When an employee is in the first few days of their job, it is now that onboarding can make a massive difference to their success in your company - and that means your success too. After all the time spent in the hiring process, it would be a shame to let new employees feel disengaged or flounder.

Your responsibility to your team starts from the moment you decide that they are the right person for the job. Those first few days are critical, and you shouldn't waste them.

Employees that are overloaded with a huge pile of paperwork, three meetings back to back with different teams and left alone can quickly feel like this isn't the right place for them. So ditch the overload and onboard correctly.

What is employee onboarding?

Onboarding is a shortened way to refer to the moments after a new hire joins your company and starts to integrate. The new hire will learn about your structure, the culture, the processes that they need to be involved in - and of course, the perks.

You can decide what type of onboarding package you use, but keep in mind it can be beneficial to break it down into things like compliance onboarding, team onboarding and culture onboarding.

Turnover

Unhappy employees leave, and that leaves you looking for new people to fill the role. It is expensive and unnecessary. If an employee in the trial period decides to leave, consider how long it took to hire them - your other staff will need to take on the extra responsibilities until you have a new person.

It is estimated this can cost in excess of 200% of the leaving employee's salary.

Information

Interviews are a great way for you to learn about the employee and for you to learn about them, but from that, they won't know what a regular day is going to look like - and you won't fully understand their working process until it happens.

Onboarding gives everyone involved the information they need to make the most of the role. It is not common for people to walk into a role and know what to do immediately, and it is the role of onboarding to help them.

Teamwork

The onboarding process will cover the new employees learning about other teams, and in a face-to-face environment, some meet-ups too. Ensure that your onboarding has some focus on enabling your new hires to meet the already established teams. This will help them integrate faster and feel like part of the team.

Accountability

The structure of your onboarding holds the management and team leaders accountable to their team. As part of your onboarding, there should be the ability to speak with management and team leaders in a more relaxed environment.

Not only that but when the employee is not just a keycard and a number, they are treated with more respect. The employee knows that they matter and are more likely to do great work.

Onboarding is just a consideration that should be kept in mind when you are a new company and looking to make an impact. Everything you do in the start-up period is essential: Tips For Starting A Successful Software Business - ThatSoftwareDude.com.