Improving Engagement during Onboarding of New Hires

Employees play a huge role in taking your business to new heights. Unless you are paying more attention to the well-being and performance of your employees, you won't be able to decide whether things need improvement within the organization. Managing employees already working with your organization is often an uphill task.  Managing employees you’ve hired recently could be even more daunting. Hence, the need is to focus on improving the engagement of employees during onboarding programs.

Are you adopting satisfying methods to improve engagement?

Your hired employees may not feel connected with the organization or experience a tough and impolite company culture on the very first day. In any such instance, you cannot expect all of them to stay with your company and deliver performance with utmost dedication and passion. 

Several studies have already revealed that most organizations lose 60% of new employee strength within the first week of recruitment. The prime reason for such a dramatic loss is the lack of appropriate measures for improving the engagement of your employees.

Employee engagement and its importance 

Employee onboarding consists of multiple stages like recruitment, document verification, interview, orientation, etc. At each stage, you have to devise different strategies so that the outcomes are satisfactory and as per the expectations.

However, it would be unfair to expect new employees to respond positively if you do not give them any reason to stay with your company. This is where the concept of improving engagement comes into play.

Benefits of employee engagement

Here are some of the significant benefits you can enjoy with engaged new hires. 

• Succeeding in engaging your employees can help them give their best. This will, in turn, increase your business's overall performance and productivity.

• With employee engagement principles in the sales department, you notice an increase in revenues over time. 

• To ensure that your employees are loyal to the organization, they find interest in your company and have formed a deeper connection. 

• Another significant benefit of improving the engagement of your new employees is the reduction in absentee records. 

How bad employee engagement influences your business

Most people do not focus on improving the engagement of their employees, which bars them from realizing the effects it can have on their business. 

• With no engagement from the employee side, your revenues and sales will suffer significantly.

• Owing to lesser employee engagement, your organization is likely to reach the point of stagnation. 

• You won’t receive the desired returns, which will further impact your business’s profits and popularity in the market. 

• Poor employee engagement will also affect your client or customer base, albeit indirectly. 

Improving engagement of new employees

Giving a speech or arranging workshops alone could drag new hires. Improving engagement requires a decent amount of planning and execution efforts to see any significant changes. Here are some of the best ways you can plan to provide the best onboarding experiences and boost their engagement,

1. Make a connection between recruitment and onboarding

It would be good to establish a connection between recruitment and onboarding processes. For example, if you can make the candidates feel at ease during the interview rounds, you can do the same during onboarding. This will give your new employees a reason to trust your organization. 

2. Provide a heart-warming welcome on the first day

Another way you can improve employee engagement is by arranging a heartfelt welcome program. During the event, you can plan for an ice-breaking session where the employees interact with each other for better cultural and social relationships. You can arrange for some fun activities also to keep them at ease. These ideas will help reduce the brooding anticipation and overwhelming feeling, thereby helping your new hires feel relaxed. 

3. Ease the initial training hassles

The initial eLearning and workshops can put your new employees in a tough spot. You cannot expect them to excel in everything, and if you make this initial step harder, they will soon start to feel suffocated. 

As a result, their performance will automatically decline, and you won’t be able to make them feel comfortable. Besides, suppose they start to fear your business ops, organizational policies, and way of working from the very first day. In that case, they will be far from exhibiting their best performance or dedication to their day on the job. 

4. Introduce an instantaneous feedback system

Lastly, you can create a feedback system to improve your employees' engagement. This way, your employees can easily explain their concerns and the reasons for their satisfaction and happiness. You will have more leverage over the understanding process of your employees. 

5. Use a Smooth employee onboarding system

Organizations that focus on making employee onboarding interactive are more prone to retain their employees for long. The Digital Adoption Platform from Apty can prove to be an effective boon. It enables new hires to go through the onboarding process with ease. This can be carried out in a remote setup without the help of an instructor. This makes the employees self-dependent and helps them learn all the basics of the organization through walkthroughs and workflows, thus improving engagement.

Key takeaway

Now that you are aware of improving the engagement of the new recruits, it is essential to ensure that all the employees can feel connected with your organization and find some meaning or purpose in the work processes. 

If they do not feel at ease or experience immense pressure initially, they won’t be able to perform at their best. This will ultimately affect your business. Therefore, to avoid any adverse consequences, pay close attention to improving the engagement rate of all the new employees.

About Author:

Revanth is a B2B Marketer who has a definite flair for outreach and networking, alongside being a prolific writer. As an author, he enjoys exploring all things related to digital adoption and transformation. When the 'B2B Marketing ninja' mask is off, Revanth is an ardent tech geek, a lover of road trips, and a sports enthusiast who plays badminton, cricket, or any sport, really!