Only 12% of employees feel their employer carried out a good onboarding, as per Gallup. Unfortunately, a poor onboarding experience lowers employee engagement and morale.
In addition, they don’t trust their colleagues or organization and are more likely to perform poorly.
Worst of all, your employees may quit the job leaving you in the lurch.
However, a proper onboarding program can boost employee retention and make them feel a part of your team. Additionally, 69% of them are more likely to work for you for three years or more.
It’s why you should always try to implement a thorough onboarding program for the best results. Here are a few proven tips to help you onboard your developers.
Introduce Everyone on Day 1
The first day after you hire a Ruby developer is crucial for onboarding. You should aim to complete all introductions with team members on this day.
In addition, make sure the new developers who joined at the same time get to know each other. You should also conduct introduction rounds with existing employees, managers, and other stakeholders.
Remote teams can rely on video meetings and conferences to introduce themselves. There are several apps you can use, like Zoom and Skype.
Help Your Developers Setup their Systems
Your developers will need to work with a range of hardware and tools to be productive. They may have to use laptops, code editors, and more to achieve your project objectives.
It is your duty to help your programmers set up their systems. So, provide them with the necessary hardware and sign them up for various tools.
Your developers may also connect with your IT team to configure their systems as per your requirements.
Additionally, you may want to provide a tour of the tools and show your developers how to use them.
Assign a Mentor for a Month or Two
New hires may not be able to fit into the organization by themselves easily. They might need some guidance and advice on handling their roles and adjusting to the work environment.
In such cases, a mentor can go a long way to make your developers feel a part of the team. You should assign a mentor from the same field so that your programmers can rely on them with full confidence.
Generally, someone with a similar role to your new developer would be a good fit.
A mentor can provide a lot of benefits during onboarding:
- Help new hires adjust to the organizational culture
- Facilitate relationships with peers and colleagues
- Improve engagement and employee retention
- Boost productivity of developers
Document Everything
A recruit will need a range of information to fit into their role and contribute. Therefore, it is necessary to document everything you want your developers to know.
The list could include company policies, user guides, software tutorials, environment setup, and more.
Moreover, you can make a presentation to welcome your new hires. It may be a PPT or eBook that you can email to everyone.
However, it is also important to ensure everyone can access the documentation when they need it. Therefore, you may want to upload your files to the cloud to allow access on the go.
Arrange Onboarding in Small Chunks
You will expect your programmers to start contributing to your project after they join. However, they need time to adjust and adapt to their new role and responsibilities.
Therefore, never overburden your developers with your onboarding program or information. You should consider their day at work and develop a plan to incorporate onboarding without creating conflicts.
Otherwise, your recruits would get stressed and may consider leaving you for another employer.
Moreover, don’t try to rush your onboarding. Many organizations with successful onboarding take months to complete it.
So, be patient and allow your coders to digest information at their own pace.
Start with Small Responsibilities
Don’t expect your new coders to become 100% productive from day one. However, that does not mean you shouldn’t try to build a sense of accomplishment for them.
A great idea is to assign small tasks or parts of workflows when your new developers join work. You may ask them to debug a tool or find complexities in the code.
These tasks create a sense of satisfaction and make your programmers feel valued. They can do the tasks efficiently and get the motivation to take on more challenging responsibilities.
So, plan ahead and determine a list of tasks you are going to hand out to programmers during onboarding.
Final Thoughts
Onboarding is a crucial step to boosting the motivation of new developers. Plan your onboarding program thoughtfully and implement it gradually over days and months. In addition, get feedback from your developers to find out where you may improve for better outcomes. Moreover, use online tools to onboard your employees who work remotely.
