The 6 Stages of Successful Employee On-Boarding for small businesses. How to create an effective on-boarding process that sets new hires and contractors up for long-term success.

From pre-hire preparation to integration and ongoing support, Henry Lopez covers high-level best practices for both in-office and remote employees, including strategies to avoid common pitfalls and ensure engagement in those critical initial days of brining on a new staff member.

• Download: Employee On-Boarding Guide

6 Stages of Successful Employee On-Boarding:

Benefits of developing and executing an effective on-boarding process include:

• Improved Employee Retention: A structured on-boarding process helps new hires feel welcomed, supported, and confident in their role, which results in reduced turnover and saving costs and effort associated with frequent hiring.
• Enhanced Productivity: Clear expectations, training, and early integration enable staff members to become productive faster, leading to smoother operations and better performance.
• Clarity & Appreciation: When you invest in providing new team members with clarity and focus, they feel they’ve made the right decision and joined the right company. They appreciate the investment you are making in them and setting them up for success.
• Stronger Company Culture: Consistent on-boarding practices help new team members understand and align with the company’s mission, values, and culture, fostering a more cohesive and motivated team.

The 6 Stages of Successful Employee On-Boarding Process:

For more details on these 6 stages of Successful Employee On-Boarding, please download the Employee On-Boarding Guide.

1. Pre-Hire On-Boarding Preparation
   Proper planning begins before hiring, ensuring a detailed job description, clear expectations, and performance metrics are established. This step provides clarity for both parties and sets a foundation for success. A well-prepared on-boarding plan ensures a smoother transition and aligns the employee’s role with company goals.
2. First Day: Creating a Positive First Impression
   The first day sets the tone for the new hire’s experience. And it starts with a personalized welcome. From completing necessary documents to introducing the team and providing a welcome kit, a well-organized first day makes employees feel valued. For contractors, executing a clear agreement on deliverables and work ownership is crucial.
3. Initial On-Boarding Period: Connecting with the Company and Role
   This period ensures the new hire understands their responsibilities and begins integrating with the team. Offering progressive training, mentorship, and early performance wins builds confidence and competence. Remote workers require additional attention to foster connection and engagement through virtual introductions and tools.
4. First Quarter: Fostering Engagement, Performance, and Probationary Period
   Regular check-ins and formal reviews at 30, 60, and 90 days allow both employer and employee to assess progress and fit. The probationary period enables adjustments while offering clarity on performance expectations. This stage also refines the systems and procedures relevant to the role.
5. First Year: Full Integration
   By the end of the first year (or other time period depending on the position), employees should feel fully integrated into the team and comfortable in their role. Long-term training and development plans help them grow, ensuring sustained engagement and retention. This step solidifies their place within the company and fosters long-term success.
6. On-Going Support and Development
   Continuous support, development, and feedback are key to an employee’s success. Role-specific training and an open feedback culture create opportunities for growth and improvement. This ongoing process ensures that employees remain aligned with company goals and feel valued.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid with Employee On-Boarding:
Avoid pitfalls like unclear expectations, poor communication, and overwhelming new hires. Address issues early through feedback and, if necessary, re-onboard to ensure employees feel confident. Implement systems for transparency and engagement.

Episode Summary:
On this episode Henry Lopez covered the essentials of developing an effective on-boarding process to set new hires and contractors up for long-term success. Key takeaways include the importance of a structured approach to boost employee retention, enhance productivity, and build a cohesive company culture. By implementing clear communication, progressive training, and consistent feedback, small business owners can ensure new team members feel supported, engaged, and ready to contribute effectively.

Resources:

FREE DOWNLOAD: Employee On-Boarding Guide

Related Podcast Episodes:

Small Business Employment Episodes

You can find other episodes of The How of Business podcast, the best small business podcast, on our Archives page.

Transcript:

The following is a full transcript of this episode. This transcript was produced by an automated system and may contain some typos.

