Your newest employee is starting work today. They've got a desk, a working computer, and their W-4 and I-9 are printed and ready to be filled out. After a few days of training, they'll be all onboarded and ready to make a contribution!
Not so fast. The employee onboarding process is one that starts long before a candidate is even chosen and involves almost every department of the firm. In fact, in our latest ebook, RIA Firm Comprehensive Blueprint to Hiring, we argue that the new employee onboarding process is critical to success, but an all-too-often forgotten step of the hiring process.
Other than training, the biggest part of the onboarding process (and one of the onboarding best practices) should be the onboarding checklist.
The checklist streamlines the new employee’s learning curve and keeps him/her focused on becoming a productive member of the team quickly. In addition, it can save your organization a significant amount of money and time and helps to ensure your new employee has all of the technology, hardware, software, and training materials ready for them once they begin.
The onboarding checklist is not just for the new hire — it should also involve various departments and people that will be interacting with the employee. Trumpet’s new employee onboarding checklist is nine pages in length and only one of the pages is for the new employee to complete. The remaining pages are covered by operations, the new employee’s new manager or supervisor, the accountant or bookkeeper, and IT or the systems administrator.
The checklist also has a timeline. Each task has a time associated with it, from before a candidate is even chosen, to a week before, to three months after the employee begins work. The timeline helps to streamline the process and ensure each new employee gets the same level of attention and training.
Below is a sample of an onboarding checklist.
Pro Tip: During the interview process, try and uncover something personal about the new hire (i.e. they like to travel, their favorite sports team, they just got a new puppy, etc.) and buy them a small first day gift to place on their desk as a welcoming to their new job and make them feel more at home/comfortable right at the start.
Click below to get the full RIA Firm Comprehensive Blueprint to Hiring.
