A Proven Onboarding Checklist for New Hires

Have You Created an Onboarding Checklist for New Hires?
If you have not created an onboarding checklist for new hires, you should pay attention.   The first months of a new hire’s employment are critical — they shape the new employee’s attitude, understanding, and commitment to the job, the team and the organization.  In fact, a recent study by Korn Ferry found 90 percent of executives believe that retention of new hires is an issue in their organization with up to 25 percent of new hires leaving in the first six months on the job mainly due to poor job and culture fit.

If you are in charge of talent management, it is important your organization is onboarding new talent in a way that makes sense.

A Prove Onboarding Checklist for New Hires
Here is a new hire onboarding checklist of what you need to accomplish in those early months and why your investment in time and money can make a huge difference to the degree of your new employee’s engagement going forward.

Your goal for onboarding new talent should be to get your new hires up to peak productivity as soon as possible at the same time as you assimilate them into the culture and make sure they understand how their role contributes to the overall goals of the organization.

1. The New Hire Information Basics
   Your onboarding checklist should include the information basics.  When it comes to onboarding new talent, there’s a lot of information for a new hire to learn.

   First, new hires need to have clear statements regarding the company’s mission, vision, values, target clients, unique value proposition, strategic priorities, and corporate culture.  These items provide the big picture context for everything that will follow.

   Next comes information that covers things like compliance regulations, compensation guidelines, products and services, and an org chart that explains whom to contact, when, why and how.  Anything that you can provide that explains how work gets done is helpful.

   Lastly, you need to introduce new hires to their co-workers, provide a work space, show how general systems work (email and Intranet), and be sure that they receive training on any role-specific systems requirements.

   Just do not convey any of this information via the all-too-common “death by PowerPoint” approach. Smart talent managers use a highly experiential learning approach combined with a robust knowledge management system to effectively and efficiently share the basics.

2. The New Hire’s Role in the First Three Months
   On a regular basis during the first three months, new hires should meet with their manager. These one-one-one meetings provide a forum to set and agree upon expectations for job performance, deliverables, and priorities.

   Consider these first crucial months a kind of shake-down cruise when managers and employees work together to establish communication and decision making preferences as they set goals and track achievement together.

   This is the time, too, when the new hire begins to work with the team and to learn how they can best contribute to common objectives.

3. New Hire Development and Assessment Plan
   Besides learning where they fit in the company and what their job-specific performance standards are, new hires need to know that there is a clear path ahead.

   What are the possibilities for their future with the organization?

   In what ways can they learn, grow and thrive in their new company?

   Every new hire should have a career development plan that takes into account their own interests, strengths, and motivations. The plan should be reviewed and monitored frequently as goals are reached or adjusted for current business realities.

   This is the part of talent management that keeps employees engaged, retained, and fully committed to their own success and the success of their company.

The Bottom Line
Recent studies show that almost 50% of new hires fail within their first eighteen months on the job.  And sadly, only 19% of new hires become high performers.  To increase your odds, develop an effective and holistic new hire orientation program that is relevant to new employees, their hiring manager, and the business as whole.

If you want more than the onboarding checklist basics, download the 7 Proven Employee Onboarding Best Practices to Increase Speed to Productivity