Onboarding - The First Steps

Before launching your onboarding program, follow these four essential steps to ensure its success.

Set the Stage

Establishing your onboarding program is crucial, as it shapes new employees' first impressions of your culture, standards, and communication. Demonstrate your commitment to their growth from the start by integrating support into every aspect of the program. Key elements include:

Defined Culture: Clearly articulate your team’s culture and values from day one. Document your principles and ensure they are consistently highlighted throughout the onboarding process. Incorporate activities like humor, games, and creative exercises to help new hires connect with the culture.

Clear Objectives: Outline specific goals for new hires in their initial days, weeks, and months. Define the skills and performance metrics you will use to evaluate their progress, ensuring expectations are transparent and achievable.

Program Outline: Provide a high-level overview of the onboarding journey, detailing each session’s title, agenda, presenter, duration, format, and prerequisites. Explain how each part contributes to meeting the onboarding objectives, so new hires understand the purpose behind each activity.

Across-the-Board Involvement: Engage multiple members of your organization in the onboarding process to keep it dynamic and inclusive. Involve reps, managers, and executives in leading sessions to foster connections with leadership and maintain fresh, engaging content. However, balance participation to avoid overburdening leaders.

Plan the Logistics

Thorough planning is essential to keep your onboarding program on track. Develop a detailed checklist to streamline future sessions, including:

Clearly define your culture.
Set onboarding objectives.
Create a comprehensive program outline.
Schedule presenters and book venues well in advance.
Distribute calendar invites and program details to presenters and new hires.
Utilize video conferencing as needed and resolve logistical issues early.
Record sessions for those who cannot attend and share the recordings promptly.

Make New Hires Feel at Home

Ease the transition for new employees by preparing their workspace in advance, coordinating with facilities to ensure everything is ready. Enhance their welcome with personalized touches like company swag and handwritten welcome notes from the team.

Create a Call Library

A curated call library accelerates new hires’ learning by providing access to high-quality calls that demonstrate best practices and essential sales processes. Organize calls by stages, topics, or skills, and regularly update the library with top-performing examples. Encourage team members to contribute and annotate calls to foster a culture of continuous learning and feedback.

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