Onboarding in Manufacturing: How to Really Nail It

Warmly welcoming a new recruit properly seems natural, but what are the stakes and concrete benefits of an effective onboarding process for your manufacturing company?

• Improved productivity and employee engagement from the very first day;
• Strong corporate culture and employer brand that fits job seekers’ expectations;
• Open communication and healthy relationship between managers and employees from the get-go;
• Increased employee retention and lower turnover costs.

In short, more productive and engaged teams!

All organizations, especially SMBs, face challenges related to employee onboarding. These issues are even more important in manufacturing, where the daily efficiency of operations is paramount:

• How do you speed up the onboarding process without decreasing its value?
• How do you balance efficient manufacturing operations with comprehensive employee management?
• How do you make onboarding more fun and flexible in the industry?

These questions can quickly become organizational headaches, especially when you have to welcome several employees in a row (or at the same time!)

Fortunately, our tips will help you save time and avoid oversights while ensuring a quality onboarding for your hire.

Onboarding is not a two-day process: it is essential to follow the different phases of the process and avoid oversights. Use our dedicated checklist to avoid getting lost!

• Onboarding email sent before the first day;
• Communication with the HR department;
• Completed onboarding documents;
• Appointment of onboarding mentor;
• Certificates added to the new employee’s profile;
• Distribution of the employee guide;
• Sharing the company policy;
• Distribution of training materials;
• Introduction to the workplace and coworkers;
• Creation of personal accounts and passwords;
• Company and workplace tour;
• Definition of expectations related to the role with an onboarding plan;
• Presentation of company culture;
• Organization of first team-building activities;
• Safety training and compliance training;
• Extensive training for the job and first individual tasks;
• Analysis of future training needs;
• Performance evaluation at the end of the probationary period.

With Folks HR, you can enter all onboarding tasks directly into your onboarding new employees software and assign them to the people in charge. In addition, all reminders are automated!

Psst… Here’s a free onboarding checklist to use whenever you need it!

Our advice for avoiding time-consuming onboarding tasks while remaining efficient: anticipation, organization and dematerialization! These notions are even more crucial in the manufacturing sector.

Manufacturers must ensure that their new hires are properly trained for their position at the end of their probationary period. Maintaining well-trained teams prevents professional accidents, absenteeism, and loss of productivity and engagement. Therefore, a large part of the onboarding period should be dedicated to learning tasks specific to the position and identifying future training needs. By anticipating the development of skills to be planned in the coming months, we can avoid drops in performance and loss of time!

Manual and repetitive processes are undoubtedly a source of errors and oversights. Unfortunately, this is also the case in HR!

There’s no better way to optimize your onboarding processes than with HR software for the manufacturing industry:

• Creation of onboarding plans and management of tasks and schedules;
• Automated reminders to avoid delays;
• Employee self-service to update information at any time;
• Time-savings for the HR department, managers and employees;
• More time and energy dedicated to employees and operations;
• Complete certificate management to ensure productivity throughout the entire employee lifecycle;
• Centralized processes on a single platform = efficient daily processes! 

Feel free to download our free HR software handbook to learn more!

• Efficient Communication

Don’t forget to communicate with the new hire throughout the onboarding and integration process. Remember to introduce them to their future colleagues to get the whole team involved from the start! The introduction can start via email before the first day and detail the newcomer’s passions and personality.

• Surveys and Evaluations

To make sure you’re adopting the most relevant onboarding practices, ask the people involved! Your new hires and employees are in the best position to share ideas for improvement.

You can do this by asking questions (or providing a questionnaire) to your new employee during the probationary evaluation. It will help you determine what worked and what didn’t during the onboarding period.

You can even take it a step further with engagement surveys. They are the best way to measure employee satisfaction and implement relevant engagement strategies over the long term. In addition, by involving your employees throughout the process, you will build onboarding plans THEY love.

Your onboarding and integration processes can – and should – be continuously improved to better adapt to your company’s growth and each employee’s reality.

By following all our tips and using your checklist adapted to the manufacturing industry, you will improve your practices, and your new hires and current employees will appreciate your efforts!