To help your team welcome new talents right, we’ve gathered the top six biggest onboarding mistakes you should watch out for.
It’s no secret that the talent market is extremely competitive these days. But, while the impact of such a tough competition on job seekers is rather clear, we tend to turn a blind eye to the challenges the competitive talent market creates for employers.
Today, when the unemployment rate is dropping and the number of job openings keeps skyrocketing, the importance of retaining talent can’t be stressed more. That is, apart from finding and recruiting the right specialists, companies also have to work hard on making sure they stay. And, that’s where proper onboarding plays a crucial role.
Onboarding plays a vital role in the employees’ satisfaction rate. Thus, influencing productivity and retention as well.
Believe it or not, though it sounds quite simple, the majority of employers make critical mistakes at this stage. And, the truth is that you might be one of them, too.
To help your team welcome new talents right, we’ve gathered the top six biggest onboarding mistakes you should watch out for. Let’s see what is there!
1. Lack of Organization
Organization is the key element of effective onboarding. In fact, the most successful teams begin the process even before the first day of work of a new employee. By doing so, they ensure that new staff members arrive on their first day fully equipped to do their work well. And this is the way to go!
Nevertheless, many companies lack organization and even procrastinate, which leads to poor onboarding and even poorer employee results. To avoid this, you have to make sure that you plan it right, starting in advance and wisely distributing the vital tasks across a limited amount of time.
2. Unreasonable Expectations
Another big issue facing organizations is putting too high expectations on new employees, loading them with lots of big and challenging tasks right away. Of course, earlier we said that you should avoid procrastination. However, be sure you don’t get this wrong! Excessive rush is also no good.
A student will be put under too much pressure. Most likely, they will have to turn to a paper writing service to save up more time for work. But, since this is just the first day, an intern will likely fail the task, leaving both you and him or her self disappointed.
Instead, seek balance and don’t put new team members under such pressure right away.
3. Unclear Expectations
Although having too high expectations won’t take you far, not having any expectations or not stating them clearly is also a huge mistake. In order to have a cohesive and effective workflow, it is vital to ensure that every employee has a clear understanding of the goals and expectations you put on them. Otherwise, their productivity will be close to zero.
The process of onboarding is the perfect time for clarifying the goals and expectations for a particular position. Thus, be sure to state them clearly. This will have a positive effect not only on the new hire’s experience but on the entire organization as well.
4. Bad First Impression
Whether you like it or not, first impressions matter in the workplace no less than in everyday life. If an organization makes a bad first impression on new employees, the likelihood of them staying will be critically low. And, this is one more thing employers tend to forget during the onboarding process.
To avoid this mistake, try to make the best first impression. Some factors to pay special attention to include the atmosphere in a team, corporate culture, comfort and cleanliness of the office, etc. All these factors will influence the impression and, respectively, the specialist’s desire to stick around.
5. Overflow of Information
So, we’ve already told you that putting too much responsibility and tasks on a recently hired specialist is a bad strategy. But, we have to say that providing too much information at once is also a bad idea.
If you really want freshers to adapt quicker and easier, don’t overload them. Instead, plan wisely how to provide the information and duties in such a way that a person absorbs everything well.
6. Understating or Exaggerating the Workload
Another critical mistake that can ruin the onboarding process and lead to a whole array of issues is when a company understates or, on the contrary, exaggerates the scope of the job. As you already know, having adequate expectations towards new employees is vital. But, what is also important is that they also have accurate expectations towards the job.
Due to this reason, we want to stress the importance of being honest and open concerning a job’s scope. After all, if you understate or exaggerate the workload, this will inevitably lead to disappointment, which definitely doesn’t contribute to simple and effective adaptation.
The Bottom Line
As you can see, when welcoming new employees and helping them make a transition, companies make lots of big mistakes that can eventually harm the productivity and success of their teams.
Hopefully, this article will help you understand the core idea of this process and stay away from making big mistakes. Now, all you need to do is to use these tips in practice to create the right onboarding strategy that will work for you!