With costs of replacing an employee ranging from 90% to 200% of the employee’s annual salary, a poor onboarding of employees can have a detrimental effect on a company’s performance and bottom line. In this blog, we provide an employee onboarding checklist that will help you build and grow your new employee onboarding process so that you are offering a great experience and setting the foundation for a long employee-employer relationship.
Employee Onboarding Checklist
Here are the 5 phases of the employee onboarding program and what to include in each.
Phase 1 – Before a new employee starts
- Appoint a dedicated onboarding liaison who will proactively reach out and answer any questions that the new employee may have
- Order and setup technology, like computers, phone, email account and login access
- Host a virtual lunch before the employee starts
- Define where the new employee’s workstation will be if they are going to be working in an office
- Order security cards and keys, if they are going to be working in an office
- Prepare an employee onboarding welcome kit, which should include items like a welcome letter, agenda for the first day, branded swag, basic facts about the office and company, a copy of their employment contract, terms and conditions of employment, confidentiality agreements, emergency contacts, employee handbook, benefits documents, current policies and procedures, performance standards and expectations, training expectations, organizational chart or employee directory, information about tools and login access, and their new business cards
- If the employee is going to be working remotely, ship their laptop, headphones, webcam, external microphones and any other equipment they may need to their home
- Set up all necessary accounts such as email, company intranet, and any relevant software
- Schedule necessary training sessions, including orientation, safety training, cyber security training and job-specific training
Phase 2- The first day on the job
- Greet new employees when they arrive or schedule a virtual meet-and-greet
- Complete paperwork such as offer letters, employment contracts, tax forms, and benefit enrollment forms.
- Introduce the new employee to the organization and key team members (either in-person or virtually)
- If the new hire is going to work in the office, organize a work tour, including entrances, restrooms, kitchen, common rooms, and their workstation
- Review the employee handbook, important policies and procedures, and compliance and security materials
- Discuss company culture, mission statements, core values and goals
- Introduce the new employee to their onboarding buddy
- Ensure that they can log in to their laptop and all equipment is working properly
- Instruct the new employee about security and fire measures, if they are going to be working in the office
- Arrange a meeting with the employee’s supervisor
- Set up a welcome lunch or a virtual get-together with the new employee and their team
- Review the new employee’s job responsibilities and expectations, including performance goals and any relevant metrics
- Schedule a one-to-one meeting at the end of the day
Phase 3 – The first week on the job
- Check that the employee has met with the department head, their mentor and other key people in their role
- Check that the employee has met with team members in a casual environment (like lunch or virtual team bonding session)
- Ensure that short-term goals have been set
- Check that all equipment and software needs are met
- Plan additional training if needed
- Organize and invite the new employee to participate in team-building activities
- Add a new employee to the birthdays list to not miss it
- Set a one-to-one meeting with the employee at the end of the month
- Send an employee onboarding survey to get a sense of how the employee is feeling about the onboarding process and use the feedback to update your employee onboarding template
Phase 4 – The first four to eight weeks on the job
- Teach the new employee about their day-to-day job duties and any information they need for long-term success
- Review and document performance expectations
- Provide technical, process and safety training
- Give them access to the company intranet so they can find information that they need
- Assign a mentor to help new employees gain a solid understanding of their position and integrate into the culture of the organization
- Set a meeting with the department head about the employee’s progress
- Check how the employee is feeling about their new role
Phase 5 – After four to eight weeks
- Perform a competency assessment to gauge the employee’s strengths and weaknesses
- Create training plans for continued career and personal growth so that both the individual and organization can reach their goals and achieve success.
How LEAi helps with onboarding
We at LearnExperts have developed a tool called LEAi, which allows HR teams to build the training in their employee onboarding checklist.
The AI-enabled tool takes existing information within the organization, such as presentations, webinar recordings and Word documents, and transforms it into content for onboarding and employee training.
Content from LEAi can be transformed into content for videos, step-by-step guides, onboarding instructions, company policies and culture training, and more. Features that save time for our HR clients include….
- Document import: This tool takes presentations and documents and transforms them using AI into training content.
- LearnAdvisor: Continuously monitors the content being created and suggests improvements so it follows learning best practices.
- One-click microlearning: Takes large sections of learning content and breaks it into smaller sections for easier delivery and learning.
- Intelligent update: Ensures that training updates due to product changes are applied to all sections and courses that use that material.
- Collaborative authoring: You can give another licensed user ownership of content creation or request comments and feedback on learning content.
If you want to build your employee onboarding guide and need a content creation tool to help you accelerate the process and incorporate best practices, talk to us!
