Employee Onboarding Trends That Every Employer Should Know In 2020

Human resources are undoubtedly the most vital resource for any organization. A talented and dedicated team can drive success for your business, so it definitely makes sense to go the extra mile with your recruitment process.

Having a good onboarding strategy is equally significant because it ensures retention of the resources you choose with a great deal of hard work. While having a robust onboarding process is the best way to get started, you need to follow the latest industry trends to deliver outstanding experiences to the new hires. Here are the employee onboarding trends that every employer should implement in 2020.

Trend #1: Preboarding

A lot goes on for the potential employee after accepting the job offer. There is stress and anxiety of course, in addition to the fact that they may have some competing job offers. These could lead to the new employees changing their minds and not showing up. No wonder, preboarding is emerging as a key trend in the recruitment industry. The objective of this process is to keep the potential employee engaged for the period between the date of offer acceptance and the first day of work. It involves connecting and reconnecting with the hires during this period so that they feel engaged and excited to be a part of your organization.

Trend #2: Personalization

Another onboarding trend that is making it big for recruiters is personalization. A personalized onboarding experience makes new hires feel connected and builds a comfort level right from the start. Though creating such experiences can take some effort, it pays off in the form of accelerated employee productivity right after joining.

Bringing personalization in onboarding workflows involves consideration of factors such as role, location and seniority of the recruits and designing the process accordingly. You can deliver specialized onboarding material and training sessions that are tailored to the needs and expectations of the recruits.

Trend #3: Automation

Onboarding is a humongous task for HR managers as the process has multiple steps and processes involved. The stress of managing them seamlessly is massive and they can end up wasting their precious time as well. Now is the time to look for an HR platform with onboarding features to automate the entire process. Though you will have to make this one time investment, it can translate into extensive savings in the long run. Automation is one trend that no organization should miss on, regardless of its size and scale.

Trend #4: Socialization

The human aspect is undeniably the most important part of onboarding. Positive social relationships at work should be encouraged as they drive employee engagement and the likelihood of staying with the employer. New hires, in particular, are likely to feel more comfortable in the new environment if they make friends with their colleagues.

It becomes important to embed socialization in the onboarding process and you should definitely embrace this trend for 2020 and beyond. The buddy system is one of the approaches you can incorporate within the program to encourage socialization.

Trend #5: Mentorship

New employees often struggle with finding someone they can turn to for good advice on key matters such as company culture, work expectations and initial stress. Mentorship is a trend that most of the organizations have adopted today to resolve this challenge for the new hires. A mentor is essentially a person in a senior position who can guide and advise the new employee to make their initial journey a smooth one. Since this person knows the company inside out, he or she is probably able to help the recruit to blend within the setup and culture of the organization.

Trend #6: Feedback

Businesses often go a long way with employee satisfaction surveys to get feedback on the existing system and find ways to improve it. In the recent time, feedback has become a significant part of the onboarding process as well. After all, you would want to know how satisfied the new employees are with the program and what is their likelihood of staying with the company and recommending it to others as well. Just building a new employee feedback system will not help; you need to understand the issues and address the gaps to improve the system as a whole.

These innovative trends have huge potential when it comes to improving your onboarding process. Not implementing them can put you behind in the race and you may even lose the best talent out there. So you must make all the efforts to align your program according to these trends.