When someone joins your company, you will have an onboarding session with them. Just as someone moving to a new city needs a guide to navigate their surroundings, a well-structured onboarding flowchart serves as a roadmap, guiding new hires through the company’s culture, expectations, and their specific roles.
And onboarding, depending on how it is done, can go well or wrong. It is essential for a company to provide a practical and positive onboarding experience, as it can make or break an employee’s motivation and productivity and impact retention. One of the ways you can make an effective onboarding plan is to prepare an onboarding flowchart to help you craft it.
In this guide, we’ll explore the benefits and importance of an onboarding flowchart and how you can utilize a free online flowchart maker and a free and editable flowchart template to help facilitate your onboarding process.
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- The role and importance of an onboarding flowchart
- Benefits of using an onboarding flowchart
- Essential elements for building an onboarding flowchart
- Steps to create an effective onboarding flowchart
- Final tips for successful onboarding
- Concluding thoughts: Start creating your onboarding flowchart with Venngage today
The role and importance of an onboarding flowchart
An onboarding flowchart is a chart that illustrates the flow and process of an onboarding experience that a new employee would go through during their first days, weeks, and months at a company.
It will typically contain the onboarding plan, such as their first-day activities, formalities, feedback, etc. An onboarding flowchart will also have visuals and infographics to help you plan a new employee’s onboarding journey.
Here is an example of an onboarding flowchart:
Having a well-structured onboarding flowchart is crucial for several reasons. It provides clarity, ensuring that the employee and the company are on the same page about what to expect. It also sets clear expectations, helping new hires understand their responsibilities and goals.
Most importantly, it provides a structured approach that smooths the onboarding process. This ensures efficiency and practicality, leading to a positive first impression and seamless integration into the company.
Benefits of using an onboarding flowchart
Creating and having an onboarding flowchart for your organization’s newbies is very beneficial. Here are some reasons why you should have one:
1. Improved productivity
Having a clear and structured flowchart will help you integrate new employees better. A flowchart lays out each task and responsibility clearly and visually. This makes it easy for new hires to see what’s expected of them, when tasks must be completed, and how their role fits into the bigger picture.
By breaking down their responsibilities into manageable steps, the flowchart helps them quickly understand their duties and get up to speed without unnecessary delays.
2. Better employee retention
A first impression goes a long way. An onboarding experience plays a huge role in better employee retention because during their first few weeks, if a new hire feels that they have not been appropriately onboarded. It increases the chances of them leaving during their probation period.
3. Enhanced talent attraction
A positive onboarding experience sets the tone for a new hire’s journey and becomes a selling point for attracting top talent. For example, when a new hire posts about their positive onboarding experience on LinkedIn, highlighting how welcomed and supported they felt, it reflects well on your company.
4. Stronger company culture
Onboarding helps new hires understand the company’s values and culture by explicitly communicating these aspects through structured activities and interactions.
For instance, during onboarding, new hires might participate in sessions outlining the company’s mission and core values, meet with team members who embody the company culture, and discuss how these values are applied in day-to-day work.
This exposure ensures new employees learn about the company’s values and see them in action, helping them align with the culture from the start.
Essential elements for building an onboarding flowchart
As we have explored, it is essential to have an onboarding flowchart to create an effective onboarding process and experience. There are a few vital elements in building an onboarding flowchart; we’ll walk you through some of them in this part.
1. Timeline
In your personalized onboarding plan for each new hire, include a timeline for a 30-60-90 day structure. A 30-60-90 day plan details an employee’s journey and goals during their first three months of work, divided into 30, 60, and 90 days.
It also entails the company’s values and key objectives for the employee and helps employees feel welcomed and prepared for their new role.
Typically, a 30-60-90 days plan looks like this:
- 1-30 days: the new hire learns about a company’s values, goals, team structure, and job responsibilities.
- 31-60 days: this is your new team member’s second month, where they will apply what they have learned as they take over new tasks. This is where they will make mistakes, and their mentor will guide them.
- 61-90 days: by this stage, your new hire should be able to perform their task with minimal supervision and should be able to meet the full job expectations.
2. Comprehensive list of tasks
Apart from having a timeline for a new hire, add a comprehensive list of tasks to your onboarding flowchart. Include all relevant tasks, training modules, and meetings tailored to each hire. You can also use a checklist for a structured overview, which will help you track the new hire’s performance.
Having this list in onboarding ensures that new hires get all the information and skills they need to do their job well. This helps them start strong, avoids knowledge gaps, and makes the onboarding process smooth and effective. Below are some examples of editable checklist templates that you can use for your onboarding plan:
3. Departmental input
When creating an onboarding flowchart, make it a point to gain input from different departments to cover all the steps that you may need, especially from the team member’s department. This will include non-human resource-related matters, like the employee’s specific tasks and responsibilities.
Seeking input from the other department would also be able to measure the new employee’s set of goals, as most of the time, many departments work closely together.
4. Historical onboarding data
They say practice makes perfect. The same rule applies when it comes to delivering an onboarding process. You will not get it right from the start, as the employment system is constantly changing, similar to how your brand or organization will eventually evolve over time.