Henry Lopez (00:11):

Welcome to this episode of the How of Business. This is Henry Lopez and on this episode, I explore how to create an effective onboarding process that sets new hires, including contractors, up for long-term success from pre-hire preparation to integration and ongoing support. I’m going to cover at a high level the best practices for both in-office and remote employees, including strategies to avoid common pitfalls and ensure that engagement that’s so critical in those initial days of bringing on a new staff member

Henry Lopez (00:58):

I encourage you to download my new employee onboarding guide. You can download it from the show notes page for this [email protected]. And what you’ll find in that guide is the details on the six stages of an effective staff onboarding process. And whether you have nothing on this formerly right now, or you’ve got something, I think you’ll get some value from at least getting some best practices on, some ideas on how to either create one for your organization or to make yours better. So download that guide at the show notes page for this episode at the how a business.com. I want to start with some of the benefits that a high level, what are some of the key benefits as a small business owner for taking the time and effort and then to invest in executing an effective onboarding process. And here are some that at a high level I’ve come up with, you’ll have others and maybe not all of these apply, but let’s start with improved employee retention.

Henry Lopez (01:48):

We spend all of this time and effort and money in recruiting and screening and hiring someone, but then we have a tendency, and this is very common to consider it victory, a job accomplished, and then we stop there and expect everything else just to happen. The reality is that the process isn’t over, especially from the perspective of talented people when they first come on board, they’re validating, did they make the right choice? Did they join the right company? So we’re still selling them on is this the right place for them to be? Not to mention that ideally we want to get them productive as soon as possible. We want that onboarding process to be successful. So employee retention, meaning keeping them long-term, but even more critically in that initial stage so that they successfully get through whatever our probationary period might be, typically 90 days.

Henry Lopez (02:40):

So a structured onboarding process, it helps new hires feel welcomed and supported and confident in their role, which typically results in reduced turnover and a savings of cost and effort associated with that frequent hiring. The other benefit I want you to consider is enhanced productivity, as I alluded to. So when you set clear, you train them effectively and you integrate them early into the process and into the culture, well, that enables them to become productive that much faster. So there’s a benefit to you as well as there is of course a benefit to that new staff member. The next benefit I want to talk about is clarity and appreciation. So when you invest in providing new team members with clarity and focus so they understand what the rules are, they understand how they’re going to be measured, they understand how to be successful, then they feel they’ve made the right decision and joined the right company, they appreciate the investment you are making in them and setting them up for success.

Henry Lopez (03:37):

I have found that most people want to do a great job, but it’s up to us to enable them to do that great job, to deliver that great value, and it’s up to us to guide them, to enable them, to train them, to give them the guidelines, what are the rules, how will they be measured, what is it that I am looking for as an employer? And the more clear we are with that, the better they appreciate that, the more enabled they are and the more successful that new staff member will be. And at the end of the day, this impacts our culture. Consistent onboarding practices will help new team members understand and align with that company’s mission, the values and the culture, which strengthens that culture, and you end up with a more cohesive and motivated team overall. So here are the six stages of an effective staff onboarding process.

Henry Lopez (04:26):

I’m going to cover these six stages at a high level here in this episode. And then again, I encourage you to go get the guide. So if you’re somewhere where you’re just listening, which I know most of you are either in your car or at the gym or on a walk, just want you to think about these as I go through the six stages and ask yourself a couple of questions. Am I doing anything like that now? Or if I am, how can I make it better? And then when you get back to your office or you get back to working on this, download the guide and then take some action. Even if you just apply pieces of this, don’t turn this into a huge project if you have nothing now, but something is better than nothing at all. And of course the earlier parts of the stages I think are much more critical, especially that initial encounter, that initial experience that I’m going to talk about here in stage two.

Henry Lopez (05:11):

So stage one is the pre-hire and onboarding preparation. I have found, and my clients have found who are doing this well, that if you invest in proper planning, it begins before the hiring, before they start, before the day they start. And that includes ideally when you were hiring for this position, you created a good job description and job posting. So you’ve already determined what are the expectations for this position, what are the duties? What are the performance metrics? How will you measure success? You may not have had that in detail in the job posting, but is critical now to make sure that you have that defined. What are the KPIs or measures that you’re going to measure this employee by so that when performance evaluation time comes around, you’re not only evaluating them subjectively, you also have specific metrics that you’re measuring. And so this step that again begins before the first day before they report to work, provides clarity for both sides for you and for the new employee who’s coming on board, and it sets that foundation for success.

