Onboarding is important, permanent position or not. New temps and interns can often fall under the radar when it comes to the onboarding process, but it’s important to recognise their potential. Temps and interns can offer the fresh perspective your company needs to keep innovating. However, if you don’t give them the means to do so, you’ll never see the extent of what they have to offer.
Research conducted by Glassdoor proved that organisations with a strong, established onboarding process have improved new hire retention by 82 percent. Not only this, but productivity is increased by 70%. Onboarding is worth the effort to ensure you get the best from your employees; meaning the best for your business.
Do you want to make the most out of your new hires? Here are 3 key ways to onboard your temps and interns the right way.
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Get them Set Up from Day One
When taking on any new employee, its crucial to have a vision. Set a foundation for what you want your new hire to achieve and gain a clear understanding of their role within the office. Also, consider what you could do to ensure there is valuable experience to be gained from their time with you. Share this vision with employees from the start and establish your company’s cultural standards.
When done inefficiently, embedding company standards in your new employees can quickly become boring, exhausting and often demotivating. For a new employee, a slow start doesn’t create the best first impression when starting their new job; and it’s a quick way to lose their enthusiasm. Setting up your new hires for work should be fun, gripping and memorable; not a chore.
Green Hat People can help. Our gamification app is customised to match your company’s values and expectations. This bespoke product involves fun activities for your new temporary hires to get involved in, giving them an active start to the day. Our app is put in place to promote the right behaviours from day one and ensure that your new employees understand their role within the company.
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Make them Part of the Team
There’s no better way to make a temporary employee feel welcome than to treat them like a permanent member of the team. Although their presence may have an end date, they shouldn’t be left behind. But how do you encourage social interaction without forcing conversation?
Fortunately, Green Hat People’s Onboarding app also functions as a tool for team bonding. Our app gives new hires the chance to mingle with current employees and establish themselves as part of the team. This means the difficult initial stage of starting a conversation is relieved. Our app assigns missions to have a coffee and chat with other members in the office, ensuring that everyone engages with each other.
This is the perfect way to give your new hires the opportunity to establish themselves as part of the team. Assuring that your new employee has a place in the office will prove to be invaluable to their efficiency and engagement in their work. They’ll feel much more comfortable during their time with you.
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Adopt a ‘Permanent’ Mindset
When hiring temporary staff, ensure that you take your decisions as seriously as if they were a permanent employee. If you hire an individual who has some useful skills, but doesn’t share your company values, this could quickly become a problem within the office environment. Don’t just think: ‘This wouldn’t be a candidate for permanent hire, but it’ll do for temporary hire’, because they will still be part of your office environment.
Also, if permanent hire choices are on the table, a temporary employee may just prove themselves to be invaluable to your business. If you have hired your temp with the right mindset, you may have yourself a new member to the team. Keep these opportunities in mind, as it could be a positive influence for your business in the long run.
However, if there aren’t any positions to be filled, share this information with your temp or intern. If you establish this from the outset, there will be a mutual understanding of the situation and no unexpected confusion or disappointment.
A New Approach
Temporary hires can be very beneficial to your business by giving you an extra pair of hands to help your business succeed but if the onboarding process is ineffective, the experience is affected. This does not only affect the employee, but you as well.
Achieve greater effectiveness from your new hires by onboarding them well. Allow them to develop and build their skills, and take their role in your company seriously. By doing this, your temporary positions could become permanent hires, creating cultural ambassadors for your company. You’ll soon find that creating the ideal employee through an effective onboarding process will kick-start a new, positive mentality; creating a bright future for your business.
