Are you overlooking the importance of your employee onboarding process?

Onboarding is part of every employee’s journey with your company. An important process each new hire must go through. For hospitality businesses, it’s particularly crucial to get this right ahead of an employee’s first day, so they can hit the ground running during their first shift.

Done well, your employee onboarding process will not only give your new team members everything they need for their first day, it can also have a positive impact on your employee retention, data accuracy, employee relationships and more. Here we discuss some of the key benefits of a rigorous & well thought through employee onboarding process…

Data accuracy

When employing someone new, there are a number of boxes that need ticking and information that needs collating such as right to work documentation, copies of passports/visas, emergency contacts and bank details. With a solution such as Rotaready, you can give your new employees the tools they need to upload all of this key documentation and information before they start. Rotaready’s self-onboarding functionality enables employees to upload and change their personal information to Rotaready without requiring any input from you. Not only does this lighten your workload, it ensures you have everything you need ahead of the start date. Technology that enables your employees to make changes to their personal details as and when needed, and allows you to automatically request key documents based on expiry dates, will also help you future-proof your compliance and ensure your employee data is always accurate.

Good first impressions

With the right tech and processes in place, you can give your new team members advanced visibility of everything from upcoming shifts, training courses, important company documents and social events. This will play a big part in helping new employees feel part of the team ahead of their start date. It also creates a good impression of your business from the get-go, which will help with…

Retention

How much impact can the way you onboard a new employee really have on how long they stay with your business? In hospitality the first 90 days are key, so your employee retention efforts need to start from the minute a new employee steps through the door.

By taking the time to get to know your new employees, training them well and making them aware of the tools at their disposal – you’ll be off to a great start.

Ensure there’s a robust and thorough training plan in place with plenty of review points in the first 90 days, in order to support the onboarding and development of all new starters.

Head of People Operations, BrewDog

For more advice on how to retain employees, have a read of our blog ‘Employee retention in hospitality – insights from industry experts’

This leads us nicely onto…

Training & compliance

With hospitality being such a fast-paced industry, you’re going to want to have your new team members trained and ready to work as soon as possible after their start date. Whilst there’s no replacement for some elements of on-the-job training, you should look to offer any online training they can do ahead of their first shift.

Learning & development solutions such as CPL Learning enable you to issue key training courses ahead of an employee’s first day, so you can be confident that your team are correctly trained from the get-go. Gusto Italian have seen particularly good results from this approach, with new starter compliance on their CPL Learning statutory courses/legal requirements standing at 98% before an employee’s first day.

More time for team bonding

If your new employees are trained on your business systems and processes ahead of their first day, they will have more time to focus on the people side of things once they start. With that in-person training time involving more people focussed interactions, such as meeting the team rather than getting clued up on your business processes. Gusto Italian has seen great benefits from this thanks to the integrations between their applicant tracking system, rotas, comms, training platforms, and payroll provider.

New team members start knowing that we have their details on file, so that their first day is all about introducing them to the team and the Gusto Italian culture rather than filling in forms. They are confident that they are working in a business that knows what it’s doing and their GM can sit down with them, have a coffee and talk through the culture and values of the business, safe in the knowledge that all the paperwork has already been sorted.

Head of People, Gusto Italian

Read more about Gusto Italian’s experience of implementing a connected tech stack

Anything we’ve missed?

We hope you’ve found this blog useful, if there’s anything else you’ve found to be particularly crucial to your employee onboarding process then please let us know at comms@rotaready.com. We’d love to share your insights!

And if you’d like any further information on Rotaready and how it can help you perfect your employee onboarding process, then let us know here, and one of our team will be in touch.