3 Tips for Employee Onboarding After COVID-19

COVID-19 has presented numerous challenges for businesses, not least of which includes executing a seamless onboarding experience remotely. Today, we’ll outline a number of excellent tips to guarantee your new hires will receive a robust and warm welcome whether it be on-site or virtual in a post-COVID world.

Onboarding has always been a crucial step for companies looking to hire long-term employees into their organization. In fact, when you start off on the right foot with your new hires it will result in an 82% higher retention rate than those who didn’t have such a great onboarding experience. This means the time and resources you invested in hiring new staff will not go to waste, leaving you with a positive ROI.

How can you make sure you will be able to effectively onboard your new hires after COVID? How can you improve the employee onboarding process at your company? Keep reading for our top employee onboarding tips for a post-COVID future. 

1. Be Understanding of the “New Normal”

COVID has left few companies unchanged since the start of the pandemic and those who assume things have stayed the same might be in for a rude awakening, or will at least be unprepared for the new reality. 

Be prepared for your returning staff to have questions or concerns when planning any required updates to policies and employee resources. Put a focus on your employees’ experiences, and what they might have on their plate coming back to work. 

They might be facing stressors such as caring for loved ones, sickness or needing to deal with reduced or unavailable childcare. Be prepared to put yourself in their shoes and think about what they might be concerned about upon returning to the workplace. For example factors like sanitation guidelines, new hygiene measures and routines, sick leave, health testing, screening and monitoring, interacting with others, compensation, and more. 

2. Keep Open Lines of Communication

These are times of great uncertainty but you don’t want to bring that uncertainty into the workplace. It’s crucial every new hire understands the role they will play within your organization and the communication between new hires and leaders is transparent. 

As an employer, it is your responsibility to be open about what your plans are and what the status of jobs will be in the future. In addition, new hires will be joining an organization which is going through major changes itself, and this can make integration more difficult for them.

If communication is poor or lacking, you’ll end up with a new hire who doesn’t understand their role or responsibilities with little insight into where their job position might be headed. 

3. Create Engaging Learning Modules Related to Pandemic Standards

Be proactive when it comes to your onboarding process and plans, task calendars and the use of online learning or video technology. All of which can help you streamline online learning for your new hires right from the jump. 

You can even utilize an Employee Development Platform like 1Huddle to help you set up easy to access learning modules about managing coronavirus and for educating your new hires so they are in the loop faster. 

Make Employee Onboarding a Breeze with 1Huddle

Did you know 87% of what employees learn is forgotten after 30 days? That’s why as an employer you need to provide your new hires with learning material they won’t forget. 1Huddle is a gamified employee training platform that can help you do just that. Request a demo today our science-backed, quick-burst mobile games which help take your onboarding process to the next level.