Sorting through resumes and interviewing candidates is time-consuming and often stressful.
The last thing you want is to repeat the process because a new employee quits. In fact, according to Forbes, 30% of new hires quit within 90 days. The culprit? A bad onboarding program and lack of (or boring!) onboarding materials.
Effective onboarding materials like policy handbooks, training manuals, and cheat sheets are necessary to equip new hires with the knowledge they need to succeed. One of the biggest challenges is to make this content appealing and engaging.
Want an easy way to make effective onboarding materials for HR success? Use our free employee handbook maker or edit free HR onboarding templates or HR infographic templates for a fast start.
Click to jump ahead:
- Importance of effective onboarding
- Technical training onboarding material
- Core values alignment onboarding material
- Examples of onboarding materials
- How to create onboarding material in Venngage
- Conclusion
Importance of effective onboarding on employee retention and productivity
The data doesn’t lie. Companies with a strong onboarding process and well-fleshed out training materials are able to retain employees, see better productivity, and reduced turnover (and costs).
The best onboarding programs include the following aspects:
- Orientation
- Compliance training
- Role-specific training
- Process documentation
- Technology set up
- Initial evaluations
- Ongoing support
- Defined KPIs
Process documentation is especially key for HR to get right. This means no boring, text-heavy guides, employee handbooks, or onboarding manuals. Companies must create onboarding material that is informative, engaging, and visually appealing.
Understanding the impact of onboarding on employee retention
A Glassdoor survey found that a strong onboarding process improved new hire retention by 82%.
This is because effective onboarding fulfills the 4Cs of employee integration — compliance, clarification, culture, and connection.
Just ask yourself which company you’d prefer to join as an employee.
- Company A which sends you pre-onboarding checklists before your first day on the job, clear communication policies, and opportunities for social interaction.
- Company B which leaves you to their own devices from day one.
The choice of company A should be a no-brainer!
The role of onboarding in boosting productivity
Employees who complete a well-designed onboarding program are 54% more productive compared to counterparts left to their own vices.
This is because onboarding helps newcomers understand their roles, responsibilities, and the company’s expectations early on.
Assets like employee handbooks not only help reduce uncertainty and anxiety among new hires but give them an outlet to find answers to questions about company policies, benefits, and expectations without having to rely on their immediate supervisors.
This autonomy in accessing information fosters confidence and independence, further contributing to increased productivity.
Technical training onboarding materials
New employees in roles that require following a process or adherence to regulations are more successful when given training manuals with step-by-step directions or SOPs featuring visuals such as diagrams, flowcharts, or illustrations.
Here’s what HR departments need to do to create effective technical training onboarding material.
- Identify technical skills and competencies required for each role: This can include software proficiency, data analysis, or any other specialized skills pertinent to the job.
- Conduct skills gap analysis: Use assessments or surveys during onboarding to evaluate technical competencies of new hires.
- Develop comprehensive training modules:
Creating technical training manuals
Technical training manuals are comprehensive single-page or multi-page documents that help employees understand how to perform a task or follow a process within an organization.
Training manuals can cover almost any task or process within a company, from teaching sales techniques, product knowledge, customer relationship management, team management, decision-making skills, or giving instructions on using email, intranet, specialized software, and much more.
Related: 14+ Editable Onboarding Checklist Templates for Businesses in 2024
For example, this visual aid helps new recruits in sales and product teams learn how to handle customer onboarding by showing the process in a step-by-step format to reduce errors.
This HR infographic on the other hand uses different-colored blocks and bars to create visual hierarchy and teach HR staff how to manage a company job post.
Designing standard operating procedures (SOPs)
Standard operating procedures or SOPs are documents with detailed instructions on how to perform a task to ensure employees perform consistently and correctly.
SOPs are especially important for organizations where compliance can make or break your reputation. By documenting procedures, organizations can ensure that they are meeting regulatory requirements and industry standards.
Here’s a great example of a SOP that outlines procedures a pharmacy should follow to order, stock, and dispense medications. It’s a handy document to have to ensure everything comes from licensed suppliers and is handled by authorized personnel to patients with valid prescriptions.
