Building Your Program

Before implementing the SoftEx Onboarding Program, it's important to take the goals and objectives of such a program and create modules of information around each.  This means a good onboarding program must address:

• Company / Departmental Overviews
• Job Expectations
• Policies and Procedures
• Administrative Housekeeping Items

Each of these elements is discussed briefly in the sections below and these same elements will be used to organize the information on our onboarding checklist.

Company / Departmental Overview

Corporate and departmental overviews generally includes going over items such as the vision / mission statement of the company or department along with organization charts and value statements.  The purpose of these onboarding activities is to give the new hire a feel for the overall mission of the company and to introduce them to the objectives and goals of their particular department.

This information also helps the employee to better understand how their department and their role fit in the company's "big picture."  By understanding this corporate or departmental level information, the employee should be able to recognize how their job contributes to the company's success.

Job Expectations

These are the very specific job expectations of the new employee.  This can include any training they might have to go through, job descriptions / expectations and the company's performance management / appraisal process.

By clearly explaining to the new employee exactly what is expected up-front, there will be less confusion later on.  And by introducing the employee to your system of performance management, the employee will have a clearer picture of what it takes to be successful in their new job.

Policies and Procedures

The policies and procedures section can range from items like hostile work environments and affirmative action policies all the way through employee compensation guidelines.  If you've got a fit-for-duty program or a system to resolve complaints, these policies and procedures should be shared with the employee early on.

No doubt this is a lot of information to go through with the new employee, but that's what onboarding is all about - it's providing the employee with a foundation of information on which they can build.

Administrative Housekeeping Items

Although these administrative "housekeeping" items might also sound like policies and procedures, these are generally less formal matters that still need to be reviewed such as normal work hours, overtime pay, and inclement weather practices.  This section should also include contact numbers (both at the company) as well as contacts outside the workplace for the employee.  For example, telephone numbers of relatives in case the employee becomes ill at work.