It's your first day at a new job. You feel excitement and anxiety as you navigate unfamiliar hallways and meet countless new faces. As an employer, you want to ensure your new hires feel supported and valued from day one. That's where inclusive onboarding comes in. By prioritizing the right new hire orientation best practices, you can create a welcoming environment that sets your employees up for success. In this blog, we'll explore the best ways to make your new hires feel comfortable and confident as they begin their journey with your company.
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What is New Hire Orientation?
When it comes to new hire orientation, consider it the first handshake between the employee and the company. This crucial step serves a dual purpose. Orientation is about getting down to the nuts and bolts. New employees learn the ins and outs of their role, meet their team, and understand how the company runs. It’s a hands-on crash course on how to hit the ground running.
Orientation isn’t just about logistics. There’s an emotional side, too. New hires must feel engaged, motivated, and part of something bigger. They need to connect with the company’s values, see how their work contributes to a broader vision, and know they’re not just numbers. This emotional integration is key.
Orientation Versus Onboarding: A Journey, Not a Sprint
Orientation is just the beginning, a stepping stone in the larger onboarding process. While orientation might wrap up in a few days to a week, onboarding is a longer journey, often stretching to 90 days or even a year. It’s about helping new hires acclimate fully to the organization, ensuring they are informed, engaged, and integrated.
A structured onboarding experience can make a huge difference. Studies show that employees with strong onboarding experience are 69% more likely to stay with a company for three years. It’s a journey worth taking.
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Why Does New Hire Orientation Matter?
New hire orientation is more than a welcome mat. It's the foundation of a new hire's experience with your company. When done right, it transforms them from outsiders to integral parts of the team. This initial phase is crucial.
New employees will quickly hit their stride if your orientation process engages and reflects your company's values. They'll understand what makes your organization tick, feel excited about their new role, and be ready to contribute.
The Stakes Are High
The importance of new hire orientation can't be overstated. A poor onboarding experience can lead new hires to job hunt elsewhere, doubling their chance of leaving. But get it right, and your company benefits from a cohesive, engaged workforce.
New employees who feel valued and included from the start are more likely to stick around, reducing turnover and boosting retention. This positive cycle begins with a solid orientation process.
The Benefits for Employers
A comprehensive orientation process pays dividends for employers. It reduces staff turnover rates and boosts employee retention. Investing time and resources in orientation creates a smoother transition for new hires.
This means managers have less time to get them up to speed and more time for productivity. A well-structured orientation also brings your training materials to life, putting everything into context for new employees. Everyone wins when new hires feel happy, motivated, and excited to start their new jobs.
The Benefits for Employees
A thoughtful orientation process benefits new hires. They feel secure and welcome from the start, reducing the stress and anxiety of starting a new role. A good orientation empowers them to understand how they can contribute to the business, both practically and culturally. When new hires feel comfortable, they're more likely to share their thoughts, ideas, and feelings about their new role.
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17 New Hire Orientation Best Practices for New Hires to Feel Valued
1. Create a Checklist
The average onboarding process, including induction and orientation, consists of over 50 activities. Navigating through all of them can be overwhelming for new hires.
To simplify things for yourself and the employees, create a new staff orientation checklist like the one below. This will help you stay organized and ensure you don’t miss out on any important steps.
2. Make the First Day Memorable
Make your new hires’ first day special and memorable by creating a positive first impression. This will set the stage and pace of their onboarding journey correctly. While paperwork is essential, simply inundating the employees with piles of them on their first day is not recommended. Instead, you can punctuate it with activities that include:
- Presenting a welcome package
- Preparation of workstations
- An office tour
- Team introduction
- Team lunch
Give personalized attention to each new hire to make them feel at home. This will motivate them, which is what every employer wants.
3. Digitize the Paperwork
Paperwork for new team members should not take much time. You can already have them ready before their arrival. You can use an online form builder to create, share, and store forms containing employee information in the cloud. Some of these tools come with ready-to-use templates.
This will replace much of the traditional paperwork, which requires printing countless copies and manual distribution and collection. New hires can fill in these forms and submit them to you online before they begin their official work.
