How to retain your employees with 7 onboarding tips

With phenomena like “quiet quitting” and a foreseeable “Great Resignation 2.0”, more and more employees are itching to quit their jobs. A multi-national survey conducted by LinkedIn and Microsoft shows that the percentage of employees who want to quit their job (46%) is  now higher than in the past three years.

It’s clear to see employee dissatisfaction in their work and the move to resign from their roles. So, how can HR teams effectively keep their employees happy and on the team for longer?

Research shows that onboarding is a highly effective tool in reducing employee turnover. According to INRY, the onboarding process is the perfect opportunity for a new employee to get a feel of company culture and values, as well as how their prospective experience in their future work environment will be. A good first impression can lead to an increased willingness to stay, improving employee retention. 

In this blog, find out 7 onboarding tips to improve your employee retention that can be implemented immediately.

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Reasons for employee turnover

There are several factors that play into employee turnover, as well as there are different types of turnover. In this blog, we’ll be referring to a high voluntary turnover, the case in which employees leave their role or companies at their own will.

Based on ORACLE Netsuite’s article, some reasons for a high voluntary employee turnover are:

• 🔴 Work/life imbalance or burnout: While it may seem obvious, employee burnout and overwork consistently rank among the top three reasons for high voluntary turnover.
• 🔴 Toxic management: There’s a reason that the common saying “People leave their managers, not their jobs,” exists. 
• 🔴 Lack of employee purpose: Finding meaning and purpose in the work one does is incredibly important when it comes to keeping employees around.
• 🔴 Lack of recognition/feedback opportunities: It’s important to celebrate your employees' highs and lows. Companies that don’t do so often suffer from a higher employee turnover.
• 🔴 Lack of opportunity for career advancement: This one kind of goes hand in hand with the last point. If employees aren’t seeing (opportunities for) growth in their work or a future at the organisation, then employee retention can suffer.

As an HR specialist, these are pretty challenging issues to tackle. Thankfully, this is where onboarding comes in.

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7 Tips to retain your employees through onboarding

We look at the onboarding process in phases: preboarding, onboarding, offboarding, and even reboarding. To break it down even further, we recommend HR teams take on a 30-60-90 day approach to their onboarding, which splits the process into phases with manageable objectives for their new hires.  

These simple tips can help your onboarding process meet employees' career expectations, align them with your company’s purpose, and keep them engaged and committed for longer.

Preboarding

1) Don’t forget to preboard your employees!

Let’s start with the first step in the onboarding process: Preboarding. Preboarding is often overlooked as a step when onboarding new employees, but it is a crucial way to prepare your new hires for their roles. With preboarding, employees can become familiar with their team, role, company’s mission and policies even before their first day on the job. 

In the preboarding phase, here are a few ways to make your new hire feel welcomed and get them excited about their start:

• Make sure to keep in contact with your new hire between contract signing & first day. For example, have the new manager and team members send a message. No one likes to be ghosted – personally or professionally!
• Keep the enthusiasm alive by preparing interactive preboarding content about the company and their team. An example is to gamify the content by making a quiz of “who’s who” for the members in their team. You can easily set this up using digital onboarding tools like Appical, where new hires can access this content remotely.
• Prepare your new employee for their first day with practical information, helping them feel less uncertain.

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Onboarding

Your new employee has officially started their first day – woohoo! Let’s continue with steps you can take to ensure they’re ready to take on their new role.

2) Everybody loves a warm welcome!

It goes without saying that your new hire will be filled with a mix of nerves and excitement on their first day. Make your employee feel like they’re a part of the company by giving them a warm welcome both online and offline.

Think hybrid! 

Start by welcoming new hires remotely with a thoughtful welcome package, a personalised message or video, or an introduction meeting with their team. Follow this up with an in-person first day at the office, where they can tour the workplace and officially meet their team face-to-face. The practical information shared during preboarding will help them feel more comfortable and quickly adapt to their new environment. 

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3) Help your employee set goals 

Goal-setting is key to guiding your new hires on their employee journey. Remember the 30-60-90 day plan? It’s a great tool for outlining role expectations, setting goals, and providing clear objectives. This structure gives new hires a sense of purpose in their work and helps them understand how their contributions impact the team. But goal-setting isn’t just limited to professional targets.

Use goal-setting to outline your employees own personal goals they would like to achieve, be it personal projects, career advancements and so on. Schedule regular one-on-one’s and check-ins with your new employee to track their progress, see how they’re managing their workload, and check whether they need any support along their journey. 

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4) Outline potential career paths and advancement opportunities

We all want to help our employees achieve their goals, right? Incorporate mentorship or buddy programs, workshops, or skill-building classes into your onboarding program to support their growth. For instance, we allow employees to dedicate work hours to Dutch language classes, providing them with the flexibility to develop their skills while balancing their responsibilities. This way, your employee doesn’t feel stuck in their roles and feels freedom to grow themselves personally and professionally.

Career growth and advancement go hand in hand. Set clear expectations from the start by being transparent about opportunities, offering a clear career progression framework, and supporting your new hire’s development. This approach empowers employees to achieve their goals while fostering career growth, allowing them to make even greater contributions to your organisation.

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5) Check on how your new hire’s progress and where they need help 

Building on the last tip, tracking your employees' progress is key to understanding how they’re developing and highlighting areas where they may need additional support or guidance.

Some ways to track employee progress:

• Scheduling one-on-one meetings and quarterly evaluations to review progress
• Use feedback reporting on digital onboarding tools to track new hire progress

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6) Personalise the onboarding process

Of course, there’s a lot you can standardize and automate. However, a "one-size-fits-all" approach often falls short, as each employee has unique needs, experiences, and goals. By personalizing the onboarding journey, new hires will feel more valued and supported, leading to a stronger alignment with the company.

Take the time to understand their preferred work style or offer role-specific mentorship and buddy programs. You can also use digital onboarding tools with AI and personalisation functionalities to cater to your new hire’s specific needs for success. With Appical, you can share both general and (role- or location-)specific information using tagging.

Learn more about Appical’s automation and personalisation functionalities.

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👉 Check out how the Ministry of Defence uses the tagging feature to personalize content.

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Offboarding

7) Always conduct exit interviews

Saying goodbye is often bittersweet, but it provides a crucial chance to understand why employees choose to leave. Our advice? Always ask them why.

Exit interviews offer companies insight into how employees perceived their "employee experience" and the reasons behind their departure.

This feedback is essential for recognizing potential pain points that current or past employees may have faced in their roles. It also allows HR specialists to examine the onboarding process (among others), identify missed opportunities, and refine strategies, helping to align employee expectations.

By addressing these issues, businesses can ultimately enhance their employee retention efforts and reduce turnover.

To learn more, check out our offboarding checklist for HR managers

Wrapping up

Retaining, engaging and ensuring fulfilled employees is clearly no small feat. However, a thoughtfully designed onboarding experience that addresses common challenges, encourages employee growth, and guides new employees can make a significant difference to your employee retention. By investing in a great onboarding process, you're taking the first crucial step towards retaining your employees for the long haul.