Every organization has goals to grow, and without an HR team that’s dedicated to that growth, it won’t come easy. The HR team also needs time to focus on maintaining that growth in a scalable way. Ensuring the onboarding team is prepared to welcome the new additions to the team is the first place to start.
In the last blog focused on onboarding, I talked about larger problems that could be making your onboarding inefficient. Inefficient onboarding can lead to low morale in the workforce and a high turnover rate, which is expensive in and of itself. In this blog, we’re going to offer some ways to improve the overall onboarding experience and keep team members happy.
Find tools for better orientation.
There are a ton of tools for recruiting needs, however, the need for software in different areas of HR has become more relevant. In the past, the solution to improving the onboarding and orientation process required the onboarding team to take on more responsibilities. The tools that resolve repetitive and tedious tasks, allows the onboarding team to focus on more meaningful work.
- Rippling helps businesses manage their payroll, benefits, employee computers, apps, and more—in one place.
- BambooHR helps make hiring and employee transitions easier. This product offers E-signature, time-off tracking, performance management, and reporting tools.
- Zenefits eliminates the paperwork associated with onboarding. This product helps with enrolling new hires in health insurance, adding employees to payroll, and more.
When the onboarding team has time and resources, new employees receive the necessary knowledge before starting their roles.
Break down the silos.
As mentioned in the last article, departmental silos are an organizational challenge that requires everyone to work together. That same team mentality can be useful when teaching new employees about the organization during orientation and beyond.
- Asking department heads to speak about their department and its role in your organization during orientation can get new hires acquainted with one person for each department. This can help new hires when they have questions during their first weeks. Specifically, if they need to find subject matter expert in the organization.
- Hosting an all-hands meeting doesn’t fall in the wheelhouse of HR, but it ensures your organization is aligned. Set a clear quarterly mission, so every department can work together for the same common goal.
- Introducing an AI-native knowledge sharing platform to your organization gives everyone access to the information they need. Whenever anyone in your org has a question demanding a high degree of expertise (regardless of their tenure), Capacity can reach out to the teammate who can provide the right answer, and our AI-assisted platform will assure that question won’t have to be answered again, by storing the answer in the knowledge base. This will save everyone a ton of time.
Communicate.
Sharing accurate and up-to-date information should be a habit in every organization, so no one has an excuse to spread outdated knowledge. In addition to sharing top-down information regarding benefits, employee policies, and leadership changes, it’s also important to encourage teammates to communicate with one another. The more communication, the better.
- Regardless of the medium, a newsletter that shares company changes, events around the office, and progress updates can keep everyone in the know. Whether you do this on a recurring basis, or by broadcasting information by the occurrence, consistent information helps new employees become adapted to the environment. It also keeps everyone accountable. For example, the onboarding team could use the updates to keep the orientation current with accurate information.
- The future of the office is chat. Emails are great when it comes to speaking with others outside of the office. But when you just need to ping someone for a quick question, a chat interface is extremely useful.
You can message Capacity just like you would a coworker when Capacity is plugged into a chat interface. Access all your company’s knowledge, interact with the 50+ apps Capacity integrates, pull up any type of file from your cloud drive, and so much more.