Onboarding is an essential part of welcoming a new employee to your accounting team, but it’s also a time to ensure compliance standards are being met. Checklists can help you avoid missing any step that might result in your new hire’s confusion or HR mishaps.
You want your employees to feel included and confident in their work right from the start. Good onboarding is key to making that vision a reality. If you play your cards right, your new hire can leave their orientation feeling ready to start their new job and included in the culture of the company. Aside from that, there’s a whole lot of paperwork involved. Using checklists can help you tackle the three most important stages of a good onboarding process: pre-boarding, job orientation, and relationship-building.
Pre-boarding
The onboarding process doesn’t start when your new employee gets to the office – it starts much sooner. You’ll need to inform your staff of the new hire and work out all the details with HR. On your checklist, try including the following: review job description and schedule, submit forms to HR, and fill out new hire forms. Filling out all the pesky paperwork ahead of their first day can be a huge time saver. Additionally, you’ll need to make sure your hire knows how to prepare for orientation. Send a welcome letter to them detailing your onboarding process and what they should expect.
Job orientation
During the onboarding phase, new employees are looking for guidance. They want to know where the copy machine is and what tasks are expected to be completed by the end of the week. To help make the transition into a new work environment easier, you should make a checklist of every topic you need to go over with your new hire. Your checklist can also include items like give a tour of the office and introduce new employee to current staff. It can also be helpful to give your new staff member a sample daily checklist so they can see what a typical workday might look like.
Building relationships
When we look past the paperwork and job-specific training, onboarding is really about getting to know someone new. A good onboarding process should make a new hire feel welcomed and cared about. This should also be a time for you to show your new employee what kind of company you are and want to be. Make your goals and standards as a business clear from the start and try to give this new staff member a clear and accurate picture of the culture at your firm. For this part of the onboarding process, your checklist might include things like schedule team building or social activities.
So many companies are struggling to retain employees; you definitely don’t want to miss out on a good hire because of a sloppy onboarding process. Think of it as a first impression. Your new employee is looking at the workplace culture and how much you value them. That’s why it’s so important not to miss a single step in this process.
If you try out any of these onboarding tips at your accounting firm – or have any of your own to share – let us know down below!
