In the United States, 25% of organizations spend a day or less on new employee onboarding. The employee onboarding process helps employees feel engaged in their workplace, but a recent Gallup poll revealed that a mere 12% of workers “strongly agree” that their organizations do a great job during the onboarding process. Due to this lack of onboarding procedures, workplaces may suffer from higher absenteeism, worse profitability, and higher turnover rates.

There are several straightforward ways you can improve your company’s onboarding procedures. By creating a new employee checklist and learning about the most common pitfalls, you can help new employees integrate into your corporate culture.

The Most Common Pitfalls During the Employee Onboarding Process

One of the most common mistakes that employers make is not having a long enough employee onboarding process. Because onboarding offers a number of benefits, a short or non-existent onboarding process can lead to many different issues.

• Onboarding helps employees understand their benefits. In turn, employees who understand their benefits are three times more likely to be holistically well.
• An estimated 91% of employees who get company culture training feel a connection to their company.
• Losing employees to bad onboarding experiences can be expensive. According to SHRM, it typically costs 90 to 200% of the employee’s salary to find their replacement if they leave the organization.
• More than half of employees who had a bad onboarding experience also had a negative perception of the entire company.
• Only 12% of employees thought that their organization’s employee onboarding process was at least adequate.

Luckily, there are easy ways you can improve your company’s new employee onboarding. To get started, you should learn how to avoid the most common onboarding mistakes.

1. Not Having a New Employee Onboarding Checklist

According to Asure’s 2023 HR Benchmark survey, 85% of fast-growth companies have an employee onboarding checklist. Among companies that had a down year, only 60% had a new employee onboarding checklist. Each company has different needs, but your employee onboarding checklist should generally include the following tasks:

• Get new hire paperwork ready.
• Complete employee training.
• Hold a formal orientation.
• Set up the employee’s accounts.
• Prepare a workspace for the new hire.
• Send a welcome email with important information, such as dress code requirements.
• Provide new employees with a tour of the facilities.
• Create a check-in plan to monitor their ongoing progress.

An employee onboarding checklist adds consistency to your hiring process. It also ensures that each applicant has a similar employee onboarding experience. Great onboarding experiences matter because 69% of employees are more likely to remain at an organization for three years or more if they have a good employee onboarding experience. Plus, standardized onboarding can increase your new hire’s productivity by 50%, according to SHRM.

2. Never Conducting a Formal Orientation

Your employee onboarding experience should also involve a formal orientation. In the same HR Benchmark study, the survey revealed that 82% of fast-growth firms had a formal orientation that shared the company’s mission and values. At shrinking firms, this number was just to just 54%. Formal orientations matter because they lay the foundation for the employee’s future career and provide employees with their first impression of the company.

3. Treating Applicants Differently

When it comes to your formal and informal employee onboarding process, the key is to treat all your employees in a similar way. Brian Shenker, a principal at Jackson Lewis, has defended employers in class action lawsuits under state and federal employment laws. He regularly handles sexual harassment, discrimination, and retaliation claims.

“We need to remember that the EEO [Equal Employment Opportunity] laws about discrimination and other such laws apply with equal force in the applicant stage before these individuals are ever employed by your companies,” says Shenker.

For example, each employee should be tested in the same way. You shouldn’t test one prospective worker’s ability to lift 50 pounds and not ask another applicant to do the same test. When you treat workers differently, it opens your business up to EEO claims. To prevent this from happening, it is important to create objective standards for each position or task.

4. Having Bad Organization

Onboarding is a process. As such, the process should be planned out ahead of time. You don’t want to simply throw a bunch of documents onto a new hire’s desk. Instead, you should think about the entire process in advance.

To get started, you should structure your company’s pre-boarding process. For example, you can send out a welcome email to new applicants that includes relevant information, such as the dress code and what to expect on their first day. Afterward, you should create a step-by-step guide for whoever will be doing the onboarding.

Typically, the onboarding process should include information about the individual’s job responsibilities and goal setting. The new hire should be informed about performance indicators and job expectations. Additionally, the onboarding process is an important time to convey information about the organization’s mission, values, and culture.

5. Using a Manual Onboarding Process

Next, you should consider using an onboarding program to streamline the entire process. When you use a software program, it allows you to provide a consistent onboarding process for every employee. It also serves as a way for hiring managers to document that they met legal requirements, such as the completion of mandated safety training.

A recent HubSpot survey revealed that 37.4% of hiring managers said that remote onboarding and training is one of the top three hiring challenges they face. As more jobs transform into remote or hybrid positions, it will become increasingly important to digitize the onboarding process.

Improve Your Approach to Employee Onboarding

New employee onboarding is a key factor in determining your turnover rate, productivity, and employee engagement. By creating a new employee onboarding checklist and avoiding common pitfalls, you can improve your overall onboarding process. With the right employee onboarding experience, you can help your new hires assimilate into your company’s culture and get a head start on their new role at your organization.

If your organization needs help establishing and refining best practices for employee onboarding, connect with us to learn how Asure’s small business HR experts can help.