4 Best Practices for Better Nonprofit Employee Onboarding
From posting on the right job sites and sifting through applications to conducting interviews and checking references, a lot goes into the employee hiring process.
By the time your new employee accepts your nonprofit’s job offer and signs their employment contract, you might feel like you’ve crossed the finish line.
However, there is still a critical step that needs to be taken before your employee is truly ready to succeed in their new role: onboarding.
According to RealHR Solutions’ guide to employee recruitment, “An official onboarding process can set the tone for the entire employee experience.” This means that if your nonprofit wants happy, engaged employees and a strong team all around, you need to have a solid onboarding process.
In this short guide, we’ll help you get started by walking through four best practices your organization can implement to improve how you onboard employees. Let’s begin!
1. Thoroughly prepare before onboarding begins.
When your new employee arrives on their first day of work, you want to ensure you have everything ready to begin the onboarding process. Here are some things you can do to prepare beforehand:
Create a welcome packet. Your welcome packet should include essential information and resources that will help your new hire transition smoothly into working at your organization. These might include the employee’s full job description, an onboarding schedule, a copy of your employee handbook, an organizational chart, benefits information, and an organizational contact list. You may also want to include something fun like a mug or t-shirt branded to your nonprofit.
Plan out training and other onboarding activities. Identify the skills and knowledge required for your new employee to succeed in their role. Design or source training materials that are relevant to the role, and plan out how to intersperse role-specific training with additional activities designed to help the employee get to know the other aspects of the organization.
Set up the employee’s workspaces and any relevant accounts. Make sure your new hire will feel at home by setting up their workspace. Ensure their space is clean and that they have all the tools (like a working laptop and extra monitor) they need. Also, work with your IT department to create the employee’s work email and accounts for software tools like your organization’s CRM or prospect research software.
Get feedback about onboarding from current employees. Each time you onboard a new employee, you should provide a better experience than the last time you onboarded someone. Prepare to make your upcoming round of onboarding the best yet by collecting feedback from current employees about their onboarding experiences. Then, make positive changes based on their suggestions.
If you want to take your onboarding preparation efforts to the next level, consider working with a nonprofit HR consulting firm. An HR consultant can help you evaluate your current onboarding practices and make tailored recommendations for improvements.
2. Host an orientation meeting.
On the first day of onboarding, after your employee has had the chance to settle into their workspace, tour your office, and get initial introductions to their fellow team members, host a short orientation meeting.
Here’s what you should cover in the meeting:
Your organization’s mission, vision, and values: Though you’ve likely discussed these things during the interview process, it’s helpful to reemphasize your organization’s purpose and the big picture of what they’ll be working toward.
Key policies and procedures from your employee handbook: Go over the most important policies together, such as workplace rules and your organization’s code of conduct.
The new employee’s role: Working off of the job description for the role in question, go over the scope of the new hire’s position, covering their key responsibilities and performance expectations.
Current key projects and goals: Explain your organization’s current big-picture priorities and how the new employee will be involved in pushing those initiatives forward.
Onboarding schedule: Walk the employee through what they can expect from the onboarding process, including the schedule you’ve created and the key skills they’ll be expected to acquire.
The amount of information covered in orientation can feel overwhelming, so ensure you provide your new employees with the welcome packet mentioned above so they can reference it later. You should also set aside time for the individual to ask questions or clarify any expectations they have about their role, the onboarding process, or your organization as a whole.
3. Provide role-specific training.
The most important part of the onboarding process is to provide thorough training so that your new employee feels comfortable taking on the specific responsibilities of their new role and is prepared to flourish at your organization.
This starts with leveraging a variety of training resources. For instance, you may want to provide a combination of online courses, readings, in-person training sessions, hands-on practice, and/or job shadowing. There are two main benefits to mixing up the way you train your new hires:
Doing so will appeal to a variety of learning styles and preferences.
A variety of training methods will help to break up your employee’s work day and keep them engaged.
Keep an open mind when selecting training materials for your employees, and make sure to check in with new hires regularly to ensure that the training materials are getting them closer to full autonomy in their roles.
You will also likely involve other team members in the training process, whether that means the employee’s direct supervisor and colleagues or individuals from other departments with whom they can expect to collaborate regularly.
Be sure to let these team members know what is expected from them during this process, and give them plenty of time to prepare presentations or other training materials ahead of time. Clearly communicate how current employees should prioritize their onboarding responsibilities in relation to their other responsibilities. For example, a deadline for a marketing project may need to be pushed so your marketing specialist can conduct training on how your organization uses generative AI.
4. Introduce the team and foster connections.
For employees to enjoy their jobs, feel like they belong, and want to stay with your organization for the long term, they need to make connections with their coworkers and feel like they have friends on your team.
While relationships in the workplace will develop organically over time as employees interact with each other in the day-to-day, you can still help things get off to a good start. Beyond introducing your new hire to their coworkers on day one, try planning the following into your onboarding process:
Social gatherings: When your new employee is busy trying to soak in all of the knowledge required for their new role during the work day, it can be tricky to find time to chat with coworkers and discover common interests. Orchestrate social gatherings like a welcome lunch or a happy hour to celebrate the new hire’s first week at your organization. This will give everyone a chance to get to know the new employee in a more casual setting.
Cross-departmental meetings: With such a laser focus on their specific role, your employee may not have natural opportunities to get to know their coworkers in other departments. Schedule in time during onboarding when your new hire can meet people from other departments and hear what they do. On top of the social benefits, doing this has the added bonus of allowing new employees to see how their colleagues in other departments work, strengthening their understanding of the organization as a whole.
A mentor program: Starting a new job is tricky. There are new things to learn, lots of new people to meet, and the pressure of wanting to do well making the experience all the more challenging. Consider starting a mentor program where you pair your new employee with an experienced mentor within the organization. A mentor can help the employee learn how to succeed at your nonprofit, serve as a sounding board, and discuss things that are harder to learn in training, like self-care in the nonprofit world.
Your efforts to encourage connections between your employees don’t have to end with the onboarding process, either. For example, consider scheduling monthly or quarterly social gatherings or having frequent lunch-and-learn presentations where departments can learn from one another.
A thorough, thoughtful onboarding process allows you to lay the groundwork for a positive employment experience and empowers your new employee to perform to the best of their abilities in their role. Use the best practices above to get started refining your approach.
After onboarding ends, you can reinforce the tone you set in the process by ensuring your new employees know where to turn if they have questions or need support. Also, don’t forget to ask them for feedback on your onboarding process so that you can improve it for future hires!