Of course SOPs are not limited to the pharmaceutical world. They can be used by any industry to standardize processes, ensure compliance, and improve efficiency.
Here’s an example of an SOP that can help manufacturers keep track of changes made to any equipment or machinery in their inventory.
To ensure SOPs are consistent and clear, follow these best practices:
- Ensure clear language: Use simple, easy-to-understand language.
- Add step-by-step instructions: Break down procedures into steps with numbers or bullet points.
- Use visual aids: Include diagrams or flowcharts to illustrate complex steps.
- Use standard formatting: Maintain a consistent format (font size, headings, spacing).
- Define key terms: Provide definitions for any technical terms or acronyms.
- Tailor it for your audience: Make sure SOPs are comprehensible to the audience’s knowledge.
- Review and update regularly: Review and update SOP to reflect changes in processes.
Additionally, onboarding material can be translated for foreign employees into their native language to ensure they fully understand company policies and procedures, thereby enhancing their integration and productivity.
Related: 15+ Standard Operating Procedure Checklists for Better Workflow and Smoother Training
Core value alignment onboarding material
Onboarding isn’t just about teaching new employees how to do their job but making sure they’re aware of the company’s culture and core values.
Employee handbooks, checklists, and infographics are all assets that help communicate principles that guide your organization.
Communicating company core values
Sharing your company’s core values from the start helps new hires understand what you stand for and how their role contributes to the bigger picture.
There are several ways to communicate your company’s core values such as:
- Value posters: Visual displays placed in common areas to consistently remind employees of the company principles.
- Infographics: Engaging and informative visuals that make core values easy to understand and remember.
- Presentations: Structured sessions during meetings, training, or onboarding programs to explain and reinforce core values.
Value posters
Value posters show your company’s core values in an engaging and informative format. They’re heavy on visuals like illustrations, photographs, or icons to grab attention and a great way to get new employees to buy-in to company culture right from the start.
For example, this company value poster can easily be used in various locations around the office, from break rooms, training rooms, or common areas to reinforce commitment to sustainability, innovation and community.
Infographics
Infographics make for great onboarding material to share core company values because they present the information in chunks with colorful icons, images, and a clear layout.
Not only does this grab attention and help new employees to connect emotionally with the organization but it’s a handy tool for them to have to refer back when they want to revisit the information.
This core company value infographic is divided into sections to inform new hires on information like mission, vision, and more, making it easy to scan and absorb information. It also uses a consistent color scheme, icons, and graphics to enhance the readability of the content. For example, the use of icons to represent each core value means readers don’t even read the content to get the gist.
Presentations
If you want to be a bit more creative, presentations can also double as engaging onboarding material since they’re interactive.
They involve new hires in the learning process, ensuring they are not just passive recipients of information but active participants. Direct interaction allows for immediate feedback and clarification of doubts, enhancing understanding and retention.
Fostering cultural alignment from day one
Aligning new employees to company culture from day one is crucial to make sure they gel with company mission and values. This is especially true in remote environments where employees cannot develop connections naturally.
This process should start right from onboarding that defines norms and behaviors expected from all employees.
This onboarding template provides practical guidance on team management using an engaging and organized format. You can include it in a employee handbook that you share with new hires or print it out and allow managers to share it with their respective teams.
This onboarding template is a great way to get employees started on the right path and communicates how the organization values its employees and enables them to succeed at their job.
Examples of onboarding materials
There’s several types of onboarding materials any company can make such as:
- Policy handbooks
- Training manuals
- Checklists
- Infographics
- SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures)
- Core value posters
- Fact sheets
Let’s look at some examples of these onboarding materials!
Checklists
Checklists are a great way to structure your onboarding material for several reasons. Here are several reasons you should have checklists in your onboarding material portfolio:
- Structured information: Checklists provide structured, step-by-step guidance on tasks and processes, ensuring that new hires know exactly what is expected of them.
