Ultimate Onboarding Checklist: The 4 C's of Onboarding

The onboarding process is a vital component of the hiring process. It entails incorporating and ensuring that new hires are well-adjusted to a new work environment.

Not to be mistaken with orientation, the onboarding process goes beyond just welcoming new hires and letting them go off to get started on varying tasks. Instead, the onboarding process is a cumulative process of activities designed to establish new hires as successful, committed, and loyal employees.

Depending on how an organization goes about crafting the onboarding process, employees can feel well adapted to the new working environment or, in some cases, be left without a sense of how they fit in a new culture.

Human resources professionals can ensure the onboarding process is successful by enriching the experience. The burning question is, how can enrichment be accomplished? Simply through understanding the 4 C's of the onboarding process: Compliance, Clarification, Culture, and Connection. Knowing when and how to correctly apply the 4 C's is a surefire path to developing an onboarding program that leads to success , leaving new hires and recruiters satisfied with the process.

Moreover, HR software such as an applicant tracking system is excellent at kickstarting the process, streamlining the overall experience for candidates, and giving yourselves a competitive advantage.

An Applicant Tracking System such as Manatal's, if used correctly and from the get-go, can assist in making you as a recruiter flourish with hiring the right talent/candidate.

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‍Let's look at the onboarding process in its entirety and how you can use an applicant tracking system to get started.

‍Defining the Onboarding Process‍

While many might assume they are the same, the onboarding process should not be mistaken for an orientation process.

Unlike an orientation, an onboarding process is not just a one-off session that introduces new hires to the organization's vision, mission, and goals. It involves a series of techniques such as activities and paperwork designed to acquaint the new staff with the company slowly.

What can new hires expect during the onboarding process? While doing activities and paperwork, new hires slowly become familiar with the organization's policies, are given more insight and detailed information concerning their specific roles, and are introduced to the company's culture.

The numerous activities and paperwork new hires have to engage in can make this a lengthy process. The exact timeline for completion varies depending on the nature of the organization and the onboarding process's size and scope.

The length of completing designated activities and becoming well-adjusted to the company can vary anywhere from one day to over three months.

For example, a giant corporation such as Netpeaks diversifies its process and offers a new way of making sure that employees are well-adjusted to a new environment. Through using automated processes that provide a series of courses, employees are reported feeling happier with the overall process. Additionally, the amount of time for onboarding has been reduced by up to two hundred hours.

It might sound easy to get new hires to be well-adjusted to the company and well-aligned with the goals, visions, and missions. However, without a strong structure, you can fall short as a company and face challenges in retaining new hires.

The changing nature of the workforce, such as hybrid work or work-from-home systems, has provided an insight into the lack of structure that some companies have when carrying out specific onboarding tasks. More than a third of companies reported not having a well-laid-out system, regardless of whether they orient new hires remotely or on-site.

Having a clear picture of the time it will take to get new hires adjusted to the company can make or break the entire process. To this end, let's understand how you, as a recruiter, HR professional, and organization, can correctly use the 4 C's of the onboarding process to maximize efficiency.

‍Onboarding: 4 C's‍

For corporations and recruiters looking to make the most of the onboarding process, the 4 C's of the new hire onboarding process will likely bring results.

The foundation of a successful onboarding includes implementing the 4 C’s, as stated in a report by SHRM. It has been designed by Dr. Talyna Bauer to assist recruiters and corporations in maximizing the new hire experience, allowing recruiters to use the framework as a basis for checklists.

The 4 C's are as follows:

1. Compliance

Refers to ensuring that new hires become familiar with the company policies, safety regulations, confidentiality requirements, sexual harassment protocols, and other departmental procedures.

Compliance means completing paperwork as it involves getting new hires to understand company policies and protocols. Additionally, some might be granted special access to technological devices, requiring certain protocol compliances.

One way to reduce the stress that new hires encounter on their first day of work regarding filling out paperwork would be for many corporations to incorporate what is known as the pre-boarding process.

2. Clarification

As the word suggests, this is when any issues or questions that need to be answered get answered. It is a tie when new hires come to terms with how much knowledge they have about their roles.

Additionally, new hires can ask questions such as their workplace expectations, what they hope to achieve, their goals, and their aims. Clarification guarantees that new hires are aligned with the company’s overall goals and vision and mitigate any possible issues.

Clarification requires structure, preparation, and organization. Most times, during the onboarding process, there is a lack of all three. It is relatively common in startups and small corporations, with only fifty percent having a structured onboarding process.

‍It can be challenging for a hiring manager to answer questions and always provide clarification, but to carry this out successfully would mean adding a powerful HR software tool to a recruiter's arsenal.

3. Culture

In an interconnected world, culture matters in maintaining a solid workforce and retaining the right kinds of talent.

