by the company culture from the get-go, there will be fewer chances for them to deviate from it.

Recommended Steps for Implementing Guided Onboarding

Guided onboarding is something that needs to be done with a lot of caution and planning should it be effective. Here are the recommended steps to execute it.

• Customize the process to meet the unique role requirements of the new hires.
• Leverage onboarding software for administrative tasks and interactive training.
• Collect feedback from new hires on how they find the onboarding experience and refine the process if needed.
• Encourage existing employees to welcome newcomers and make them feel comfortable in their respective roles.