BUSINESS AND TRAINING
programmes are instrumental in helping new hires decide to
stay and increase productivity right out of the gate.
Preboarding allows a new employee to feel like they are part
of a team, and that they genuinely matter to the company
before they have even started.
Clever ideas for preboarding include sending out a general
companywide email, cc’ing in the new employee and
welcoming them to the team. Even better is a personal
message to the new employee from their supervisor, or a
senior employee, welcoming them to the team and offering
to answer any questions they may have.
New employees may not even realise it themselves, but there
is a lot of information you can send them that can help ease
those first-day jitters. What are the parking and transportation
options at the company? When does work start and end?
Where will they be working, and where can they find things
like bathrooms and smoking areas? Are there any decent
restaurants nearby, do you have a canteen, or will they need
to bring lunch on the first day? All these little facts help ease
the tension that may be building in them.
Some managers consider inviting new employees to a lunch
with their colleagues before they have even started — there
is nothing quite as intimidating as walking into a building
with people silently getting on with their work, and being
expected to just fit in.
A personalised gift on the first day can also ease those
feelings of not fitting in. Consider a personalised coffee cup,
mousepad, or calendar with company birthdays — their
birthday already included.
Take it slow
Many employees either spend their first day bewildered and
looking around them, bereft of information, or sitting at a
workstation convinced they need to get cracking or they will
be fired soon.
for productivity reasons, but it is better if you give them a
chance to warm up to their environment. Introduce things
one at a time and give them some breathing room with
breaks throughout the day and regular follow-up chats to
see if they are managing with what they have been sent
While you will want the employee to understand early on
what will eventually be expected of them, over the first few
weeks or even months you will slowly be introducing them to
the job and increasing expectations.
Likewise, you will want to introduce them slowly to all the
other additional information they will need during their time
at the company. Prepare documents on company culture,
history, and processes and make these available for the
employee to read in their own time, or when they find they
have the time, while also drip-feeding the information to
them over their first few months in the job.
To avoid high turnover, you should be ready and willing to
spend enough time on the onboarding process to do the
job right. Most experts agree that somewhere between
three months and one year of onboarding is appropriate,
according to the industry, the job description, and the
experience level of the employee.
37
"To avoid
high turnover,
you should
be ready and
willing to
spend enough
time on the
onboarding
process to do
the job right."
Tailor it to individuals
While it may be tempting to group a bunch of new hires
together to get the most bang for your onboarding buck, this
isn’t a good idea. To do so, you would have to postpone the
process for some and rush it for others. Ideally, onboarding
should be an experience that is
tailored to the unique strengths
and weaknesses of each
employee and is flexible,
both in terms of what you
are teaching and the time
frames necessary in which
to teach it.
Communicate early that this is not the case. Set some
basic introductory tasks and make it clear that there is
plenty of time in which to do them. It is tempting to get your
employees trained and ready to work as quickly as possible
September 2019 Volume 25 I Number 7
www.plumbingafrica.co.za