The Psychology of Onboarding: Understanding New Hire Anxiety and Expectations

We’ve all experienced the first day jitters. For most, there’s no worse feeling than traveling to a new place and preparing to meet new people before tackling a completely new role.

Companies need to appreciate that the whole onboarding experience can be psychologically challenging for individuals. For utmost productivity and employee engagement, organizations must consider ways to address common concerns. 

Below is a list of the most common anxieties that come with starting a new job as well as ways for employers to find solutions using both physical and remote solutions. 

The Fear of the Unknown

A large proportion of first-day jitters can be attributed to the fear of the unknown. While a minority of people get a thrill out of actively seeking the unknown, it’s a natural human instinct for us to be wary of things we haven’t seen, tried, or tasted before.

For employees, the quicker the unknown is tackled, the less stressful they will find their new role. For employers, eliminating the unknown will lead to better productivity and a better workplace culture.

When it comes to tackling the unknown, leaving it until day one is often too late. Consider that your employers’ new commute to work and new working location are all part of the unknown. Instead, it’s crucial to tackle this fear in the days and weeks leading up to your new employee joining your team.

This is where advances in technology come into play. Intranets and employee onboarding software allow businesses to tackle the fear of the unknown remotely. Businesses now have the luxury of remote onboarding where new hires can complete tasks, ask questions, and communicate with new colleagues prior to the big day.

Consider uploading a new hire starter pack that tackles common issues. Virtual tours can remove anxieties around finding new locations, employee profiles can help newbies get a feel for who they’ll be working with and other resources relating to the role itself can help new employees get a clearer picture of what they’ll actually be doing on a day-to-day basis. New hires can access these resources whenever they want with an Employee Self-Service (ESS) portal. 

Social Anxiety

Knowledge Gap

Another common fear when starting a new role is uncertainty around the role itself, including gaps in skills or knowledge. Starting a new job without clarification doesn’t help the employee or the employer. For the individual, it will be overwhelming and stressful, while it can hinder productivity and negatively impact the onboarding program.

The best way to tackle this is to provide prior access to work-related material such as job descriptions, projects the employee will be working on, and outlining tools they will be using. This is particularly useful for agencies as they work on various projects simultaneously. For example, a web development agency could introduce new recruits to their portfolio of clients to try and not overwhelm them on their first day.

Consider ways you can give new staff access to training resources that they can work through in their own time to fill in any gaps that they might be worried about. After all, ensuring new recruits can hit the ground running in terms of their ability to perform tasks is beneficial to all parties.

Overwhelming Preparation

While starting a new job can be exciting, it can also be overwhelming to be fully prepared. Successful candidates often need to get hold of an array of documents before completing the necessary procedures at their new place of work. For workers who are relocating as part of a new job, the preparation becomes even greater and more stressful.

Admin tasks like this can distract from the job at hand and can also become a stressful hindrance when trying to focus on the next step in your career. Most businesses will work through an onboarding checklist when they have a new starter, but sharing this with the employer digitally can help ensure they arrive on their first day fully prepared.

This is another way in which onboarding software can assist businesses. Consider platforms that allow the onboarding process to become automated and started remotely. This removes stress for the employee, decreases the chance of tasks being forgotten about and often improves speed and efficiency within the workplace.

Conclusion

The different fears and anxieties that come with starting a new job can be varied, but they’re also different for each role and individual. For businesses to offer the smoothest onboarding process, they must consider individual needs which can be difficult as they may not yet know their new recruit on a deep level. The article above highlights a number of ways in which technology can ease those first-day nerves but just as important to understand what each recruit is most anxious about. 

Once businesses understand these concerns, they can customize the onboarding process for each member of the team. Fortunately, technological solutions are helping to measure employee engagement, streamline the onboarding process, and make new environments less daunting for all involved.

Author:

This article is written by a marketing team member at HR Cloud. HR Cloud is a leading provider of proven HR solutions, including recruiting, onboarding, employee communications & engagement, and rewards & recognition. Our user-friendly software increases employee productivity, delivers time and cost savings, and minimizes compliance risk.