We’ve all experienced the demanding process of hiring or being hired. Human resources (HR) managers, for example, carefully review countless resumes and conduct numerous interviews to find the perfect match. Even after what seems like a successful hiring process, both the new hire and the company might end up feeling a bit of a letdown.
The initial weeks and months of onboarding are crucial — it’s the time when you introduce new employees to their roles, and they’re figuring out if the job is a good fit or if it’s time to explore other opportunities. A disorganized onboarding process, or the absence of one, can be completely detrimental to a business’s bottom line.
In this article, we’ll share four effective strategies to help you create an engaging and positive experience for new employees from day one.
What Is Onboarding, and Why Does it Present Unique Challenges in IT?
Employee onboarding is the process of integrating a new hire into their new role and providing the necessary tools, information and support for them to become productive members of the team. During onboarding, new employees develop the skills, knowledge and capabilities to become contributors of the organization. Onboarding traditionally starts on an employee’s first day of work, and its length depends on the complexity of the role, industry or the new hire’s background.
Three months is the commonly established length of time; however, what many learning and development (L&D) professionals have discovered is that onboarding must extend beyond the first 90 days for new hires to truly acclimate to their roles, embrace the corporate culture and gain the knowledge and skills essential to their job. In general, the onboarding process doesn’t have huge variations across industries, but there are a few unique factors in the IT sector that talent managers should keep in mind while onboarding IT workers.
Remote employees.
In IT, there’s a significant portion of employees who work from different parts of the world and might never meet their colleagues in person. This means their onboarding is virtual.
Ensuring a smooth remote onboarding can be more challenging than in-person onboarding. Without face-to-face interactions, it can be challenging to assess if new hires are grasping guidelines, facing issues or feeling apart of the team. That’s why IT onboarding requires a different approach. Even if you’re on the opposite end of the globe, it’s crucial that new team members are receiving the support they need.
Recruitment and retention challenges.
In a 2022 Gartner survey, 86% of chief information officers reported facing more of a competition for qualified candidates and 73% were worried about IT talent attrition. There are various reasons for this increased competition in IT, but if you look outside of the IT field, over one-third of recent recruits (37.9%) stepped down within their first year, and 2 out of 3 employees opt to leave within their first six months, which falls squarely within the onboarding period.
In today’s job market, IT companies must stay competitive to attract and retain valuable software professionals. To attract and retain IT professionals, create a pleasant working environment and offer a blend of learning opportunities relevant to their career growth. The first few months are the most critical, and if something goes wrong, an IT professional will likely leave the company without a second thought.
4 Strategies for Effective IT Onboarding
To address common challenges in IT onboarding, forward-thinking organizations should create a plan to ensure the process suits everyone’s training needs. Here are four best practices to include in you onboarding plan:
1. Create an onboarding plan and set clear job expectations.
Learning leaders should share the onboarding plan with new hires to: communicate expectations for their role and development, inform them on scheduled one-on-ones with their manager, and prepare them for any team activities and/or projects they’ll be involved in.
Continuously communicate performance expectations and responsibilities for the first three months to ensure new hires understand their role and how their contributions impact the success of both the team and organization.
2. Focus on quality online training.
Whether you’re hiring a senior or junior software engineer, high-quality training can increase the likelihood of onboarding’s success. Introduce newcomers to the company’s products and services, compliance requirements and team workflows. Learning management systems (LMSs) can also be a great way to deliver training for new hires, especially remote employees.
For example, tools such as iSpring Suite, Articulate and Brainshark allow you to create interactive modules, record and edit video lectures, create cheat-proof knowledge checks, and even convert your existing materials, such as text documents or PowerPoint files, into interactive online courses that you can upload to your LMS.
3. Implement a buddy system.
Pair new hires with an experienced team member who can offer continual support on a daily basis. This approach can reduce the initial awkwardness often associated with adapting to a new work environment and speed up the onboarding process.
4. Provide regular check-ins and feedback.
Conduct regular one-on-one meetings to check on employees’ progress, address concerns promptly and maintain open communication. This can ensure that the expectations of all parties are being met. This not only can identify blind spots in onboarding but also assure new hires that their well-being is a priority.
The Bottom Line
The “sink or swim” onboarding approach isn’t effective. How new hires feel in their first weeks with the organization directly influences their performance, job satisfaction and desire to stay. Creating a well-organized, interactive IT onboarding experience takes time and coordinated efforts across departments, from HR and L&D to IT, but the payoff is worthwhile.
