Effective onboarding is essential to any new employee’s success. But many businesses don’t have a set onboarding process in place, which can lead to new hires spending a significant amount of time filling out administrative paperwork during their first day or week. This onboarding playbook will teach you best practices to improve your onboarding process.
Is your business doing everything possible to ensure employee onboarding is seamless? This playbook includes key tips for making the most of your onboarding process, including the following:
- How to get organized before each new employee’s first day
- Best practices for digital onboarding
- Recommendations for continuously improving onboarding
See a sneak preview of the onboarding playbook below.
Organize Your Onboarding Process
The first step in any effective onboarding process is getting organized. And one way to make your onboarding more efficient is by making all required documents digital – instead of losing track of piles of paper or an old, overcrowded filing cabinet. Make sure you have a repeatable onboarding process in place so you can be as efficient as possible on each new employee’s first day – instead of starting from scratch each time. But even with a set process, be flexible when it comes to catering onboarding to different roles, as some roles may require different training or documentation than others.
Think about the onboarding process at your business and answer the following questions.
- Do you currently send consistent onboarding materials and require relevant documents be signed digitally before each new employee’s first day?
- Does your business have a central, digital and secure location where you can easily keep all onboarding and other relevant employee information organized?
Did you answer “no” to either of these questions? If so, it might be time to partner with a hiring and talent management provider that can support effective onboarding and automate error-prone processes.
Use an Employee Onboarding Checklist
The right employee onboarding checklist is key to success, as it ensures you have everything you need to verify employment eligibility, pay employees, administer benefits, get employees up to speed on your business and maintain compliance.
Employee Onboarding Checklist Template
Use the following employee onboarding checklist template to take inventory of your onboarding documents – and include any additional materials you share during the process.
If you aren’t including one or more of the documents listed below, consider reevaluating your onboarding process to ensure you’re doing everything you can to maintain compliance.
- Personal Contact Information
Collecting each employee’s contact information – including email address, home address, phone number and emergency contacts ensures you’ll have this data when you need it for benefits administration and other HR tasks.
- Direct Deposit Information
Rather than paper pay stubs, most businesses now pay employees via direct deposit. Make sure you have new employees’ direct deposit information as soon as possible, so each employee can receive their first paycheck on time. - Tax Forms
Require each new employee to complete a W-4 before the first day so you can ensure accurate state and federal income tax is withheld from each paycheck. - I-9 Verification and E-Verify
These forms ensure your company is compliant with new hire eligibility requirements and your new employees are who they claim to be.
Download the Hireology Onboarding Playbook here.
