Make Your New Employee’s First Day a Success

A good first day sets the stage for long-term success. A well-organized onboarding process cuts down on unproductive orientation time and integrates a new employee more tightly into the company.

Meanwhile, it provides important emotional support for your new employee, something that will help create a deeper bond and a more productive relationship.

Try to remember your first day at a new job. You’re nervous. You’re overwhelmed. Distracted by the knots in your stomach and the sweat building up on your forehead, you’re just looking for a friendly guide to help you ease into things.

Now it’s your chance to be that friendly guide. With that in mind, here are some ways to make your employee’s first day a success:

Don’t Forget to Prepare

You are busy. It’s easy to put off preparing formal orientation materials or bypass a detailed onboarding plan in favor of a more improvisational approach. However, this might not result in the comprehensive introduction that you want.

Take some time to plot out your new employee’s first day. Carve out room in your schedule and make the necessary arrangements. It will help ensure a successful start to their tenure at the company.

Make Contact Before the First Day

Stepping into a new job for the first time can be a nerve-wracking experience. Make it easier for your incoming employee by building the groundwork ahead of time.

Contact your recruit well in advance of their official start date. Let them know what to expect in their orientation phase and try to build a rapport. It will make the first day less of a jolt.

Get the Paperwork Out of the Way

You want your recruit to get to productive work as quickly as possible. Paperwork represents a stumbling block in that process.

All the forms for taxes, insurance, security, and everything else take time. You can speed up the process by asking your new employee to fill them out before their first official day. It eliminates a supremely boring (and time-consuming) first-day task.

Introduce Them Around 

It usually takes time to get comfortable with a new set of coworkers. Meanwhile, a strong connection among employees leads to higher productivity.

You can help make this possible by facilitating connections between your existing team and your incoming recruit. Make introductions on the first day and encourage interactions throughout their early tenure.

Get Them Started on Actual Work

The onboarding and orientation process can be a drag. It involves a lot of discussion of policy and procedure. Break this up with some actual assignments.

Even if the tasks are low-level, quick-finish items, it helps to introduce some productive work early on. It will help make the early days more engaging and more interesting.

Outline Goals

Imagine trying to take a trip without using GPS software, or even having a map. It’s just a bunch of blind turns and best guesses. Don’t let that situation describe your new employee’s early tenure at your company.

Outline your near-term goals for their performance and provide some details on your long-term expectations. This way, they can get their performance on track right from the start.

A proper onboarding process allows you to get the most out of a new employee. It also helps if you have the right workers to start with. By working with a strong recruiting partner, like SmartTalent, you ensure that you have the talent you need to build your business in an ever-changing marketplace.

Contact SmartTalent today to learn more.