Epoch | Breaking the Ice: How to Engage New Hires 🧊

Breaking the Ice: How to Engage New Hires 🧊

For any new hire, the first few weeks are always the most daunting. They are essentially thrown into a new environment with new coworkers, a new manager and new tasks to perform. While it is ultimately their responsibility to adapt and adjust, there are many ways to better engage them and help them through this adjustment period. In this blog, we will go over the importance of engaging new hires from the get-go, as well as some methods that will help you do so.

Importance 👑

The onboarding process that an employee experiences can often make or break their perception of their company. Besides the aspects of how you train them, the level of engagement your new hires will feel also depends on all the soft aspects in their new work environment. Being able to engage your new hires will help better strengthen their sense of belonging at your company, which can lead to better motivation, productivity and much more. In case you aren’t convinced, here are some numbers:

• Companies with engaged employees are on average 21% more profitable
• Happy employees perform 20% better than unhappy employees
• Strong collaboration in the workplace leads to 15% more innovation

Methods 💡

Do Your Homework 📖

• Ensure preparations are complete ahead of their first day.
• Having them fill out their paperwork or sending them their work computer before their first day of work will convey a sense of structure and professionalism.
• Finishing pre-onboarding will make your new hires’ first day less stressful.

Introduce Them to the Team 👋

• Introducing your new hire to the team will help them create a sense of comfort and integration.
• Helping your new hire create human connections will increase their level of engagement, belonging and motivation within the company.

Scrap the Paperwork 📝

• No one wants to do paperwork on their first day of work, so delay the paperwork or have them do it pre-onboarding!
• This will help reduce any feelings of monotony your new hire may feel.

Buddy/Mentorship System 🧑‍🤝‍🧑

• Give your new hire a buddy they can be comfortable talking to and asking questions to.
• Have your new hire shadow a more experienced employee to get them familiar with the daily operations of the company.

Give a Tour (Physical or Virtual) 💼

• Make your new hire feel at home by giving them a tour of your location!
• Give them an in-person tour or a video-call tour of the company office.

Set Expectations Early 📁

• Follow this rule in moderation; don’t overwhelm your new hire with rules and responsibilities, but make it clear early on what you expect out of them.
• Setting these expectations can help give your new hire something they can ground themselves to.

Highlight Company Culture (Show not just Tell) 🙌

• Host team building events and other community centric events to convey a sense of community to your new hire.
• Having your new hire experience excellent workplace culture will increase their sense of motivation and engagement.

Touch Base Often 👇

• Frequently sync with your new hire to show that you care about their onboarding experience.
• A constant touch point with their manager will improve their sense of connectedness to you and your company.

Have a Clear Schedule 📅

• Creating a clear schedule for their first few weeks will convey a sense of structure and professionalism.
• Giving them a schedule to stick to will reduce their feelings of uncertainty and give them something to focus on.

Solicit Feedback 🗣️

• Perhaps the most important way of breaking the ice with your new interns is soliciting their feedback.
• Giving them a sense of control in their experience will make them more likely to speak up during meetings and directly engages them.
• Soliciting feedback will also help to engage future hires by refining the onboarding process.

Conclusion

In this blog, we have outlined some of the many ways of engaging your new hires. This list is by no means comprehensive and there are many different ways for you and your company to break the ice with your new hires. We hope that this blog will get you thinking about your onboarding process in a different way than you did before!