When you welcome a new employee onto your team, the first weeks and months are a crucial period for building a long-term foundation. This time sets the tone for your relationship with your new hire moving forward and gives them the chance to grow comfortable in their new environment.

New employees want to feel like they are a part of their workplace. That means getting to know their colleagues and understanding the company. Helping new hires in this process will enable them to do their jobs well. By focusing on a rewarding onboarding experience, you can cultivate long-term success with each new employee.

1. Be Prepared Before Their First Day

One of the worst impressions you can give a new employee is not being prepared for their arrival. This makes them feel like a second thought or that role isn’t all that important to your business. Start off on the right foot by preparing for the onboarding process ahead of time.

Think through the goals you hope the new hire will accomplish in their first ninety days. Make sure your goals are realistic and that you have an understanding of the training and resources the employee will need in order to meet those goals. Prepare them ahead of time.

2. Provide a Written Onboarding Plan

Provide your new hire with a ninety-day onboarding plan with weekly goals. Such an outline provides helpful structure to the new hire’s coming weeks. It enables your new hire to get up and running at a reasonable pace and immediately gives them goals to strive for. When you provide an onboarding plan in writing, the new hire can review it at their convenience and always know what to expect in the coming weeks.

An onboarding plan removes uncertainty and keeps everyone on the same page. Make sure the new hire’s supervisors and colleagues also have access to the onboarding plan so that they know what the new hire will be working on immediately. Keep the onboarding plan in mind as weeks pass to ensure everything is going as planned.

3. Schedule Meetings With Relevant Team Members

Before your new employee arrives on their first day, schedule one-on-one meetings for them with the team members that they will be working with most frequently. While you want to avoid overwhelming your new hire with too many meetings during their first week, establishing these meetings ahead of time will help ease the transition for your new hire.

Providing dedicated time to get to know their colleagues will fast-track effective collaboration among your team. These meetings give your new hire the opportunity to ask relevant questions and build rapport with the people they will be working with regularly. This also benefits your existing team members who will also need to adjust to the new employee.

4. Pair the New Hire with an Existing Employee

Give your new hire a buddy! Try to think outside of their department and choose someone they might not get the chance to work with frequently. This helps to keep their relationship free of work concerns and more focused on how the new hire is assimilating into the company culture. It also helps to find someone who might be a good personality match.

The role of this partnership is to support the new hire throughout the onboarding process, but it might eventually blossom into a helpful support system for both employees. Whether the new hire has general questions about the company, needs advice, or wants to talk through concerns, they know they have someone they are welcome to reach out to for that extra bit of support.

5. Document Essential Information

When you first start a job, learning about the company and your new role can be overwhelming. You are deluged with a plethora of information that you need to keep straight. Especially when you’re being introduced to many new people and bouncing from meeting to meeting, it can be hard to keep track of everything you’re learning.

That’s why it’s important to provide all essential information to your new hire in writing. They will be able to reference and review this information later without being expected to take perfect notes or remember every last detail.

6. Discuss the Future

Don’t be afraid to discuss the future with your new hire! While many things may eventually change, it’s important to express to your new hire that you have an eye for the future. That means discussing how their role might evolve as they gain more and more experience at your business. What do you see them accomplishing in a year? How about five?

Holding a future-focused conversation also gives you an opportunity to discuss possible advancement and professional development opportunities. Having this conversation will make your new employee feel stable in their role and that you are committed to the relationship. It gives them something to look forward to and also helps them see themselves at your company long-term.

Process Makes Perfect

To make onboarding easier for yourself in the future, implement processes that should be followed (including the above steps) anytime someone gets hired. Each new hire will have a similarly rewarding experience and be set up for success at your company.

When it comes to implementing processes and systems in your small business, a Virtual Assistant can be an effective team member. They can help you do research, write up processes, and make sure everyone relevant is looped in. Your VA can also help you find time in your schedule to focus on systems and processes by organizing your calendar.

Find out more about how a Virtual Assistant can uplevel your business.