Your ultimate guide to an efficient onboarding process
Employee onboarding refers to the process of integrating new hires into the organisation. Even though this operation can sometimes be daunting and lengthy, if you have the best onboarding practices set in place, everything can run smoothly and effectively. Giving the new employees and you, as the employer, a better onboarding experience.
Of all industries, hospitality seems to have the highest turnover rates, with 80% of employees leaving their jobs in less than a year. There can be many reasons, including a helter-skelter working environment and erratic schedules, making it difficult for workers to stick around. Most notably, when there are no benefits, the wage is low, and there is no room for employee career growth.
Therefore, it’s pretty apparent that as a labour-intensive industry, the cost of turnover is likely weighing down the hospitality industry. In such a fast-paced industry, it can be hard to meet customer expectations daily if your workforce constantly moves away.
That said, is hospitality onboarding the key to your turnover rate issues? If so, then how?
The onboarding process can open opportunities to get in touch and engage new employees. Moreover, the onboarding stages can be divided into pre-boarding, induction, and continued onboarding. Every stage comprises touch points you need to achieve for your onboarding to succeed.
Pre-boarding
This is when making a good first impression is vital. According to a study, 72% of the hospitality workplace makes up Millennials and Gen Zs. They are also more comfortable incorporating technology into their job than any previous generation. That’s why it’s befitting for them to be called the “digital natives” who can work across several platforms.
For these generations, accessing technology is a must to complete tasks, and employment paperwork, access and share information, and establish connections throughout your organisation.
Hence, for pre-boarding to work effectively, including innovative, tech-based onboarding systems that optimise your onboarding, removing the inconvenience of manual operations, also, part of a flourishing onboarding is ensuring your new hires are kept updated before assigning them to the production floor.
Your data ecosystem must do the following:
- Make sure every document is accurately filled out and signed.
- Keep track of the written records all within the software.
- Enable managers to request documents (e.g. relevant certificates, bar staff training, driver’s licence) from employees in the app. It should also include right-to-work documents.
- Allow employees to check, sign, and submit forms from the app using any device.
- Make and customise an employee contract template for every new hire.
- Store sensitive information securely.
- Share certain documents, like the employee handbook, before they start.
Induction
This phase must accomplish four vital aspects:
- Confidence
You must be aware of your new hire’s emotional state towards work and the workplace hurdles they may face. Be sure to check in from time to time on how they are feeling about their shift, responsibilities, and workload. RosterElf’s employee management is a massive help with this.
Establish and define attainable goals every month in their first three months of employment. Start with realistic uncomplicated wins and gradually work up the challenge as days pass. Make sure to show support too.
- Culture
All newbies must understand the company’s values, ethos, history, and, most importantly, binding rules. See that those values hold your new employees’ responsibilities during their onboarding cycle.
- Connection
When we say connection, it’s about the confidence and connection new hires get from knowing their colleagues’ values and accepting them. To successfully achieve this, you must:
- schedule an orientation week
- set up meetings with coworkers they work with regularly
- make sure they have friends
- do exciting team-building activities
- put together an onboarding welcome event
You should also hold training sessions and allow new hires to shadow experienced staff to ensure they understand the tools and work processes.
Continued Onboarding
Before your new employee can perform their duties independently, there will be some learning curves. So, do constant monitoring and get two-way feedback to shorten this period. Formal learning should start during the onboarding process.
Keep providing training and growth opportunities to maintain your employee’s motivation and morale as much as possible. The outcome will show an impressive, consistent onboarding process and also handle the cause of high employee turnover in the local hospitality industry. More so, it will help you prevent unwanted problems in the future.
Key Takeaway
The hospitality industry has a high staff turnover rate, and retention and recruitment are longstanding hurdles. In addition, managing onboarding forms is a tedious, unvaried, and time-consuming task requiring tons of shuttle back phone calls and emails.
You are constantly juggling several software tools to oversee your team, from employment, onboarding process, and training period to roster and employee management (including payroll). However, everything can run smoothly if you have the proper onboarding process. You can make a great first impression on new hires while preparing them for success.
RosterElf: Rostering Made Easy
RosterElf’s cloud-based payroll and rostering software truly is a game-changer. Say goodbye to roster conflicts and chase employees for their availability to work. Instead, employees can easily update their availability to work and notify managers about it through a smartphone app.
Staff set the times and days they can work, and RosterElf does the rest. Our software then automatically suggests available employees to fill shifts.
What are you waiting for? Time to take your rostering and payroll game to the next level and boost your business’ performance. Call us now, and our team will be more than happy to assist you.
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