4. Use the Best Employee Onboarding Software
These platforms can help streamline employee orientation and onboarding at a later stage. They are popular employee training software that enables users to:
- Train employees with a variety of courses and tests.
- Assess knowledge gaps and retention with assessments and quizzes.
- Track learner progress, and engagement & participation levels in real-time with detailed and intuitive reports.
- Enhanced social learning with tools to collaborate in real-time.
- Collect feedback to know the scope for improvement of learning materials and more using surveys.
- You can also train learners through a centralized virtual classroom and provide a self-help knowledge base for all learning needs.
5. Provide Ongoing Support
At times, initiating new hires into a new job can be stressful for them. You must provide them with ongoing reassurance and remove their doubts or fears. Research shows that providing social support is one of the best ways to help employees cope with stress in the new workplace. You can assign a buddy or mentor to every new hire to implement this.
These buddies or mentors can help employees navigate your organization and be the go-to person for any queries, requests, or concerns.
6. Schedule a Session on Work Tools
New employees will spend most of their work hours with the tools they use to perform their job. Whether it’s researching information they need to do their work, sending and replying to emails, data updates, or taking courses from a learning management system or LMS software, they always rely on some kind of software.
A session or two on work tools, also known as software training, can be one of the best business investments with an assured ROI. When your new hires know how to operate a tool to accomplish a specific task, it can be a good start to orientation.
7. Use Engaging Training Materials
eLearning increases retention rates by 25% to 60%. This is primarily because online learning provides avenues for adding engaging elements such as:
- Videos
- Quizzes
- Polls
- Games
- Surveys
Using engaging and interactive training materials during orientation makes complete sense.
For example, demo videos and modules can accelerate learning during product training for your new sales professionals. Similarly, keeping the materials short, simple & clear and using storytelling can boost orientation.
Explore Similar Training Templates
A professionally designed and customizable onboarding training course is also a must. Some of these courses are comprehensive and tailored for maximum engagement. You’ll find milestones based on the day and week-wise activities, key participants, and helpful resources.
8. Organize One-On-One Sessions
Depending on your onboarding agenda, you can schedule one-on-one conversations with your new hires. This will allow you to get to know them better and share feedback.
You can prioritize these sessions to get your employees on the right track and transition into their new roles smoothly and quickly. If your employees work remotely, you can share online surveys with them to collect feedback.
Outline the Career Paths
A lack of career progression is one of the primary reasons new hires quit their jobs in the first few months. Companies don’t want to go through this experience. They want to promote deserving employees to the next rung at the right time.
That’s why you should share a clear outline of paths to career progression for the employees at the start so that they get a fair idea of what’s in store for them. They should know that you’re investing in their growth and development. You can even present personalized goals and steps to achieve them for each new hire.
9. Conduct Frequent Check-Ins
53% of employees need to be more connected and engaged. Most of the time, they just manage to do the bare minimum. In such a situation, regular check-ins with new hires will give you a clear picture of how they’re adjusting to their new job roles.
More importantly, you’ll get to identify areas they are struggling with. Check-ins should continue until the employees become proficient in their jobs.
10. Have virtual and in-person options
Orientation and onboarding changed significantly during and after the pandemic. Since 2020, remote work options have become the norm, and mandating a return to the office has caused significant employee turnover and struggles with recruiting new employees. That means new employee orientation needs to be flexible enough to accommodate both in-person workers and remote hires. Virtual orientation should include many elements of the in-person process, including:
- The swag box
- Meeting key employees and more
Training on using technology tools will be especially important, including online learning tools that will allow the new hire to learn more about your organization and its role.
To make orientation more engaging for a remote hire, consider leaning on your learning management system and creating interactive orientation materials. While you don’t need to worry about a remote employee eating lunch alone, sending a gift card with the swag box that allows them to get lunch at a favorite local restaurant is a nice touch.
11. Involve executive leadership and managers
Having the new hire’s immediate supervisor involved in orientation is fundamental, but what about other business leaders and managers?
Having executives and other leaders involved in orientation helps humanize the company. For example, it can be very impactful when a key business leader outlines the company’s mission and how the new employee can make a difference through their role.