Use data from previous onboarding sessions to help you improve and refine your future onboarding plans and flowchart. At the end of each onboarding, you can strive to collect feedback from your participants and use it to revise and review your future flowchart where applicable.
5. Logistical details
Last but not least, in your onboarding plan, don’t forget to add logistical details, like point of contact and training locations. This will be important for you and the new hire, especially if your onboarding or training sessions are not at your usual working location.
If you have scheduled training or inductions for your new hires, it is essential for you to equip them with the necessary information so that they do not feel lost. Always ensure they can reach you or a point of contact to help them attend and complete their training successfully.
Steps to create an effective onboarding flowchart
You’ve learned the essentials for an effective onboarding flowchart; now it is time to create one. Here are the steps needed to make an exemplary onboarding flowchart:
Step 1: Visualize the desired onboarding experience.
Start by putting yourself in the shoes of your new hires. Consider what they need to feel welcomed, supported, and aligned with the company’s mission.
Focus on your company’s core values and how they should be reflected throughout onboarding.
Step 2: Create onboarding plans and task checklists
After you have a picture of an ideal onboarding experience, your next step is to create a detailed onboarding plan and task checklist using a free online checklist maker. Use this checklist to keep track of your onboarding flowchart.
This checklist should include everything from completing paperwork to attending key meetings and training sessions. Having a clear plan ensures that nothing is overlooked and helps new hires stay on track as they navigate their first days and weeks in the company.
Step 3: Collaborate with relevant departments
Schedule meetings with crucial department members relevant to your new hire’s onboarding process to gather any input on the onboarding flowchart and plan.This ensures that the flowchart covers all necessary aspects and addresses the specific needs of each department.
Step 4: Choose the suitable flowchart template
To start building your flowchart, choose a template that would fit your plan best. Choose from one of many free editable online editable templates to start editing. Remember that you can always customize your template’s design to fit your company’s branding or visual direction. Here are some templates you can consider:
Step 5: Populate the flowchart with specific tasks, responsibilities, and due dates
Ensure your flowchart is clear and straightforward by adding specific tasks, responsibilities, and due dates. This level of detail helps new hires understand precisely what they need to do and when.
Keeping the flowchart simple and easy to follow ensures the onboarding process is not overwhelming and new employees can confidently navigate their responsibilities.
Step 6: Organize the onboarding tasks into a timeline
Create a timeline and add it to your flowchart. Use a 30-60-90 day structure to divide your new hire’s goals into different segments. This makes their goals and objectives achievable and would give their superiors a clearer view of their new team member’s achievements.
Step 7: Assign an onboarding partner or buddy
Finally, consider assigning an onboarding partner or buddy in your onboarding flowchart for a new employee. Assigning an onboarding partner or buddy to a new hire provides them with a peer or mentor who can offer guidance, answer questions, and help them adjust to the company culture.
Final tips for successful onboarding
Knowing the essentials and steps to creating an onboarding flowchart is great, but here are our final tips for creating a successful onboarding experience.
Tips 1: Avoid information overload
Don’t cramp everything into a day or an hour. Take the right time to onboard your new hires by spreading the different onboarding tasks. Avoid overloading and overwhelming your new employees as they settle down and cope with their new environment, team, roles, and responsibilities.
Remember that not all onboarding processes must be completed within a day or a week. Some tasks and responsibilities take time for a new person to understand, process, and fully take over. This is where having a 30-60-90 day structure comes into play to help you manage the new hire better. You can use an onboarding flowchart template to help you create a personalized task structure:
Tips 2: Provide easy access to resources
When creating your onboarding plan, it is important to remember that your new employees are new. Apart from not overwhelming them, ensure that you provide easy access to resources from them.
Here’s how you can do this:
- Develop a centralized hub where all essential documents, guides, and tools are stored for easy access.
- Organize resources in a user-friendly manner with clear headings, categories, and search functions.
- Provide a quick access guide highlighting key resources like IT support and company policies.
- Schedule training sessions to walk new hires through the available resources and how to use them.
- Encourage open communication by letting new employees know they can ask for help.
Tips 3: Continuous improvement
Having an onboarding plan and flowchart is excellent, but don’t forget to review and improve your onboarding flowchart and process regularly.
Reviewing your onboarding process regularly will help you capture the weak and most vital points of your onboarding plan, which you can use to improve your next orientation. You can:
- Set a routine for reviewing your onboarding process to ensure it remains practical and up-to-date.
- Analyze the onboarding flowchart to pinpoint areas that work well and those that need improvement.
- Use feedback from employees recently going through the onboarding process to understand their experience and identify areas for enhancement.
Concluding thoughts: Start creating your onboarding flowchart with Venngage today
Having a well-structured onboarding flowchart can truly make or break an onboarding process. Apart from helping new hires settle into their new role without hiccups, an effective onboarding flowchart can improve productivity, promote employee retention, attract top talents, and help build and integrate a stronger company culture.
If you don’t already have an onboarding flowchart to help you plan the process of your organization’s onboarding experience, you can start by creating one by choosing from one of many free customizable templates that are readily available online.
Remember to regularly review your onboarding flowchart and plan because, in the long run, an effective and well structured onboarding flowchart can genuinely do wonders in building your organization.
