Onboarding is a crucial process that allows you to win your employee’s trust. Done well, it can help secure employee engagement and ensure they are productive from the get-go. The onboarding process is vital in achieving your hiring goals and attaining organisational success.
A trust-building onboarding process should not be a one-day event where you issue the recruit with the paperwork, introduce them to the team, and acquaint them with their duties. Like any other relationship, building trust takes time. Ensure you take time to win your new recruit’s trust and build their confidence by spreading the process throughout their probation.
As much as you have several months to build trust, confidence and establish a solid employee-employer relationship, making the employee feel welcome and valued from the get-go will create a positive feeling about the job and motivate them to engage.
What is Onboarding in HR?
Onboarding is the process of helping your new recruit settle into and perform the responsibilities of the role successfully. The benefits of an onboarding process are to:
• Boost employee engagement,
• Reduce the time it takes from the date of hire to your employee being a productive team member,
• Build trust, encourage open communication and
• Reduce employee turnover.
Every organisation will have different HR functions, budgets, and onboarding methods depending on industry requirements and the recruit’s entry position. Regardless of the sector or role, below are tips guaranteed to help you build trust in your new hire during the onboarding process.
Onboarding – Create a sense of belonging from the start
Giving new recruits branded merchandise, like t-shirts, pens, notebooks, diaries, etc., is an excellent way of getting them to settle in and feel like a part of the company. In addition to this, consider sending them a personalised welcome message, written or recorded. This can quickly create a sense of belonging, make them feel treasured, and pave the way for you to win their trust.
Provide clear communication
Perhaps, the most crucial aspect of the onboarding process is communication. It’s important to communicate expectations clearly. Misinformation can create conflicts early in the relationship, and this can deeply set back their onboarding experience. From orienting them to the organisation’s culture to business activities, role expectations, and reporting mechanisms, ensure you provide the recruit with all the information they require to perform their duties satisfactorily.
This is also an excellent opportunity to cultivate open communication. The best way to encourage new recruits to communicate their expectations and provide feedback freely is by being honest about both business successes and challenges. Talking about challenges creates a sense of vulnerability and can be effective in establishing an emotional connection. In doing so, you’ll be helping the recruit visualise and appreciate their role in the overall organisation’s success.
Develop Trust
Trust is a two-way highway. It’s easier to win someone’s trust if they feel you trust them. Being new recruits, you may not be confident enough to allow them to work independently immediately.
However, micromanaging employees kills their motivation and prevents them from getting engaged in their job. Hence, you should strike a balance between close supervision and allowing them to be autonomous.
The best way of achieving this is by honing your communication and ensuring you provide them with sufficient information to perform their duties well. If you have worked well at cultivating open communication, they will be forthcoming whenever they need assistance or clarifications.
Step-up your leadership
You may succeed at winning the new recruit’s trust using the other methods we have discussed above; however, the trust may not last long if your leadership is questionable.
Be a leader of integrity who is accountable and worth emulating. Demonstrate a positive work ethic and present the daily challenges, opportunities and wins your company encounters as shared experiences of the entire team, not just at an individual level. This way, you can easily win the recruit’s trust, and build a strong team, as your positive qualities will shine through and endear you to them.
The onboarding process is a crucial stage that organisations should capitalise on to build new recruits’ trust and enhance their engagement. A positive onboarding experience can help you assemble a highly-productive team to realise more business success. Consequently, you will have a lower employee turnover, hence cut down on staff hiring resources.
If you are in the process of recruiting for your organisation, talk to us and let us help you find the right talent.
