The Benefits of Personalized Onboarding

How much thought has your organization really put into personalizing its onboarding process? If you’re like most companies, the answer is probably “not much.” After all, what’s there even to personalize? You’ve got a new hire, so now you have them fill out their paperwork, get their security badge, tour the office, and do some initial training. It’s tedious, but not that complicated–what would need to change?

But the truth is, there are huge benefits to personalizing your onboarding process if you think creatively and strategically. After all, this is a new hire’s first introduction to their new workplace, coworkers, day-to-day life, and much more. Why wouldn’t you want it to be a process that’s memorable, efficient, and effective in order to set them up for continued success throughout their career with your organization?

Here are just a few ways in which a truly personalized onboarding process can set your team up for success from the minute each individual person walks through that door on day 1 (and even before):

Integrate your brand into your onboarding process

 

When people hear about branding their onboarding process, there’s often a bit of confusion. Branding is part of marketing, which is external. Onboarding is all internal, so why would there need to be much branding, and how could there be?

But think about it this way: one of the biggest factors people give when leaving a job (especially if they quickly move on from a new job) is that the organization was a “poor culture fit.” Sure, inherent mismatches do sometimes occur, but more often than not, a poor culture fit is really just a bit of culture shock: that is, the organization didn’t do enough to educate a new hire about the company culture and work to integrate them into it.

So why not begin building this integration as part of your onboarding process? Personalized, branded onboarding tools–from training modules that teach new hires what success looks like in your organization to meet-and-greets with coworkers and leadership–will help your new hires understand and feel welcomed into the company culture and help reduce turnover during those ever-crucial first 90 days.

Make onboarding consistent and reliable

 

If you’re using a generic, one-size-fits-all onboarding strategy (or even worse, no set onboarding strategy at all), then your process may not be giving new hires all the proper tools and information they need to succeed in their roles. You may have trainers who are sharing outdated info, paperwork with no clear purpose, or confusing–and competing–direction given from multiple team members that leaves new hires feeling lost or annoyed.

By personalizing your onboarding process to fit the needs of your organization, you’re also making it more systematic and reliable. You’re ensuring that every step of the process serves its purpose and leaves every new hire feeling informed and supported. The more consistent you can make your onboarding process, the more successful your new hires will be, and the less likely they’ll be to leave prematurely.

All of this adds up to a healthier organization with happy, long-term employees who can rise through the ranks and influence your culture for the better, and it all begins by simply turning your attention towards making that first contact process as functional as possible.

Streamline inefficient onboarding processes

 

Not only can a poorly designed onboarding process cause consternation with new hires, but it can also be costing you money! Think of how much goes into bringing on a new employee: you’ve already spent significant time and money on the hiring process, and now you’re paying a new hire for the time they spend filling out paperwork and being trained, you’re paying other employees for their time spent training a new hire when they could be doing other work, and you’ve got a new worker who will likely be working at sub-optimal productivity for a significant amount of time as they get their sea legs.

Yes, all of this is a cost of doing business and isn’t inherently bad. But if you can personalize your onboarding process to make it as streamlined as possible and save on those costs, there’s very little downside. Onboarding technology allows you to set up a process that works best for your organization, from allowing paperwork to be filled out online, to creating training modules that a new hire can do at their own pace without supervision, to offering quizzes, skill checks, and more that ensure your employee is getting up to full productivity faster than ever before.

Reduce employee turnover

 

We all know the stats about retention vs. hiring: it’s simply much cheaper on average to retain current employees than it is to hire new ones, once all is said and done. And employee retention also helps in the long-term as well: organizations all do better with the confidence, camaraderie, and institutional memory that comes with employees who stay with the company for the long run, growing into their roles and advancing into new ones.

As discussed earlier, this always-crucial employee retention starts with the onboarding process, which can be the make-or-break moment between a new hire sticking with a new position or bowing out after a few weeks or months. But it can also be more than that: with a personalized strategic onboarding process, you can plan how to support your hires through their entire tenure, from the day they walk in the door to important anniversaries, milestones, growth opportunities, and eventual retirement.

RedCarpet onboarding technology sets your team up for success

 

SilkRoad Technology enables people to thrive in a changing workplace, and SilkRoad’s RedCarpet onboarding technology is an industry leader in engaging, training, and developing new hires and existing employees to ensure that your organization is running as efficiently and productively as possible every single day.

To learn more about our talent management software and see how RedCarpet onboarding technology can help you hire, train, and retain the top talent in your industry, contact SilkRoad Technology today.