Henry Lopez (06:13):

So a well-prepared onboarding plan ensures a smooth transition and it begins to align even before they show up the employee’s role with the company’s goals. So the key takeaway here on stage one is a clear job description, but you might need to take it to that next level internally by defining what are the measurement metrics, how will we measure performance if at all possible, very specifically, it doesn’t apply to all positions, but I find that for most positions, if not all, you can define some KPI, some measure that you’re going to share with that employee as to how you’re going to measure performance. Stage number two or step number two is creating a positive first impression. That first day really does set the tone for the new hires experience I have found, and it starts with a personalized welcome. Ideally, the manager that they report to, or if it’s to you, you as the owner, you greet them either in person if they’re coming into the office or to your place of work or virtually you set up a zoom session, but at that time that you told them to report.

Henry Lopez (07:14):

So let’s say it’s 9:00 AM on Monday, someone ideally you or if you’ve got an HR department, perhaps it can be that HR person, but they need to be personally greeted. They need to feel welcome. I hear so many stories of people showing up usually at larger companies showing up and nobody was even expecting them. That’s terrible. Even if you’re busy, this is critical. You invested all of this time to hire someone and then you don’t make this first impression. So this first day often includes everything from completing the necessary documents, the HR documents, the government documents, and introducing them to their team and providing maybe a welcome kit that includes all kinds of instructions and guidelines and where to find things. It might include an employee manual if you have one, but a well-organized first day really does make a new employee or staff member feel valued.

Henry Lopez (08:06):

The third stage is that onboarding period where you’re connecting the company and the role with this new staff member. You’re providing that initial training. This is about ensuring that that new hire understands clearly their responsibilities and duties and that they begin to integrate with their team if they’re part of a team. So offering progressive training, a training program, I like to lay it out week by week or day by day depending on their position and some level of mentorship if appropriate, who can they shadow? Who’s going to work with them if it’s not you and build up some early performance wins. So you give them confidence as they build that competence. So I have found that if you’re clear with them and for yourself, here’s what I want you to accomplish tomorrow. Here’s where I want you to be at by the end of the week, I want you to have completed these tutorials.

Henry Lopez (08:57):

I want you to review these manuals. I want you to review this system. I want you to get yourself set up on your laptop, whatever the case might be. That’s what they are going to have laid out for them, so you have a schedule and not just making it up as you go. Nothing is worse than that even if you just write it down on a piece of paper with that employee. Here’s how we’re going to break this down. Again, it depends on the complexity of the job, but I’ll tell you, even when I owned a frozen yogurt restaurant, we invested a lot of time on training an hourly wage employee before we put them out there facing the customer. We trained them on knowledge of the product, we trained them on our procedures, we trained them on our safety protocols, all of that, and then we actually had them take a test, not all in one day.

Henry Lopez (09:43):

They were given a manual or a guide that they learn and they worked on with their manager, and then we tested them to make sure that how we were training and teaching them was effective, and B, to make sure that they had acquired that knowledge. If they failed the test, they didn’t get fired. We just knew, okay, they need more coaching and training. I don’t think in the 10 years that we owned it, did we have a situation where someone couldn’t learn it. They may have dropped out early in that process. They figured, this isn’t for me. But that is so critical to invest in that and to lay it out so that you have a plan and so that new staff member knows what to expect. Be careful, however, not to overwhelm them. We forget very easily and whoever you might assign them to that your manager might forget how overwhelming it can be when you’re new to an environment, it seems easy to us, but remember they’re taking a lot in.

