First day
Onboarding is the process of integrating new starters into your organisation and helping to familiarise them with your culture and processes.
Onboarding can start before the first day and continue well into the employment journey.
Spend time thinking about what impression you want your new recruit to have of you. It helps to think back to your own previous roles – what stands out as positive or negative experiences.
Onboarding plan
Your onboarding plan should introduce new recruits to your culture, policies and terms of employment as well as their responsibilities. This might include an induction plan, for example a guided tour, health and safety induction and the opportunity to ask questions.
The onboarding period also allows time to make an announcement to the wider organisation or client-base, set up IT and provide training.
If you’re going to use one, set up the new employee on your HR system. An online system is a great way to ensure you have all the data you need and that it’s held in a secure way, in line with the General Data Protection Regulations.
It can also help to automate key HR processes.
An automated system also shows your employee you take their induction seriously.
The success, or failure, of the employment journey sometimes depends on how quickly and well the employee settles in, the training provided and how the employee feels treated.
A probationary period allows time to monitor the performance and effectiveness over those early weeks and months. Maximising the chances of successfully developing and retaining excellent employees depends on how well this process is managed.
The probationary period is not a ‘trial period’ – the individual is an employee and has employment rights, just like anyone else, albeit some are limited in those early days.
During the probationary period, meet with your recruit regularly to see how things are going and offer any support to help them succeed in the role. Don’t forget to document the objectives set and progress each time.
An unsuccessful probationary period is still a dismissal so a fair and reasonable process should be followed.
Here to help
If you have any questions please drop us a line at [email protected] call us on 01449 708999 or call/text 07789 038409, or take a look at our Simple Steps Toolkit to taking on an employee.