Onboarding Insights

The team at West Recruitment have put together some information to assist you onboard your new team member and to make their transition from their previous employer to you as seamless as possible.

Networking Insights

The team here at West Recruitment are here to assist you with your career at all stages and one important element not to be overlooked is networking. We’ve all heard the phrase ‘networking’ of course, along with the growing popularity of ‘social networking’, but what is ‘business networking’ really all about?

So, you just hired a new team, member, what's next?

If you have worked in partnership with a recruiter to help find your newest talent, it is likely they will have been the main point of contact between yourself and the candidate. Now that the offer has been made and the paperwork has been signed, the direct lines of communication between yourself and the employee need to commence. The long-term benefits of having a well-defined onboarding strategy are well documented. The more engaged your new employee is from the onset can be directly linked to their overall performance, productivity, and overall tenure with an organisation. 

By really focusing on creating a great welcoming experience for your candidate with a specific program, you are demonstrating the emphasis on setting your new team member up for success which of course directly impacts team and organisational success. Along with various other welcome perks, public announcements and ensuring the candidate is set up with everything that they need on day 1, another tried and tested way to increase engagement and productivity is to introduce a 30/60/90-day plan and should take your newbie to full contributor in no time!

What is a 30/60/90-day plan?

This plan should cover clear expectations of the deliverables of the role, company processes, important milestones, relevant training schedules as well as introductions to all relevant stakeholders, communication of the culture of the organisation and behavioural expectations. This roadmap should let your new starter gauge how the are tracking against specific goals, and how to navigate systems and personnel to achieve these. 

By breaking down and mapping out tasks and learnings into 30-day increments, your employee won’t be overwhelmed and will know what to tackle next. These manageable chunks will allow a new starter to learn certain tasks or skills at each stage and ultimately become as self-sufficient as possible with reliance on others becoming progressively less. Naturally the first 30 days can be an intense learning curve, particularly if there is a lot of new industry or company jargon to learn

How to create a 30/60/90-day plan?

A good 30/60/90-day plan is not a one size fits all copy and paste document, you need to work out firstly what skills and knowledge your new hire is going to bring to the table and then think about what will challenge them but is not out of reach for them to achieve for their level.


Then you need to identify who will be responsible for talking this person through their plan and make the introductions. Good onboarding plans should not be limited to day 1 or even their first week but well into month 2, 3 and beyond. Organisations that foster an environment of continual personal development plans and learning will be in good stead for retaining talent.

0-30 days

Learn & familiarise


The first 30 days is all about learning the basics from where the office supplies are kept to company’s core market and competitors to employee’s responsibilities and the role deliverables. For the first week, your new starter could well be simply shadowing another team member and just absorbing information.

Goals


  • Learn about the company culture, values, and mission.
  • Learn company-specific technology, systems, intranet, socials etc.
  • Learn about the company’s core products and/or services and customers including current challenges and understand overview of strategic plans.
  • Meet the members of the team.
  • Hold weekly 1 on 1’s with direct manager.
  • Start working on projects – ask questions!
  • Build a career development plan with specific goals, metrics, and KPIs.
30-60 days

Immerse & engage



As your new starter progresses into their second month of employment they should focus more on collaboration and have less reliance on others to complete tasks. Training should be ongoing throughout an employee’s time at a company, but by now will become less intense. Hiring Managers should set tasks to deliver and review with constructive feedback. The employee will now use the training from the first 30 days to start implementing that knowledge.

Goals


  • Collaborate with others while starting to “contribute to the conversation” more often; starting to add value and input with overall career experience they bring.
  • Identify issues or pain points and develop plans to address and fix the issues.
  • Bringing ideas, suggestions, and solutions to areas for process improvement.
  • Set up and conduct regular meeting schedules with direct team, manager and other relevant stakeholders going forward.
  • Seek to obtain feedback from manager on progress and style thus far
60-90 days

Add value & optimise


The last 30 days of the plan is all about independence. As the employee starts taking on more responsibilities and working on bigger projects, they need to be more accountable for their work. Your new employee should now operate fairly independently with their own deliverables and be well onto building strong internal relationships with multiple stakeholders.

Goals


  • Collaborate with others while starting to “contribute to the conversation” more often; starting to add value and input with overall career experience they bring.
  • Identify issues or pain points and develop plans to address and fix the issues.
  • Bringing ideas, suggestions, and solutions to areas for process improvement.
  • Set up and conduct regular meeting schedules with direct team, manager and other relevant stakeholders going forward.
  • Seek to obtain feedback from manager on progress and style thus far

Great onboarding leads to great results! 

By spending a bit of extra time before your new employee starts and mapping out a 30/60/90- day plan will absolutely help increase employee engagement and productivity. Businesses and hiring managers that clearly communicate their expectations and leave no doubt as to what the goals are, will ensure that their new employees understand their place and how they can contribute. Regular and constructive feedback with your new starter is also key to long term success. 

At West Recruitment

we understand the

importance of finding

the right fit.

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