We’ve all experienced those nerve-wracking first few days on the job — excited to make an impact but anxious about learning a new work culture and job duties. Think back to how your previous employers have handled the onboarding process. If you remember feeling more excited than anxious, it’s likely you stayed with the company for a significant time — maybe you’re still with them today — and remember it as a positive professional experience.
On the other hand, after a rushed or nonexistent onboarding experience, you might have cut your tenure with a company short. You wouldn’t be the only one. Employee turnover peaks during the first 45 days on the job, and it’s not until six months in that employees decide whether or not they’ll stay. New hires’ most common reasons for quitting include the job not being what they expected or not connecting with the company culture.
Fortunately, there’s a proven method for turning these trends around: an employee onboarding program.
You can retain your valuable new hires and build a loyal workforce with an effective onboarding process. Keep reading for more on smoothing the transition from candidate to new hire to fully-ramped employee, including why you should use software tools for the best possible experience.
What Is Employee Onboarding?
Employee onboarding is the process of bringing new hires into the organization and getting them up to speed on their roles. It’s when they meet their colleagues and learn about company culture. It begins when candidates sign their offer letters and ends when new hires are ready to take on their roles and responsibilities entirely.
Onboarding covers both the logistical and emotional sides of bringing on a new member of the team. It’s your chance to tell new employees about what to expect at the annual family picnic or weekly virtual team lunch and fill them in on where to find benefits and policy information. It’s when they complete required training courses and have their first meeting with their mentor.
While it’s important for HR teams to complete their onboarding checklists, it’s just as important to put effort into making new hires feel welcome. Be sure hiring managers get involved, setting up coffee chats with new employees’ colleagues and adding them to the team’s weekly meeting agenda. When managers are active participants in onboarding, new hires are 3.4 times more likely to say it was a success.
5 Steps for a Streamlined Employee Onboarding Process Flow
Make onboarding workflows less complex for your HR teams and hiring managers and more engaging and useful for new hires when you follow these steps. We’ll also share a few reasons to switch to a completely paperless onboarding solution.
1. Understand the Employee Onboarding Process Flow
Your employee onboarding process flow is the series of steps that take new hires from signing an offer to full productivity, including pre-boarding, orientation, role-specific training, and team integration. While the exact tasks HR and employees complete may vary, a consistent onboarding process flow helps you ensure every new hire has a positive experience.
Let’s look at an example of different onboarding experiences with a consistent process flow.
Imagine that at your company, onboarding for a senior software engineer lasts six months and includes the successful deployment of a software update. Meanwhile, a customer support specialist onboards for 90 days, with proficiency measured by a ticket resolution goal. These two professionals will have very different onboarding experiences — but the onboarding process flow is the same:
- After signing the offer letter and prior to their start date, every employee gets their onboarding welcome packet via email, to be completed by the end of the first day or week.
- New hires receive a candidate experience survey to rate their experience with your hiring process.
- On the new employee’s first day, they complete the remaining HR tasks, meet their new team members, and learn about company culture. They also begin mandatory training courses. This might extend through the first few days or weeks.
- When onboarding compliance tasks are completed, employees begin their role-specific training. They learn what’s expected of them and set onboarding goals.
- Throughout the new hire onboarding process, they check in with managers on goals and wrap up any administrative tasks, if needed.
- At the end of the onboarding program, new hires and managers evaluate goal achievement. If onboarding is successful, they work together to set goals for the now fully-ramped employee.
- New hires take an onboarding survey and an eNPS survey.
With modern software, you can create an onboarding process flow that’s scalable and automated, saving your team time and creating a consistent employee experience for new hires.
2. Start With Pre-Boarding
Make the time between offer acceptance and day one count. A strong pre-boarding process shows new hires they’ve joined an organized, welcoming team. It’s also a chance to start building engagement by getting them excited about their new role.
Start by sending a personalized welcome email or kit, automating document collection, and sharing an easily accessible company resource portal. Let new hires know if they’re able to log in and complete any tasks before their first day. You can also let them know what to expect on day one, whether that’s a Zoom meeting with their manager first thing or a group orientation at their branch location.
Software gives your HR team a robust day-one toolkit, making it easy to create welcome packet templates and guide candidates through tasks. It also ensures important information is synced and accurate across systems, including payroll.
3. Develop an Engaging First-Day Experience
First impressions matter, setting the tone for a new hire’s experience and impacting their entire tenure at your company. In addition to a welcome email, load the employee portal with introduction videos or greetings from teammates and information about company culture. Familiar faces can help ease some of those first-day nerves.
