Key Takeaways
- Effective onboarding prevents regret, boosts engagement, and secures the long-term fit of new talent.
- Clarity is crucial: Define the role, set expectations, and ensure tools are ready before Day One.
- Combat new starter anxiety with intentional introductions, buddy systems, and immediate inclusion.
- Consistent, structured feedback via a 30-60-90 day plan drives performance and improvement visibility.
A successful placement not only benefits you, but also the company, as it saves time, resources, and money in replacing them if it doesn’t work out. After all the effort put into securing this new talent, it’s easy to get excited about the new hire coming in and forget some essential steps for their onboarding, or what I like to call “after-care”.
Proper onboarding is essential in helping you to engage your new hires and ensure their first few months are meaningful, productive, and lay the foundation for a long-term fit.
Onboarding often falls to HR, but success hinges on the relationship with their direct manager. Ensure the direct manager owns the experience and that the manager's role in the first 90 days is impactful.
A great (and free) resource is our 90-Day Onboarding Guide, which takes you through the process step-by-step for both remote and on-site hires to engage, retain, and empower new employees to thrive. Get your copy here.
Hiring managers, here are my top 9 tips for creating a successful onboarding experience
1. Ensure the employer communicates with the new hire prior to their start date
A call from the new employer to the newly placed employee is a very important step to avoid buyer's remorse. To further personalise their welcome, consider asking the new hire about their preferred communication style or other ‘inclusive work preferences' to show you value their individual needs from day one.
2. Provide the new hire with an accurate job description and clear expectations of their new role
Unless expectations and behaviours are communicated clearly, they will simply be working in a vacuum. A new hire can quickly lose motivation if they are undertaking work inconsistent with their job description.
True clarity and high performance come from understanding how their role contributes to the team and company goals. Their job description is also an excellent point of reference for performance reviews and evaluations.
This is also a great time to introduce the company's mission and values. Onboarding isn't just transactional; it must be cultural. Explicitly share the “why” and “how” the company operates.
3. Confirm your new hire is provided with the necessary equipment and tools for them to be productive immediately
If someone has to wait for a desk, a computer, a phone, an email address and other essential tools of their trade, they will feel unwelcome and out of place. It also damages your employer brand and shows a lack of preparation. There is no greater motivation killer than waiting around, unable to start your new job.
4. Introduce the new hire to their colleagues, their team, and give a tour of the lay of the land (if in-office)
If your new starter has an in-office work arrangement, it’s essential to provide a tour of their relevant spaces and communal areas. A new employee already feels like a stranger. Save them from any new-starter anxieties, such as having to wander around looking for the lunchroom or toilet, or unfamiliar faces, and ensure their first impressions of your organisation are positive and welcoming. Nominating someone to show them around first thing when they arrive is a great option.
5. Provide the new hire with all the need-to-know details during their onboarding
Regardless of their work arrangement, it's essential that your new hires know the who’s who of your organisation. Who to go for payroll, IT needs, HR questions, etc. Ensure your new starter has all the info they need to know about staff benefits, payroll systems, and IT security. These necessary, albeit boring, tasks are best done quickly and clearly. This allows them to feel empowered and more settled in their new role.
6. Provide the new hire with a buddy or mentor
A buddy or a mentor can be an invaluable guide, sounding board, or ‘cultural interpreter’ for the new employee in their first weeks of employment. It is way too common for departing new hires to say that “nobody really talked to me or offered to help me” was a reason when leaving a new role.
7. Provide the new hire with consistent feedback
A new employee will always assume that what they are doing is consistent with what is expected of them unless told otherwise. Positive reinforcement and/or feedback about what should be done differently is a great tool to use to ensure expectations are clear—plus, it keeps motivation and performance up.
As per our Onboarding Guide, consider structuring your feedback around a formal 30-60-90 day plan, which ensures structured check-ins during the critical first three months.
8. Provide the new hire with formal performance appraisals
Formal reviews are critical during the probation period to make sure there are no misunderstandings. It is critical that performance appraisals also include specific actions required for improvement.
The area for improvement might be seen as obvious to a manager, but it is not always obvious to a new employee. When conducting these reviews, focus not just on tasks, but also on progress milestones like knowledge gained, core competencies developed, and their cultural ‘long-term fit’.
9. Ensure the new hire is included in both formal and informal company and team events
Extend the invite to both formal and informal social events within their team or the wider organisation. A formal work-organised social event is publicised by a group or company email, but in most cases, the new employee is not on that list yet. Make sure that they find out about it so you can connect the new hire to the wider organisation, or else they will feel intentionally excluded or unwelcome.
Once they’re more settled in, extend the offer for committees and other communities your organisation hold. This is a great way to foster belonging through early social and committee inclusion.
This really is a great checklist to have on hand for either yourself or other managers in your team to ensure your new starters have a smooth, welcoming and successful onboarding experience into your team or organisation.
About the author
Here at Aquent Vanessa Dolan specialises in recruitment for Digital Design and Development across freelance, permanent and contract roles. Vanessa has 20+ years global advertising experience working in Australia, Amsterdam and the Middle East, and for the past 4 years, she has been specialising in the recruitment of extraordinary talent in Australia. Vanessa is also an active coach for graduates wanting to enter the creative market, and a mentor for women working in marketing. In her spare time you will find Vanessa either in the gym, kickboxing, or at home doing yoga — all depending on how her day went.
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