In today’s job market organisations are facing the reality of an increasingly mobile workforce. The promise of a stable income is no longer attractive enough to keep employees from moving from one employer to the next. Job satisfaction, a friendly work environment and the capacity of embracing the corporate culture and values are among those elements that ultimately lead to a higher professional performance and organisational commitment. It is therefore necessary for companies to invest in practices that will show employees the competitive advantages of their new workplace, from their first day of employment.

Here enters employee onboarding. Rather than just an orientation session, which is a one-time event at the start of employment, employee onboarding constitutes a holistic strategic process. It aims at gradually introducing new employees to the organisation, making them understand their day-to-day roles and their contribution to reaching the overall business goals.

Key to the success of this on-the-job strategy is the contribution of other employees, who can at times also mentor the new arrivals and help them feel welcome. As a result, multiple members of your teams, ideally from different functions, should be involved in the creation and implementation of your onboarding plan. As the bottom line of an onboarding programme is to prevent employee turnover, it is necessary to ask your long-term employees what makes them stay, in order to replicate their success stories.

It is also a good idea to allow the new employees to start interacting with your organisation, even before their first day of employment. Send them e-mails with company information, the corporate newsletter, helpful links, your employee handbook, and so on. But don’t overwhelm them. Remember that we only get one chance to make a good first impression and a warm welcome by all employees is also crucial.

As the bottom line of an onboarding programme is to prevent employee turnover, it is necessary to ask your long-term employees what makes them stay, in order to replicate their success stories

The first day should be used as an orientation whereby among other aspects of the company, housekeeping issues are also explained. But, don’t forget that onboarding and orien-tation are not interchangeable. Orientation is just an event which forms part of an overall onboarding programme.

Be very clear with your new recruits on what is expected out of them – objectives, timelines, roles and responsibilities. One way of giving space to a new employee to learn faster is by establishing Smart (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, timebound) goals with them for the first three months of their employment. Allow for your onboarding plan to be flexible. Each employee is different and you might need to adjust the plan as you go along, according to each candidate’s skills and personality. It is also important for managers to schedule regular check-in meetings with their new employees. During the first week, there should be daily meetings.

Companies are setting up mentorship programmes so that every employee will have someone to refer to during their onboarding experience. Allowing employees to participate in meetings from the very start is instrumental in familiarising them with projects, their co-workers and, above all, the culture of the organisation. As with all other plans, it is necessary to monitor your onboarding programme. Collect feedback from new recruits about their onboarding experience and ask them to give suggestions on how this can be improved.

It is important that you don’t rush in completing the onboarding programme. Managers tend to expect that the employee is up and running as early as possible but this will not last long and they will never be able to reach their full productivity. Do not show up every day adding more and more tasks to their daily routine, as this may lead your employees to feel overwhelmed, thus increasing the chances that they will burn out quickly.

The best course of action is to instead inform them in advance about what will be expected of them. While a certain amount of flexibility from the employees’ side when dealing with tasks is expected, it is also recommended to stick as much as possible to their job description not to make them feel under or overutilised.

Even though there are no hard and fast rules on how long onboarding should last, it is not a week’s or a month’s job. It may very well last a minimum of three months for someone to feel that they have integrated properly into your culture.

Maria Bartolo Zahra is managing director of SurgeAdvisory. She has 15 years’ experience in human resources and business advisory.