The lifestyle trends, higher demands of living standards, and the high rate of disengagement turn people to job-hop easily to where the grass looks greener. According to SHRM study, ‘Onboarding New Employees: Maximizing Success’, nearly 25% of U.S. working population undergoes some type of career transition each year, though most were unsuccessful.

The statistics showcased a high employee turnover rate where as much as 50% of hourly workers leave their new jobs within 4 months and also, 50% of senior outside hires fail within 18 months.

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A high turnover results in a loss of time, effort, productivity and expenses to the company. Therefore, an effective onboarding plan is a must for both HR professionals and the management to let new hires begin with a good start and benefiting both sides.

The initial phase of the onboarding process of a new employee is quite crucial. It is a splendid idea to lead the new hires through what we call, the 4 C’s strategy:

Compliance

New hires need to know comprehensively about the company’s mission, strategies, goals, customers and operational structure. This will be the basic information they would need to know.

Some references like company’s handbooks, rules & regulations, policies, entitlements and the official websites are some resources worthy to get much information about the company.

Clarification

Some important matters like objectives, detailed role specification, expectations and advancement could be communicated effectively with both HR professionals and immediate supervisors to gain the best results when executing the tasks.

Culture

Every office has their unique culture determined by the management and executives to achieve the desired goals and performance capabilities of each individual. The new hires have to be able to blend in with the company so as to achieve their maximum productivity. Thus, briefing them on the company’s formal and informal culture will help them understand the company in-depth.

Connections

An amicable relationship with colleagues could effectively boost the productivity as a whole and also give a sense of belonging too. It is also necessary for the new hire to be able to communicate with HR easily for any related requests. Therefore, HR should provide all information networks the company uses, for e.g. Communicating platform, employee portal or any other platforms that the company uses to either interact with each other for personal/work matters.

Aside from the 4Cs, a good first step would be announcing the new arrival to the company. Conditioning the team to the new team member addition that will ‘play’ alongside them. Excellent communication yields useful results as people would opt to be more open, friendly and helpful to the newcomer.

The HR could initiate a warm welcome by preparing the desk, equipment and stationeries needed, even a welcoming card or kit would be impressive too. Such actions will induce a pleasant feeling in the newcomer, and he/she will also tend to be more warm to the others.

Also, instead of putting the new employee straight to serious business, HR could have a sit-down chit-chat session in related to the technical and more detailed things like the employee’s email, workstation, where to park (if driving), the location of the restrooms, pantry and more. Like a mini-tour!

Onboarding process might not be a singular factor that decreases the company turnover rate, but it is the very first step the HR together with the management can do to attempt to boost employee’s motivation and engagement before they enter the real working process.

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