Henry Lopez (10:34):

So make sure you allow enough time for them to process the information for them to apply the learning. If they’re in a service position, if they can go and spend some time in the field or delivering that service as part of their training before they’re responsible for going and doing it themselves, that’s tremendously valuable. You really do have to look at this as an investment because I know you’re thinking, well, I’m paying this person now. I need them to be generating results as quickly as possible, but only going to get them to maximum productivity. If you’ll invest the time particularly upfront to make sure you train them and guide them and give them those metrics, how is it that you will measure them, as I’ve mentioned before, and what are the rules of the game, if you will. Stage four as we move forward in time here is that first quarter, that first 30, 60, 90 days, so this is all about continuing to foster engagement, measuring that early performance and getting through a probationary period.

Henry Lopez (11:31):

I recommend that you should have, ideally, most organizations will have a 90 day probationary period and you make this clear to the staff member that you’re evaluating their fit, the fit, the mutual fit for that matter. In those first 90 days, you’re giving them clear direction as to how you’re going to measure that, what you’re looking for. You’re going to give them the training and the ongoing, but then you’re going to have regular check-ins in that first quarter, and again, I would do formal or semi-formal reviews at 30, 60, and 90 days. That allows both the employee and you, the employer or your manager to assess and clearly communicate the progress and the fit. Remember the saying, I don’t know who came up with it, but you hire slow. You fire fast. I’m not saying that you’re going to just fire people because they’re not performing early on, but if they’re not where you need them to be by 90 days, then they may never be there.

Henry Lopez (12:26):

If they’re not up to it or they’re not engaged or it turns out this was a bad fit for them, then we need to make a change. Either we move them to a different position that might be a better fit, or we need to seriously consider letting them go, but it is our responsibility on our side of it. We owe that staff member having given them the right training, the right direction, the right coaching, and the rules of how we will judge them, how we’re going to measure their performance. If we wait until 90 days and we haven’t given them any guidance, well, that’s not fair to anybody. Those performance check-ins are critical and should be part of your onboarding process. Stage five is the rest of that full year. Maybe it’s six months, maybe it’s three months. This really varies by position and the complexity of their role.

Henry Lopez (13:14):

For some people, they should be fully integrated in a month or a week. Other positions, it might take a year, so you’ll adjust this to what that role requires specifically, but by the end of that period, that employee or staff member should feel fully integrated into the team and be comfortable in their role. They should be definitely at full performance, and so that long-term training and development is part of what helps them do that. The ongoing coaching that they should receive from you or their direct report manager or supervisor is where you are going to develop that long-term success for that employee and stage six of the six stages in developing an effective staff onboarding process. That’s what I was speaking to just now, that ongoing support and development, some common pitfalls to look for in this process. I mentioned overwhelm already, but it’s such a critical point that I want to come back to be careful that in that initial stage, that initial training stage, that you don’t overwhelm them and that you give them the time that they need to learn the systems, to learn the procedures, to learn the software systems, for example, everybody learns at different speeds.

Henry Lopez (14:24):

We do find, of course, that most adults learn best through hands-on, and so depending on the complexity, as much hands-on as possible, as much actually doing it as possible. I think that once you’ve got a process in place, then it’s about continuously improving that process. One of the things I like to do with new hires after they’ve gotten through the stages, but even after the 30, 60 90, is to ask them, what did you think about this process? What do you think would’ve made it better? What was confusing, what was missing? And get their real-time feedback. They’ve just gone through it. It’s like asking a customer for their feedback on how you’re doing. It’s critical, and we often just overlook that. I encourage you to download the employee onboarding guide. Again, you can find that on the show notes page for this episode at the how a business.com.

Henry Lopez (15:09):

I covered here in this episode. At a high level, the essentials of developing an effective onboarding process, the six stages to set new hires, and even if it’s a contractor, to set them up for long-term success. Key takeaways include the importance of a structured approach to boost that employee retention, short-term and long-term to enhance productivity so that they get to productivity faster and to build, continue to build that team culture if that’s the environment that you have. So by implementing this clear communication, that should be one of the byproducts here, the clear training, the effective training, that consistent feedback, and formally at those 30, 60, and 90 check-ins and beyond. As a small business owner, we can ensure that new team members feel supported, they’re engaged, they feel like they made the right decision, and they become effective. Contributing members of your team.