- Avoids overwhelming: By breaking down tasks into manageable steps, checklists prevent new employees from feeling overwhelmed by the volume of information they need to absorb.
This checklist onboarding template provides clear, detailed, and actionable steps for the blog publishing process. It’s a good way to support collaboration, accountability and ensure you establish high standards for any process you want to support.
Even HR departments and teams need clear, structured, and comprehensive processes to follow to ensure they do their jobs correctly. This new employee orientation checklist covers all aspects of the onboarding process making it easy for HR to facilitate smooth transition for new employees.
This checklist covers a wide range of important HR areas, including compliance, recruiting and hiring, onboarding, time off policies, and more. It’s a great tool to ensure all aspects of different tasks can be tracked and checked off to ensure no important steps are overlooked.
SOPs
Standard operating procedures are another mainstay of onboarding material because they provide structure, clarity, and consistency to tasks.
Here’s why you should include SOPs as part of your onboarding process:
- Quick integration: With SOPs, new employees can learn their duties without needing extensive one-on-one training. This allows them to become productive sooner.
- Time-saving resource: SOPs act as a reference that employees can consult whenever they are unsure about a procedure, reducing the need for constant supervision and repeated explanations.
This SOP shows a structured process for recruitment with the help of a flowchart. It is an excellent way to teach new HR staff how to recruit and hire effectively from day one. By combining text and visuals in an appealing format, it makes the task easier to learn.
Visual SOP roles are particularly effective for roles in healthcare, IT, retail, manufacturing, marketing, and any other role that requires staff to follow processes.
Core value posters and infographics
Posters and infographics that communicate core company values are effective because they use bright colors and images to make it easy for new employees to notice and remember information.
When creating a core value poster or infographic, keep the following points in mind:
- Focus on visual appeal: Use bright colors, engaging images, and a clean design to capture attention.
- Be clear: Ensure the information is clear and easy to understand.
- Be concise: Present the core values in a concise manner without too much text.
- Be consistent: Maintain a consistent style and message across all materials.
- Highlight key values: Focus on the most important values that define your company’s culture.
Related: How to Make a Poster in 10 Steps (2024 Poster Design Guide + Templates).
Fact sheets
Fact sheets are designed to be easy to reference, allowing new employees to quickly find the information they need without sifting through lengthy documents.
Here’s why you should include fact sheets should be a core part of your onboarding materials.
- Highlights only key points: Fact sheets emphasize the most important information new hires need to know, such as company policies, contact details, benefits, and procedures.
- Prioritizes important information: By focusing on critical information, fact sheets ensure that new employees are aware of the essentials from the very beginning.
This company fact sheet is excellent onboarding material because it provides a comprehensive overview of Adobe in a visually engaging and digestible format. It highlights key information and fosters an emotional connection, all of which are crucial for effectively integrating new employees into the company.
Related: How To Create A Fact Sheet For New Hires + Examples [Infographic]
How to create onboarding materials with Venngage
Venngage is a simple and powerful design solution for business communications.
It’s the perfect companion for HR professionals who want to create effective and visually appealing onboarding material, but lack design skills.
On Venngage, you’ll find no shortage of free HR onboarding templates or HR infographic templates.
To create visually appealing onboarding materials in Venngage, follow these steps:
- Pick the right template from hundreds of easy-to-customize HR onboarding templates or HR infographic templates.
- Create a free account to customize your template.
- Use the drag-and-drop editor to add text and change visual elements like colors or fonts.
- Make the piece visually engaging with some of our free 40,000+ diverse icons and illustrations.
- Download your onboarding material, or share it directly with your team using a private link.
Conclusion: Get new hires to buy in into your company from day one with engaging onboarding material
Think of new employees as babies you need to raise into adults in a short span of time. To succeed, you need to provide an exact framework to follow to ensure they make good decisions and know what to do in each situation with minimal supervision.
And it’s a practice that benefits not only employees but also employers. Effective onboarding material ensures employees are productive, eager to work, and less likely to quit.
Start creating onboarding materials today with Venngage!