If you’re onboarding a single employee or company leaders are unavailable, consider having them record a welcome video that can be part of the new employee orientation process across the organization.
12. Ensure a Fully Set-Up Workspace and Equipment
One of the most practical yet impactful ways to welcome new employees is by ensuring they have a fully functional workspace and all the tools they need from day one. This includes hardware (e.g., laptop, phone), software and systems access (email, shared drives, and necessary apps), and other office essentials. This preparation shows that the company values their time and productivity. It also saves the new hire from the frustration of waiting for tech support or hunting for access.
Create an IT checklist to ensure everything is ready before they arrive. This may include setting up their workstation, ensuring Wi-Fi access, and providing login credentials for key software. A “getting started” guide specifically for tech use (setting up email, accessing files, etc.) can also make their first day smoother.
13. Pair Them with a Buddy
Assigning a buddy is a simple but highly effective way to help a new hire feel more at ease. The buddy is a friendly point of contact who can answer questions, guide them through daily routines, and help them understand the company culture. This support system encourages social integration and allows the new hire to ask questions without feeling like they’re interrupting their manager or HR.
Pick a buddy who embodies company values, has good communication skills, and is approachable. To make the buddy program successful, provide a structure: for example, set up a weekly check-in or coffee chat for the first few weeks to keep the relationship active.
14. Look For Ways To Make Your Job Orientation Fun
You want your job orientation to be not only informative but also enjoyable. How you go about that will depend on your company culture. What’s considered normal in one company might seem weird or even inappropriate in another.
But trying to lighten the mood makes sense if you want to put your new employees at ease. Remember, they’re starting a new job and are probably nervous.
15. Discuss the Org Chart and Their Role
An organizational chart can help new hires understand how the company is structured and where they fit within it. Walk them through the org chart, highlighting key leaders, departments, and teams. Take time to explain the importance of their role within the organization, including how their responsibilities impact other teams and contribute to broader company goals. This builds a sense of purpose and allows them to see where to direct questions or ideas.
To make the hierarchy feel approachable, include short bios or fun facts about key team members alongside the org chart. Consider creating a digital org chart they can reference later as they learn more faces and names.
16. Regardless of how small your team is, get social
Research suggests that the more “authentic” employees feel at work, the more engaged, productive, and satisfied they are. Encourage new hires to feel comfortable being themselves. Organize social calls, happy hours (virtual or in-person), and lunches in their first few weeks.
Colene Rogers, an HR professional at Syntech Systems, found that asking a new hire to lunch on their first day was one of their “fondest onboarding memories.”
17. Take Feedback
Feedback is the breakfast of champions. Regular reviews and supportive feedback during orientation can enhance employee learning and development.
Feedback from your new hires will give you a feel of whether they find your new hire helpful orientation. Collect feedback from them both during and after the program. You can use surveys for this purpose.
If there’s anything that they rated poorly, you can use that information to improve the process for better reception and results in the future. You can gather their thoughts on the methods, tools, and trainers you use to orient them.
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Orientation Checklist For New Employees
You can use this new hire orientation checklist as a reference to ensure that all essential items are covered within your integration activities:
Paperwork
- W-4 and state tax forms
- I-9 form
- Employee handbook
Company Introduction
- Company overview
- Brand mission and internal values
- Overview of internal culture
Essential Information
- Departmental processes information
- Expectations and functions of the new employee’s role
- Outline of any business-based social events or activities
- Health and safety and office details
- Benefits and compensation essentials
- Key company policies including sick leave and overtime
- Employee handbook and materials including keycard, ID badge, login credentials, etc.
Remember:
- Be conversational and allow the new hire to speak
- Use videos and visuals that will enhance the process
- Tailor the process to the individual or individuals as much as possible
- Provide useful tours and introductions
- Involve senior leaders or management
- Ask for new hire feedback on the process so you can make tweaks and improvements
- Evaluate your new hire orientation activities regularly to keep them fresh and relevant
Remember that your new employee orientation activities do impact your organization's overall success. 88% of organizations across industries have poor onboarding processes. By enhancing your new hire orientation processes, you stand to push your company ahead of the pack, catalyzing your success in the process, and that is priceless.
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