Work with hiring managers to build an agenda for the new hire’s first day. That way, you can be sure required tasks are completed, but new hires aren’t stuck with HR all day. Managers can get started with an overview of their responsibilities and discuss onboarding goals. Use software to set and track goal progress throughout the onboarding process and beyond.
4. Provide Personalized Learning Opportunities
No two roles are identical, so onboarding should include training tailored to each position. Role-specific training through a learning management system (LMS) gives employees clear pathways for completing mandatory courses and gaining new skills. By providing skill-tracking features and progress monitoring, you can shorten the time-to-productivity without overwhelming your new hires.
An LMS also gives employees flexibility with their learning experiences. They can customize their course material to better retain the information. For example, a visual learner might prefer watching a video to reading a block of text.
Employee Onboarding: Guide + Checklist for HR
Find out what makes a great onboarding process and empower your new hires.
5. Incorporate Feedback and Engagement Touchpoints
The best onboarding processes feel dynamic because new hires get multiple opportunities to give and receive feedback. If you’re using onboarding software, utilize collaboration tools for scheduling regular check-ins between managers and new hires — opportunities for them to ask questions, celebrate wins, and establish trust. The software makes it easy to keep track of meeting agendas, monitor progress, and share notes.
New hires can complete a variety of surveys to let you know how you’re doing:
- Candidate Experience Survey to rate your hiring process
- New Hire or Onboarding Survey to rate their onboarding experience
- eNPS survey to get a quick read on engagement at this critical stage.
6. Continuously Improve Your Onboarding Process
The work doesn’t stop once onboarding is done — ongoing reviews of your process ensure it grows with your organization. With regular feedback from new hires combined with robust analytics software features, your HR team can quantify onboarding success, spot bottlenecks, and identify trends to fine-tune your process. This data-driven strategy ensures your onboarding program stays effective and competitive year after year.
For instance, analytics can highlight delays in task completion, trends in role readiness, or even satisfaction gaps between departments. That gives your team the insight it needs to adjust workflows to ensure onboarding keeps running smoothly. Analyzing employee feedback sheds light on what new hires value most, from training content to mentorship opportunities, and where improvements are needed.
An adaptable onboarding strategy is critical in today’s world, where hybrid and remote work are common. Software gives you the ability to tweak processes to suit the needs of remote hires, ensure compliance in different jurisdictions, and prepare your organization for change. Every time you make improvements to your process, you maximize ROI by retaining talent, improving productivity, and fostering a more engaged workforce from the get-go.
3 Big Benefits of an Efficient Employee Onboarding Process
Efficient onboarding is great for your workforce, and it’s also really great for your business — especially when you’re equipped with employee onboarding software. These are just a few of the employee onboarding process benefits that make the investment worthwhile.
1. Retain More New Hires
Did you know an onboarding plan can increase employee retention by up to 82%? By ensuring your new hires feel aligned with company culture, valued in their roles, and supported through the transition, you can significantly reduce early turnover. Considering that 20% of turnover happens in the first 45 days, focusing on onboarding can have an enormous impact on long-term retention rates.
2. Reduce Hiring Costs
Turnover is costly, with the expense of replacing an employee often ranging from 50% to 200% of their annual salary. Streamlined onboarding reduces these costs by improving retention and minimizing HR overhead. Automated software systems reduce the time your team spends on repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus on strategic initiatives that drive growth.
3. Lay the Foundation for Employee Success
Employees who experience structured onboarding processes are 69% more likely to stay with the company for at least three years. These new hires also reach full productivity faster, thanks to clear guidance and targeted training. By leveraging tools like task automation and performance tracking, organizations position new employees for success right from the start.
A strong onboarding program translates into a more engaged, motivated workforce that’s equipped to contribute meaningfully to business goals.
Improve Your Employee Onboarding Process with ClearCompany
The best onboarding processes are supported by the best employee onboarding software. With ClearCompany Talent Acquisition, you get all the tools you need to design an employee onboarding process flow that fits your company’s needs:
- Automated workflows to streamline onboarding tasks and save HR time
- AI-generated job descriptions enable consistency and clarity
- Paperless onboarding with digital forms and e-signatures
- Effortless compliance with built-in I-9 and E-Verify tools
- Fast, reliable Background Checks by ClearCompany
- Seamless payroll integration ensuring accurate and timely paychecks
- User-friendly features designed for remote and mobile accessibility
Best of all, ClearCompany Recruiting and Onboarding are part of a fully integrated Talent Management System. From candidate to new hire to seasoned employee, ClearCompany helps employees achieve their goals so businesses can succeed.
Get a demo of ClearCompany tailored to your organization and see how we can transform your onboarding process and help you retain more new hires in 2025.
