February 2022

Understanding the importance of the onboarding induction process can significantly benefit your company. Employee orientation helps new employees feel confident and motivated at work. Treat new employees to a catered corporate lunch and follow some employee orientation best practices to help them have a successful first day.

What Is Employee Onboarding?

Employee onboarding is the process that occurs when a new hire starts working at a company. During onboarding, new employees may fill out paperwork, meet current employees, tour the office, learn procedures and acclimate to the company.

Employee onboarding allows new hires to adjust to their new role within the company. It’s a great opportunity for companies to create a positive first impression and make employees feel welcome.

Why Employee Onboarding Is Important

Employee onboarding is important because it helps employees adjust to the company and their role within it. Onboarding introduces employees to company philosophies, the company’s purpose and their responsibilities as a company employee. A well-planned and implemented onboarding process can engage and motivate employees, making them feel like a valued part of the team from the beginning. Employee onboarding has the following benefits:

• Increased employee engagement
• Higher productivity
• More knowledgeable employees
• Increased job satisfaction
• Reduced employee turnover

According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the number of employees who quit their jobs increased by 370,000 between October 2021 and November 2021. In total, 4.5 million employees quit their jobs in November 2021, which is the highest number of recorded quits since December 2000. To increase employee retention rates, companies should consider improving their employee onboarding process.

Most Common Mistakes During the Onboarding Process

Onboarding is more than filling out paperwork and handing out an employee handbook. It’s an important process that requires adequate planning. If you’re wondering what not to do in new hire orientation, avoid the following common mistakes:

1. Neglecting a Structured Process

New employees will form some of their first impressions of the company during the onboarding process. If the process is unorganized, a new hire will most likely assume that the company is disorganized. Additionally, new employees may feel neglected and unsupported if people within the company fail to talk to them or provide training. Simply giving a new hire the employee handbook to read is not enough.

Planning and implementing a structured onboarding process can convey that the company is organized and well-operated. It will help new employees feel supported and excited to work for the company.

2. Failing to Give New Employees a Tour

Failing to greet new hires and give them a tour can make them feel unwelcome. It’s important to make new employees feel welcome and connected to other team members. Choose one or two friendly employees to greet new hires, show them around the office and provide useful information. They can share information about nearby lunch spots, parking, team building activities and more.

Greeting new employees with a friendly smile and a helpful tour can help them feel like they are a part of the team. Shed a positive light on your company culture by making your new employees feel welcome.

3. Overwhelming New Employees With New Information

Overwhelming new employees with information is one of the most common new hire orientation mistakes. Learning takes time, and too much information in one day can overwhelm new employees. Provide new information and training resources at a reasonable pace to allow new hires time to absorb the information.

Retaining a ton of information in one day is almost impossible, so allow new employees several days to gather new information and assimilate it.

4. Flooding New Employees With Paperwork

Paperwork such as contact forms, benefits and tax information is necessary. However, you should avoid overwhelming new employees with paperwork. They should spend most of their orientation day getting to know the company and just a small portion on filling out paperwork.

Utilize technology and other resources to help employees complete important paperwork before the onboarding process so they can spend their first day acclimating to the company.

5. Failing to Give Employees Tasks to Do

While the first few days on the job may be dedicated to learning and adjusting, make sure new employees also have some responsibilities within the first several days. Give new employees tasks to complete so they feel useful and included. New employees are excited to use their abilities, so start giving them work to do once they feel comfortable.

Employee Orientation Best Practices

Employee orientation is important for maintaining employee morale and retention. Improve your employee onboarding experience with the following best practices:

1. Make New Hires Feel Welcome

Greet new employees as soon as they enter the building. Meet them with a friendly smile and make them feel welcome. Set their desk up, offer them a coffee or invite them to a catered company lunch. Choose someone to show them around the office and introduce them to team members so they feel more comfortable. Giving new hires time to adjust to the office and meet friendly faces can ease first-day anxiety.

It’s also important to explain company culture to new employees. Let them know where most employees gather or eat lunch, and tell them about company activities or office customs like casual days.

2. Provide Clear Rules and Procedures

Employees who clearly understand company expectations, proper procedures and their own responsibilities will feel more confident going into their role. Provide clear instructions and rules about how you expect employees to do their jobs. Create an employee handbook that new hires can reference when they have questions, and be sure to include the following information and procedures:

• Job information
• Lingo, acronyms or important terms
• Department information and phone numbers
• Information about meetings
• Protocols for taking messages
• Phone-use rules and protocols
• IT troubleshooting tips
• IT department contact information

3. Engage Employees

Engage employees with the company by providing support and clear goals. Assign a staff member to answer any questions they may have and help them acclimate to the office. Establish goals for new employees and provide them with work tasks once they start to feel comfortable in their role. Providing clear goals to achieve will help employees feel engaged and motivated.

Make New Hires Feel Special With Corporate Lunch Catering

Make your new employees feel special and welcome on their first day with delicious corporate lunch catering. Treat a group of new hires to a special lunch or plan a corporate lunch for all current and new employees to get to know each other. Order delicious, individually packaged meals delivered to your office for an easy and delicious corporate lunch.

Choose Apple Spice Catering

Successful employee onboarding can significantly improve employee retention rates, motivate employees and increase productivity. Make your new employees feel comfortable in the office with a welcoming catered lunch.

