Employee Onboarding Challenges
Imagine you are finally blessed with the job offer from one of your sought after company after the grueling set of interviews and paper tests. The offer letter is in your inbox waiting for your acceptance or rejection.
But as soon as you get mentally prepared to be the part of the new job, you find yourself with no information where to go, whom to approach on your first day, who is your boss, what is the job role that is assigned from the company side etc. Any new hire is filled with multiple questions in mind seeking the clarifications.
These unanswered questions can prompt the new hire to reject the job proposal or taking up the job offer. This is one of the crucial phenomena that every new employee face these days. There is no strategic framework to look after or monitor the necessities of new hires in this fast-paced work culture scenario.
Most of the companies think that their job role end with hiring the right talents. But that is just a beginning for your understanding. Because any new employee as soon as they step out for a new career path, they bring along a lot of expectations and dreams. They come up with a lot of aspirations and positive vibes to set start a new beginning via contributing their best and maximum to the company.
As the new hire enters his employment, it is pretty normal to feel nervous and anxious at their first day of office or prolonging to quite period of time depending on the behavioral characteristics of the new hire. But it is the job role function of the HR Manager or the company representative to make the employee onboarding seamless and tension free. This can be efficiently transacted via offering great onboarding experiences by putting themselves into the new hire shoes, understanding the fear and confusions of new recruits.
The common onboarding challenges of any new hire are as follows:
The first and foremost task to initiate in the onboarding stage is effectively addressing the new recruits. The company or the designated authorities like HR Manager should address the best to the freshly recruited candidate’s questions about the company’s general rules and guidelines. A proper addressing of the company objectives, goals, and missions, erases the unnecessary confusions of employee pertaining to their request processing or handling the projects assigned to them in the later period.
A well-structured employee orientation program can provide the employees with the robust understanding of his/her role in the company and how quickly cum confidently they can trigger their actions. Incorporation of both formal and informal training in the inception stage of the new hire can enhance the employee confidence and productively, securing them for a longer retention with the company. The long-term employee development program can surely envision positive growth of the business organization.
The second challenge to any new hire is challenged with their expectations and results. It is common that, a new candidate often rushes to take up more amount of work than he/she is expected to accomplish. This often leads to unwanted stress in the mind of the employee, gradually building a negative image of the company and their management. The lack of proper guidance or a proper mentoring on how much work is expected from an employee leads to workloads giving the false impression on management. This situation can be eliminated easily via assigning the new employee under a designated authority to look after his job function and also providing him the real-time guidance to accomplish the task. This step not only helps in increasing the productivity of new hire but also triggering the confidence in them to self-direct the work.
Getting adjusted to the new work culture or work environment is the toughest challenge to any new hire. Not all candidates can happily and quickly adapt to new changes. For few, it takes time to cope up with the new working environment. In that case, it is the prime responsibility of new hire to design strategies and plans where they can engage the employee participation to the core. The HR should sit along with the management to implement something that caters to employee interest or based on his/her specialization, at the same time which is beneficial to the organization and its objectives.
In the case of an outstation candidate, handling the personal transition and relocation is yet another challenge to meet during the onboarding period. Along with the work, he/she should find a family for his family as well during the relocation phase. The family may have their own issues moving to a new place, putting the new hire in a dilemma whether he made the right decision by accepting the new job. These mounting tensions adversely affect the onboarding of an employee.
According to the latest statistics, the percentage of people who left their job within the different time frame is:
The top reasons why employee leave from their job is
> Change in their career path.
> Difference in their work portfolio than expected.
> No sufficient amount of training from the side of the organization.
> Lack of appreciation from the side of management.
> Being underqualified to fit in the position.
The large percentage of employee fallouts are on account of effective and un-planned onboarding programs.
43% Company doesn’t favor for Onboarding Training
54% Company think its resource wastage
72% Company prefer straight to work as the better learning platform
30% Company lend employee handbook as the medium of understanding
So what should companies do to overcome the onboard challenges of the employee?
In nutshell, do not let your hard work invested in recruiting the right talents to get futile. Onboard the fresh recruits properly, to retain their long stay in the business. Try implementing the strategies that proactively contributes to the employee engagement, their retention, and performance.
Be always prepared for welcoming the new hire, with a detailed outlining plan incorporating the right tools to help the employee. Also make sure the company provide sufficient orientation lectures on the company rules and guidelines, enhancing the transparency of the organization and also a mentor to provide the real-time assistance to the newly hired.