7 onboarding mistakes you should not make

I cannot stress enough how important the structured and correct onboarding of new colleagues is. This, after all, greatly contributes to whether or not the employee stays with the company. And if so, then for how long, presumably? According to surveys, 86% of employees decide within the first 6 months whether or not they plan to stay with the company in the long term. On top of that, a bad onboarding experience makes it 2x more likely that the new hire will start looking for a new job again. If you want to reduce the chance of this, then know that these are the 7 onboarding mistakes you must never make.

1. Do not delay onboarding

In an earlier article there was already a mention that orientation is not onboarding. By telling the new employee where the canteen and the restroom are, and where their designated workplace is, you have not yet onboarded them. You have to provide support so that they get to know the company culture and pick up the company's rhythm as soon as possible.

If you delay onboarding, you signal to the new employee that they are not important at all, not a valued member of your work community. It also conveys distrust, which does not help engagement. Indeed, it quickly kills enthusiasm too.

2. Do not try to skimp on training

Every new employee needs internal company training, regardless of whether or not they already have work experience. Training ensures that they practise conduct that meets the company's expectations, do their job to a high standard and get to know the company's products and services.

At the same time, I would also draw your attention to the fact that not all knowledge and information can be conveyed almost instantly, within a short time. One or two weeks of intensive training does not help with getting up to speed quickly. Quite the opposite! Under such conditions the employee barely retains any important data. They feel overloaded, and even stupid for not remembering everything they heard during the intensive training. And this can give rise to anxiety in them, and even worsen the quality of their sleep, which ultimately negatively affects their work.

3. You do not set goals for the new employee

A very common onboarding mistake is that, during the probationary period, no goals to be reached are set for the new employee. This raises two problems. On the one hand, the employee cannot assess how well they are performing according to the company's expectations. On the other hand, the company cannot know on what basis to evaluate the employee.

Aimless work breeds uncertainty and hinders engagement. The employee may see themselves as carrying out meaningless tasks and having no future at the company. And because of this, they may soon look for a new job.

Of course, you also have to be careful with the goals you set!

During onboarding, it is worth defining goals for the new employee that are achievable and measurable. It is recommended to break the goals down into milestones as well, because reaching each milestone increases the sense of accomplishment. And this in turn makes them work on in better spirits and with more momentum.

4. You neither give nor ask for feedback

There are managers who think that the workplace is not a kindergarten. That we do not have to care about how employees feel. However, this is not the case! We really do have to pay attention to employees' well-being. This is especially true during the onboarding period. This is precisely why one of the biggest onboarding mistakes you can make is that you neither ask for nor give feedback. Regular feedback gives momentum to work. On top of that, it helps address any problems in time. And with this you can even prevent the employee from resigning within the first 6 months.

5. You do not take into account the differences between roles

Another common onboarding mistake is wanting to run every employee through the same onboarding process. Yet for people working in different areas and positions, different onboarding has to be created. While there are onboarding topics that concern everyone, such as fire and occupational safety, the company's strategy and objectives, there are also differences arising from the roles.  A colleague working in administration needs different information, a worker in sales or procurement needs something else, and an employee working in production needs something different again.

6. You do not tailor onboarding to the employee's needs

In addition to having to adapt the onboarding process to the roles, you must also not forget that everyone learns most effectively in a different way. There are those who like being given access to the company knowledge base and working through the theoretical training material alone, at their own pace. There are, however, also people who learn faster through experience. For them it is indispensable to acquire the knowledge needed for the job in a practical way, under the guidance of a mentor. And of course there are also those who like a combination of the two (theory and practice combined).

Consult with the new employee about how they would like to "learn the ropes", and design the onboarding accordingly. You can even review this every 1-2 weeks and, if necessary, modify it based on feedback from the new employee as well as those involved in their onboarding.

7. Skipping or botching preboarding is also a huge onboarding mistake

Onboarding actually begins even before the new employee has officially joined the company. That is why it is by no means unimportant what kind of experience you provide them from the moment they accept your offer. Most companies barely communicate with the new employee before the contract is signed. And even those that do communicate mostly do so by phone or email. However, requesting personal data such as ID card, social security and tax numbers this way, so that the contract for joining can be prepared, is cumbersome and not very secure either. Not to mention that if the employee's place of work and the company's head office are geographically far from each other, then signing the contract is not simple either. Thanks to the development of digital tools, however, there are already solutions to these problems. There are, after all, applications (such as CHEQ) that are not only able to encrypt the data sent through them, but also enable a digital signature. And they are extremely easy to use, so white- and blue-collar workers alike enjoy them. Not to mention that if the new employee receives an invitation to the corporate internal communication application from the very first minute, they can immediately feel like a member of the team. Or at the very least a welcome and expected co-worker.

If you pay attention to avoiding the 7 onboarding mistakes mentioned above, then you are already providing a better onboarding experience for new employees than most companies. And this also helps employer branding.