Inefficiencies In Your Onboarding Process Matter More Than You Think

The hiring process is long and tiring, but hopefully by the end of it all, you end up with the perfect candidate for the position. While they might be eager to get to work, they might find themselves ill-equipped to do their job—a position you don’t want them to be in. Unfortunately, this is how many new hires start their tenure with a new employer, and while it might be tempting to claim that someone simply dropped the ball during the onboarding process, it’s more likely that the onboarding process itself is broken.

To ensure your business brings new hires on swiftly and effectively, we’ve put together some tidbits to keep in mind as you navigate the onboarding process.

Unprepared New Hires Cost Your Business Money

You might be wondering if this problem with new hires is actually that bad, and we are here to say, yes, it absolutely is. Here are the costs associated with an unprepared new hire:

• Payroll costs - If you hire someone at a starting salary of $45,000 per year, after all deductions, and you assume that employee’s active working time is 48 weeks per year (after holidays), you’re paying that employee $937.50/week. A two-week delay in getting that employee up to speed could cost you double that.
• Culture costs - If you put yourself in the shoes of the employee, the last thing you want is for your new employer to come off as if their operations are in shambles. You might get frustrated or even question your decision to join their staff. This bad first impression can be hard to shake, even over time.
• Team productivity - Chances are the rest of your team will feel the struggle of getting your new hire up to speed as well, as the responsibility for helping them will fall on their shoulders, not necessarily yours. They might experience interruptions to their workdays, which leads to a significant decrease in organizational productivity, too.

How to Prepare Your Hires By Improving Your Processes

Properly Equip Your New Hires

If you have a new hire starting soon, you should aim to have all their equipment ready for use on the day they start their new job. This often means preparing days or even weeks ahead of time to ensure they can hit the ground running. Consider the workstation, as well as any accounts, software solutions, and other tools they might need. Ideally, you can start this process as soon as they accept your offer of employment.

Assign Roles for Needs and Responsibilities

Again, you’ll want to have your new hire fully decked out with the tools they need right from the get-go. This is often easier to do if you have specific roles within your business for which you’ve assigned needs and responsibilities. This basically helps you build out a new user’s necessary accounts from a role-based template. For example, a sales team member will be assigned a template that includes all the tools they need to do their job, whereas an executive or a management team member might use a template that includes all necessary permissions and tools to make sure others can do their jobs.

Understand That Things Might Not Work Out

The trend these days is that employees often jump ship before retirement age to pursue other, more lucrative opportunities or those that better align with their professional goals and aspirations. In any case, you’ll need to have an offboarding process that works just as well as your onboarding process does. With these processes dialed in, you will have an easier time setting your employees up for success and revoking their privileges when they are no longer needed.

Don’t Let New Hires Become New Liabilities

The beginning of a new hire’s career with your business will set the tone for the rest of their employment, so why not invest in making sure that it starts well? It’s well worth your time, energy, and resources to do so before their first day. Learn more about how to make this happen by calling us today at (402) 514-3200.