The Tech Industry’s 4 Biggest Onboarding Challenges (with Solutions)
Publié le 25 July 2022
Improve your hiring and training process by understanding the tech industry’s 4 biggest onboarding challenges (with solutions).
If you do not constantly innovate in the tech industry, you will be out of the business soon. That is why there is always a push for HR managers to become transformational leaders in order to drive home the competitive advantage. In fact, around 86% of tech-sector HR executives believe that their roles are gradually becoming more strategic as time goes by.
Bringing in tech recruits and expecting them to fit into their new role seamlessly from the first day is a recipe for disaster for the entire team. In the long run, an effective onboarding strategy reduces administrative work, misunderstanding, and compliance concerns. You can develop your own effective strategy by reviewing the tech industry’s 4 biggest onboarding challenges (with solutions)
Who Is in Charge of Onboarding?
Although this looks like a very generic question, it can have a lot of repercussions if the right personnel is not held accountable for the onboarding process.
In most organizations, the employer, a member of the HR team, or a supervisor is in charge of onboarding. Any of these personnel may help with the onboarding process by introducing the new employees to the various facets of the business and teaching them what they need to know about their role in the organization.
During the onboarding process, a peer mentor usually gets allocated to the new hire by providing targeted lessons based on the individual requirements of their job role. One of the easiest ways to make a new employee feel at ease with the learning process is by giving them a sense of belonging and support in their new workplace.
Here the role of the employer becomes critical as they are the one who selects a peer mentor who can have a positive impact on the recruit and exemplify the qualities that they want a rookie to have. It is during such moments that having engaged employees who are prepared to be a mentor is crucial.
Why Do Onboarding Programs Fail?
The biggest problem with organizations is that they view onboarding as a paper-pushing operation, something to be included with payroll and tax information, employee handbooks, and benefits papers. Although these stages are mandatory and even essential by law, they are not the most critical aspects of the onboarding process.
The ultimate objective of the onboarding program is to make the new employees feel at ease with their own roles within the organization. This involves ensuring that they feel that they belong, which makes the new employees more enthusiastic about the job. They should also have the desire and the support to innovate in their role while at the same time being included, accepted, and committed to the overall objectives of the team and the organization.
There are times when your new employee can provide a fresh take on virtual marketing strategies like implementing videos, creating training videos, or scheduling social media posts that can provide a new direction to an organization. Hence, it becomes essential for HR professionals to think of the new employees as an investment that must be nurtured and developed in order to get long-term payoffs.
Here are statistics that you would love to check out: According to Oracle, organizations with a normal onboarding process have 54% higher new-hire productivity and 50% higher new-hire retention.
The Tech Industry’s 4 Biggest Onboarding Challenges (with Solutions)
- Not Prioritizing the Onboarding of New Hires
- Overburdening Information on the First Day
- Structure, Preparation, and Organization Are All Lacking
- Ignoring Generational Differences
1. Not Prioritizing the Onboarding of New Hires
Everyone today knows that first impressions take only a second to make but can last for far longer. And this is specifically true when it comes to new employee onboarding. The first few days of a new employee’s tenure in your organization set the tone for the rest of their employment tenure. One of the tech industry’s 4 biggest onboarding challenges is to successfully learn how to prioritize the onboarding process of each new hire.
So, what kind of first impression are you making on them? Is your workflow unorganized? Do you hand over a stack of paperwork and then walk away leaving them to fill out form after form?
In case you answered yes to any of these questions, you can definitely improve on making a great first impression during the employee onboarding process.
The right way to approach this situation would be by displaying your appreciation for the new hire and the value that they bring to the organization.
Now, the first day for the new employee might be hectic and intimidating. But even something as simple as designing an onboarding solution that enables new workers to complete their paperwork before their first day of work can really simplify the process. This can help to ensure that they have a great first day in your organization instead of being buried in paperwork from the moment they walk in the door.
Once that is done, the next step is to schedule a meeting with key staff that aids your new employee in getting acquainted with the company’s culture and day-to-day processes and procedures. This can be done easily by including infographics and other visual projects for the new employees and making them acquainted with the company in an engaging way.
It is a known fact that onboarding proves to be effective in engaging and training new employees. But it also assists them in achieving their career development goals with your company.
Fact check: It has been discovered that 77% of employees who achieve their initial performance targets have gone through a formal onboarding process. When no formal onboarding training has been offered, this figure is reduced to 49% of the total.
2. Overburdening Information on the First Day
The first day of work can make any new employee feel stressed and nervous for a number of different reasons. One of the main reasons is the sheer volume and information that new employees often receive when they join a new organization.
One of the tech industry’s 4 biggest onboarding challenges is to streamline the process in order to reduce the amount of information new employees receive right away, lowering the chances that they feel overwhelmed and confused.
Some of it is unavoidable. However, when it comes to onboarding paperwork, there is unquestionably a solution. Using an electronic solution to automate your onboarding paperwork saves time for both you and your new employee.
It also relieves the burden of completing the forms on the first day promptly and precisely. However, with various new efficient onboarding and other database tools, your new workers can complete the paperwork whenever, whenever, and on any device. That’s both practical and stress-free. Furthermore, it securely keeps all of the papers, ensuring that nothing is lost.
Consider how many mistakes could be avoided if documentation was completed electronically rather than guessing what the employee wanted to write. By keeping the process as simple as possible, you’ll never have to worry about misplaced documentation when you need it most with documents kept in the cloud.
3. Structure, Preparation, and Organization Are All Lacking
Unfortunately, businesses, especially startups, can sometimes opt for an unstructured, casual culture in the hopes of fostering innovation without constraints. But that is where they make a huge mistake.
Treating onboarding as a simple ad-hoc procedure cannot work, no matter how laid-back your workplace, and doing so is one of the tech industry’s biggest onboarding challenges.
Even highly creative employees who fully understand the freedoms and flexibility of a more casual company want a sense of organization that allows them to work effectively in a team atmosphere and meet productivity goals.
Consider the onboarding process as an opportunity to fully engage new hires in your company’s culture fully.
One method can be to have new hires receive regular email marketing newsletters from top leadership, project managers, developers, customer service team, check out knowledge management of the company, and potential co-workers in the weeks leading up to their start dates. This allows them to have the time to understand the organizational structure of the entire company and have this firmly in mind when they arrive to start on their first day of work.
4. Ignoring Generational Differences
Every employee is unique and different, and driven by different motivating factors. Hence, it becomes imperative that the onboarding process they follow considers the cultural and generational differences to improve the employee experience. Just as it is important to utilize a different marketing strategy to attract potential hires. Having different onboarding paths for different recruits is also important. A diverse team will benefit every organization, so it is important to create an onboarding process that is adaptable enough to meet different needs and expectations.
For example, an employee in their mid-40s with children will be interested in an entirely different plan of health insurance coverage and retirement financing alternatives than someone just out of university looking to build a new career. They would be more concerned with work/life balance and any student debt assistance the company might provide.
Ignoring the different priorities of each new recruit and expecting them to fit into a one-size fits all onboarding plan will only make the process more frustrating and ineffective.
Finishing Up
Companies in the tech industry need to recruit qualified people if they are to continue growing and succeeding. Reviewing the tech industry’s 4 biggest onboarding challenges (with solutions), it will help ensure that companies are ready to meet the needs of their new employees. Doing so will lead to an effective work environment made up of satisfied employees, prepared to work together and build a successful organization.
