The simple and most effective way to onboard new hires

One of the most searched questions during the pandemic is “how to onboard new hires remotely” especially when it comes to giving them a sense of belonging. What if we told you that most of your remote onboarding problems would be solved by simply writing good emails?

Well-written employee onboarding emails can shoot down hundreds of questions even before they are asked. They can make your new hires feel safe, welcome and confident.

So, you can either approach welcome emails as a chore to get done with or a strategic opportunity to:

A) Improve your onboarding completion rates
B) Offer an impeccable employee experience starting from Day 0
C) Shorten your new-hire’s time to productivity
D) Reduce post-offer drops (especially during this remote onboarding period) 

At first, writing thoughtful new employee emails can feel overwhelming and may even look impossible because there are so many emails to write and an equally long list of new employees. However, with a smart onboarding software like Freshteam, you can create reusable email templates and use the built-in placeholders to personalise your messages.

Not just that, you can put together a reusable onboarding kit with all the forms to fill, handbooks or documents to sign. You can send them the kit in a single click – that’s one kit in place of 15 or 20 emails.

Let’s look at some best practices to get these initial communications right.

8 Tips to write successful employee onboarding emails 

  1. Use an Impressive subject line: Make your company name a part of the subject line because many new employees may not have an official email account and will be using their personal accounts to communicate with you. If your subject line is not to-the-point, they may miss it.
  2. Keep it easy-to-read: Share details, clarify common doubts, keep the emails easy to read. You can highlight important parts like time, place or dates. Use a list wherever possible and keep sentences short – since most employees may access onboarding emails over the phone.
  3. Be welcoming – try to be warm and personal so you can prompt a sense of belonging and joy from Day 1. Choose a tone that reflects the nature of your employer brand or company.
  4. Create visible and clear call-to-actions – show your new employees what to do next – fill the form, submit documents, show up at work, etc.
  5. Include links to social profiles – If you are introducing people over emails, for example, their manager or buddy, make sure you add links to their social profiles or blogs. This will help them initiate conversations with confidence.
  6. Proofread – Proofread. Proofread. If necessary use a tool like Grammarly to ensure there aren’t any typos or mistakes that make you look careless.
  7. Introduce an active communication channel where they can start engaging with their team – it could be your company forum, slack channel or any other platform where your employees are quick to respond..
  8. Make an action planLayout simple and understandable onboarding plans for their first day, first week and first 30 days. You could also break them down into achievable goals so they know what they are going to be doing without ambiguity. For example, complete your profile on the self-service portal, complete the network security training, etc.

If you would like some sample templates with these tips incorporated, check out this new employee email repository from Freshteam.

Wrapping up

Employee onboarding directly impacts the employee life cycle – employee experience, employee engagement, employee performance and employee retention. It’s key to business success and new-hire onboarding emails are your biggest opportunity to influence their onboarding experience positively.

Creating, managing and tracking email communication can be tedious without the right tools. It’s impossible to manually schedule, track performance, follow up on hundreds of emails. On the other hand, a good onboarding software empowers you to be efficient  and organized. You can use canned email templates, schedule email campaigns, track responses and send one-click follow ups.

They also come with Onboarding checklists  which enable you to create, assign and track every item that’s a part of the onboarding process in one place. For example, form completions can be assigned to a candidate, setting up network credentials to the IT, sending out welcome emails to the HR, and so on.

It’s the best way to drive your employee onboarding success rates to 100%.

About Freshteam

Freshteam is a smart HR software that enables recruiters to attract, hire and onboard top talent from the industry. On the onboarding front, it helps streamline and improve your new hire onboarding experience with onboarding kits, checklists, digital signatures, employee self service and more. If you are looking for good onboarding software, try Freshteam. If you are interested in trialing the Freshteam HR software, sign up here.