According to a Roland Berger HR study, in collaboration with JobNet.com.mm, 75 percent of midsized and large companies in Myanmar consider that finding and retaining talent is one of the major challenges for them. In attracting the top talents to your company, interviewing and recruiting the best candidates are barely halfway along the process. In order to ensure the performance and loyalty of these new recruits, a thoroughly structured onboarding program is essential. This familiarizes the fresh faces with the overall operations of your organization, prepares for their professional obligations and allows them to adapt to your company culture. Gone are the days when onboarding meant a half-day orientation around the office and handing over a copy of the employee handbook.

The followings are six techniques that you may utilize to optimize your onboarding program:

1.         Plan Even Before Hiring

If your onboarding program is designed ad hoc and something that supervisors figure out only when the new recruits show up, this will make the employee confused and disoriented, and have a bad impression of your company’s administrative procedures. A successful onboarding program must be planned long before their first day at work and have all the materials ready once the employee starts their job.

Additionally, the program is not limited to begin from Day 1 but can be integrated throughout different stages of the recruitment process. For companies that are famous for creativity and vibrant, flexible working atmosphere, the job posting itself should be creative and the interviews less formal. For those tech savvy firms that utilize several digital elements, it should be reflected in the application and interview stages. This will prevent the new hires from ‘cultural shock’ on their first day.

2.         Welcome Buddies

In place of physical papers or online documents explaining in text about the operations and company culture, assign someone from the same team as a welcome buddie. He or she will be responsible to plan a welcome event and also as a focal person to weekly check in with the fresh face at least for the first month.

This peer sharing approach is especially useful for the millennials who are accustomed to informal learning and bonding activities. On the other hand, for those veteran employees who are coordinating this, it is a specific assignment and should be allocated certain time and benefits for their efforts.

3.         Host a Small Reception

This maybe the most common element of onboarding programs, and can still be an effective tool to integrate your new recruit to your team successfully. The reception is not limited to their immediate team members but could also feature the C Suites and Department Heads in order to make them feel ‘special’.

Either in physical or virtual form, the purpose of the reception is to introduce him or her to the entire group at once, and you may wish to plan not to overwhelm the new recruit. By taking some time off from the daily routines to welcome the new face, you can also show that your company puts its people first.

4.         Mentorship Programs

Complementary to peer sharing by welcome buddies, mentors can help the new recruits not merely to familiarize with the work place but to prosper to their fullest. Different companies may have different channels and pace of learning and development, and mentors could be helpful in walking the new recruits through the soft skills and organizational dynamics.

Mentors need not essentially be immediate supervisors but someone senior who can coach and counsel at times of need. They should be assigned for a long-term basis, typically one year, and may coach beyond office tasks and mentor about personal career aspirations as well.

5.         Go Digital       

This is particularly true for the millennial generation that grew up with the screens and who feel easier to communicate and retain information through digital processes. There is a number of learning management software and e-learning tools that could automate certain components of the onboarding program with superior efficiency and effectiveness.

Another advantage of digital onboarding tools is the ability to track the training progress. The fresh recruits can enjoy a vivid presentation in multimedia format, and the managers can see how much of the program has been completed and if there is any concerns raised. Of course, digitization should not only be about onboarding, and it is more beneficial to have an integrated portal for employee communications and engagements to carry on this momentum.

6.         Set Short Term Goals

Probably the last item on the checklist, the new recruits should be assigned measurable short-term goals that are achievable and relevant to their background. For example, in a 60-day period, they are to execute a small project and equipped with necessary resources for the implementation.

Peers, mentors and all other channels would come into play to ensure a successful enforcement, and the fresh recruits should not wait until they encounter with a serious problem but instead check-in frequently. After they have achieved success, set a longer goal, and before they even know it, they are no longer fresh recruits but an integral part of the company.