Apple Spice Catering will deliver fresh, individually labeled boxed lunches to your office. As corporate catering experts for over 30 years, we are dedicated to providing quality meals for corporate events. We can make your next corporate event easy with online ordering, fast delivery and guaranteed freshness. Order online for your next event and treat your employees to a catered lunch.

Coping with stress is a normal part of being an employee, but how much stress is too much? Stress can make workers less productive, and high-stress environments have been linked to numerous health issues.

Learn how to reduce stress in the workplace below with four helpful strategies:

1. Encourage Breaks

When rapidly approaching deadlines and other stressors pile on, employees begin to feel emotionally overwhelmed. Heavy stress leads to procrastination, cutting corners and the worst result of all — burning out. This creates a vicious cycle where employees stressed out over deadlines have a more difficult time completing their work.

You can offset the gradually accumulating stress load by encouraging your employees to take more breaks. According to some studies, when employees are allowed to take more breaks, they are more productive at work.

Letting workers have more break time also helps by promoting connection. Your generous actions show you care about your employees’ well-being. Studies show a correlation between feeling connected to others in the workplace and better health. A strong social network means individual mental health is more likely to be good.

Enabling short breaks more regularly helps manage stress levels, recharging workers emotionally and boosting their productivity. Here are some ways you can encourage employees to take more breaks:

• Cater food: Whether you want to order lunch or host a coffee and donut breakfast, bringing food into the office is a fast way to get everyone in a good mood.
• Hold a brief team meeting: Brief 15-to-30 minute sessions with the team can be highly encouraging during stressful times. Get everyone together to talk through obstacles and congratulate one another on progress. Make sure you set a time limit, or the meetup could turn into a therapy session.

2. Set Realistic Expectations

Sometimes, how you manage stress among your team members depends on how you define your company’s deadlines. You can help reduce stress by making your expectations transparent and realistic. Try the following strategies for managing stress related to your expectations:

Define Your Objectives

Clearly defining your objectives can reduce your need to micromanage employees. They will work toward their goals while having autonomy in their daily workflow. Ways to define your objectives include:

• Creating weekly and quarterly goals: This way, your team will have a reasonable idea of what they’re working toward. As you set measurable goals, allow leeway for when employees fall behind.
• Setting up task assignments: Give everyone a clear understanding of how many hours each important task should ideally take.
• Accepting results: Allow your employees to report key results, which gives them a sense of achievement.
• Making progress notes: Take time each quarter to review your previous objectives. Share your results in an encouraging manner as you work on improving productivity for the next quarter.

Give Employees Time to Adapt

The earlier you set your expectations, the easier your employees can adapt to meet them. It’s best to discuss vital expectations during the onboarding process, or even include key specifics in the job description for applicants to read.

Job descriptions often include long lists of required skills and responsibilities, and once an employee starts, they might feel these were misleading. When seeking new hires, ask current employees about the basic responsibilities, and get them to provide information for the listing.

It’s also helpful for new hires to understand expectations can change. The expected pace during the first 30 days differs from what employees should be doing by day 365. Try describing what a week of work is like in the listing to give prospective employees an idea of acceptable standards.

Making your expectations transparent from the beginning reflects well on your company’s values. It also keeps employees from wondering if they would be a good fit for the available role. New workers might question their abilities less frequently if they are able to meet your expectations, resulting in a less stressful onboarding process.

3. Permit Flexible Hours

Allowing your employees to work on their own schedules can improve their ability to complete all assigned tasks. If you have confidence in your employees’ abilities to manage their own time, giving them more autonomy in their workflow allows them to meet and succeed expectations.

As one of the most effective strategies for managing stress in the workplace, flexible hours have many benefits, including:

• A better work-life balance: Your employees can take the time they need to complete their daily responsibilities outside of work.
• Higher quality work: Allowing your employees to spread their hours out lets them put their best effort into their work.
• Higher morale: Remote work and flexible hours lead to employees enjoying their work life more. Being able to get out of the office keeps stress low.
• Discrete crisis management: When an employee experiences a crisis, they can leave without disrupting the office or concerning other employees.

4. Show Appreciation With Lunch Catering

Many Americans eat lunch at their desks or skip lunches to stay caught up on work. In an effort to conserve time and energy, skipping lunch actually leads to increased stress and exhaustion. You can help with this problem by occasionally providing a catered lunch for the office to share.

Catered lunches show your gratitude in a highly enjoyable way. This strategy can be an excellent use of your company’s funding and also emphasizes the importance of stress management in the workplace. Catered meals promote productivity and restore energy in the middle of the day. Concerning how to help employees manage stress, catering meals can:

• Provide healthy food: Busy employees might select the quickest meal options instead of the most healthy ones. They need to get the right nutrients to power their brains, and catering lunch ensures the meal is well-balanced and filling.
• Save time: Your employees can eat lunch without going on a stressful food run. Your resident workaholics feel more comfortable remaining near their desks, and the frequent lunch skippers are encouraged to enjoy a company meal.
• Save money: Some employees skip lunch to cut living expenses, resulting in low blood sugar levels and high daily stress. They may feel relieved when you provide food at work, increasing morale.

Order Apple Spice Corporate Catering

Good food can go a long way to helping you manage stress among your team members. Apple Spice provides a quality box lunch catering service directly to your office. We deliver quickly to meetings or casual lunch events. Try our fresh individually packaged sandwich and lunch combos to meet your employees’ unique preferences.

Our team prepares lunches with premium ingredients, providing our diners with the nutrition they need and the flavors they love. Browse our locations to find a service near you and start selecting your lunch catering options.