Employee Onboarding

According to the Society for Human Resources Development (SHRM), employee onboarding (also known as organizational socialization) is the “process of helping new hires adjust to social and performance aspects of their new jobs quickly and smoothly, and learn the attitudes, knowledge, skills, and behaviors required to function effectively within an organization.” In short, employee onboarding involves the processes that help you ensure that your new hires get started on the right foot. These processes can be broken down into two categories:

• Formal onboarding encompasses the organized tasks and procedures that help a new employee adjust to his or her new position. Under formal onboarding, new hires are often segregated from existing employees to experience coordinated activities for orientation, in-classroom training, and socialization.
• Informal onboarding refers to the ad hoc and semi-organized activities by which a new employee learns about his or her new job. Informal onboarding can include job shadowing and impromptu one-on-one coaching or meetings with management and new colleagues, as well as the minutiae of getting started at a company, such as receiving badges and equipment.