Why does onboarding matter? Onboarding is more than a process. It’s more than a tick box on your to-do list. It shouldn’t take one day.

It’s the start of someone’s new career and their future. The core of this, what makes it so important to your new starter is quite human – everyone wants to be made comfortable and feel welcomed into a new environment. Planned and engaging onboarding does this.

There’s certain elements to onboarding that everyone should be doing such as setting objectives and meet and greets. But the ultimate aim for an employer is to engage with a new employee, engage them with their role, and values and life at the organisation. This will get them familiar with your business and a successful relationship can start.

Onboarding a new employee remotely? Check out our guide to doing this successfully, here.

It Starts Before They Start

This engagement and relationship starts from the second you are looking for a new person. From the very start of your recruitment process and your early communication, you are building your first impressions. Whether that’s a job advert or a recruiter head hunting on your behalf – there’s a picture of your business forming. This is all about building the right impression.

Wow Them

Once they’re ready to start, to get someone truly excited, you need to wow them. It’s a chance to show them how amazing their career and work can be. Whether it is the ground-breaking work that they will be working on or the quality of clients. Wow them, inspire them and engage them.

Why Bother?

The benefits for you as an employee of engaging onboarding are enormous. The first is higher retention rates. Employees that have gone through an engaging and inspiring onboarding process will buy into your company and have a clear idea how they can be a success within your company. They’ll understand the culture and build relationships that makes them feel part of a welcoming environment. This also has knock on effects where your current team is stable and happy with their roles, so increasing retention rates again.

Also, you’ll have lower time-to-productivity. Your employee will understand their role, their objectives and have the tools to succeed. They’ll also know what ‘successful’ looks like and will be engaged and motivated to get there quickly.  An informative and engaging onboarding process will have your new hires performing like your top employees sooner rather than later!

So why does onboarding matter? It makes employees feel welcome. It builds long term careers. It engages people to be motivated and successful. Oh, and it will save your business time and money.