The term “onboarding” gradually finds its way into the German corporate world. A good onboarding is as much important to the company as to the employee. But what exactly does this process include?
For the English term “onboarding” , there is actually no really suitable correspondent German term. Training. Yes, that comes close, but neglects the social, atmospheric touch of the term. Because introductory training focuses heavily on the pure activity or function that the new employee takes on, but too little on their personality, which they always brings in communicative occupations.
Welcome. Yes, it goes in the same direction. But successful onboarding is more than a good, friendly first impression: a friendly hello, a firm handshake, a look in the eye …
Technically speaking, onboarding is about the entire process of integrating a new employee into the organization. How long this takes depends on the complexity and the size of the organization as well as the function that the new employee should take over. It takes maybe three months to half a year. And in the best case, it starts even before the first working day.
Onboarding has multiple goals. On the one hand, the employee should develop his/her performance as quickly as possible. This helps the company and this is also beneficial for the employee. Because, in addition to one’s own feelings, this is accompanied by the appreciation from colleagues or customers. In addition, successful integration management makes it easier for employees to stay. If an employee leaves the company at the end of the probationary period or even earlier, all work done by HR and colleagues for induction is void. Then everything has to start from the beginning: Vacancy of the job, advertisements, review applications, conduct interviews, contract negotiations.
What also not to forget is, in the age of social media: A company, which searches repeatedly employees on the same position, will make the job market come to the assumption that this company has a high fluctuation. The danger of such consequence is not small- employees may post their bad comments about the company online, which may decrease the application motivation of real qualified talents. In short, good onboarding is as much important to the company as to the employee. If it succeeds, both sides will benefit from it.