One-third of new hires start looking for a new job within their first six months of employment. It doesn’t have to be that way in your service business. Often it’s simply the tone that is set on an employee’s first day, first week and/or first month. Too many new hires spend time just waiting around on their first day—that’s poor planning. Others get an opportunity to do something new a few days into the job, but, first, the manager has to find someone to show them how to do it so they’re left waiting. An effective onboarding process can solve these problems. In fact, with good onboarding, new hires can make your team better, stronger and longer-lasting.
Onboarding is the best way to ensure that your new hires become eager, loyal workers interested in moving their careers forward as they help to move your business forward.
What is onboarding?
Onboarding is the total process from introducing new hires into your service business to fully integrating them as team members. Many companies do some kind of training for new workers, but onboarding is much more than just job training. After all, you’re not hiring them to just fix things in people’s homes, you want your workers to represent your business and brand to clients. For that to happen, they have to believe in your business which they will when they see that you are committed to them.
How do you do onboarding?
We recommend you start onboarding with a day of total immersion, introducing new hires to:
- Your service business
- Your core values and painted vision
- The workplace culture
- The directors and departments
- Their new colleagues
- Their responsibilities
- The tools and resources
After that first day, we’d follow up with nine days of thorough training, including teaching, riding along, mentoring and role play. New service experts can then be sent out to homes, but they still need a mentor they can always call as well as regular check-ins with a manager (after the first day, first week, first month, and then at least quarterly). Give them targets for completion for these check-ins, starting with relatively easy targets but developing into full-blown key performance indicators (KPIs) like regular workers have by the end of their first year.
Here are seven reasons why it’s worth developing a strong onboarding process in your business.
Onboarding improves retention.
Develop an effective onboarding program and you can improve new hire retention by 50% and positively impact long-term retention as well.
Onboarding results in new employees being more productive more quickly.
In some workplaces, it can take eight to twelve months for a new employee to get up to the average productivity rate. Onboarding makes it more clear to new hires what is expected of them and empowers them to meet those expectations more quickly.
Onboarding enriches culture.
You’re hiring strategically and we hope that includes hiring people who are a good fit for the culture you’re developing in your business. Onboarding helps new hires to connect with others and move more quickly from being an outsider to an insider.
Onboarding leads to higher job satisfaction.
From the start, new hires see how their job contributes to the business and the fulfillment of the vision. They want to be working for the best service company.
Onboarding builds accountability and continual improvement.
New hires graduate from hitting training targets to working on key performance indicators. They know they are accountable for their performance and strive to advance themselves in their careers.
Onboarding saves money.
It will cost you money to develop a strong onboarding program, but it will quickly pay for itself as new hires aren’t left waiting around for training and new employee turnover goes down.
Onboarding promotes business growth.
When you hire strategically with an onboarding process that develops loyal, efficient team members, you can grow your business more quickly, especially when you hire for new services.
Conclusion
Better, more productive employees. Stronger teamwork. Longer-lasting workers. Develop a good, effective onboarding process and you’ll see those results in your service business.
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