On the surface, a workplace culture might look like how well-connected employees are with one another and how diverse the workforce is. But culture is about so much more than that.

For new hires and hiring managers alike, culture, in this case, refers to understanding how well personal beliefs, visions, and goals align with the corporation's own opinions and vision. Moreover, it looks at how different values can come together to make a strong workforce.

Since the workforce is diverse and multigenerational, several companies fail to address this and incorporate it into their unique work culture.

‍A 2022 Global Cultural Report by SHRM cited that sixty-one percent of new employees did not receive adequate or, let alone receive, cultural training. Hence, it is vital that new hires quickly learn to adapt to the culture during the onboarding process and before joining the corporation.

Moreover, it's the responsibility of HR professionals to provide as much information to new hires.

4. Connection

Completing paperwork, understanding the company culture, and clarifying are all great at ensuring that new hires are well-adjusted to a new workforce. Still, it's all about building connections to retain or make sure that new hires feel like they belong.

If new hires feel disconnected from the team, you run the risk of them feeling as if they don’t belong and that this might not be the right fit for them.

As Dr. Talya Brauner stated in her framework, new hires want to feel as if they are valued and appreciated. Thus it starts with the hiring manager or talent recruiter to get this message across to the rest of the workforce.

Strong relationships between hiring managers and new hires can set the tone for what relationships should be like in the workplace. In other words, the stronger the relationship with the hiring manager, the higher the engagement levels of new hires.

‍A Harvard Business School study reported that there is a likelihood of high engagement levels in employees who have built strong relationships with hiring managers within the first two months of working in a new workplace.

‍4 C’s of onboarding and the levels of onboarding

‍As per Dr. Talya Bauer's findings on what makes an efficient onboarding process, success can be measured by understanding the varying levels in which a company incorporates the 4 C’s.

While on a basic level, it is not surprising to see that most organizations will incorporate clarification and compliance as one of their key components of the whole onboarding process. But, they fail to understand or provide the connection and cultural aspect which completes the entire process.

This is considered to be a level one or a passive onboarding process. When you’re not placing enough attention on making sure that new hires understand the culture or feel well connected, then there is a high chance that you will see a turnover rate.

Over 50% of organizations fall under the next level which is viewed as high potential onboarding. This means that these establishments have ticked off clarification and compliance and have laid out some groundwork for introducing and acquainting new workers to the culture and helping them to establish connections.

However, the priority for these organizations is still unclear because there is no efficient system or checks in place for them to evaluate the success of the process, as cited by Dr. Tayla Bauer’s framework and findings.

The third level of onboarding, or proactive onboarding, implements all 4 C’s by understanding the framework and building a system for monitoring and evaluation. It is at this level where most companies will come to find success in retaining new employees, and yet many fail to do so with only twenty percent of companies having successfully reached a proactive onboarding process.

Therefore, it is vital to understand the 4 C’s, using the theoretical framework as a guide for checklists, how to carry out the onboarding process, and understanding new hires better can assist you as a hiring manager/recruiter/employer and reach a proactive onboarding process.

Utilizing different components of the 4 C's can ensure that you retain the right talent in a suitable workplace by showing that you understand the needs and wants of new employees.

Take the process one step further by incorporating HR software to streamline and make each aspect of the 4 C's more efficient to ensure maximum productivity and guarantee that new hires feel well-adjusted to the new working environment.

‍Guarantee onboarding success right from the hiring process

‍As mentioned earlier, the onboarding process can start with pre-boarding, even when hiring managers work with recruiters to find the right talent for the correct position.

Making sure that all the tasks associated with onboarding are carried out successfully or with a clear head, and a ready-to-work attitude can be invoked from doing your best as a recruiter upon introducing the new hire to the job's specifications.

For talent acquisition professionals, this means using a recruitment software tool such as an Applicant Tracking System to ensure that all the information available to employees or potential new employees is clear and transparent.

Culture is a big part of onboarding; getting new hires well-adjusted to a new culture can be challenging. Yet, it doesn't have to be, especially if an HR professional knows which tools to use.

Using a career page on an ATS system can help you to create a unique employer brand that showcases the uniqueness of your culture, the missions, the goals, and the objectives of the corporation. A new hire assesses whether their personal goals align and reduce the amount of clarification that might need to be addressed during onboarding.

Since retention is vital for many corporations, this means making sure that new employees feel valued and wanted through regular reinforcements or check-backs. Use an HR software that allows for feedback to be provided in an automated way of sending check-up emails and follow-ups.

It's about making potential hires, and actual talents feel like they belong in the workplace. The hiring manager can bridge a candidate's experience during the hiring process and while undergoing onboarding tasks.

A key point to remember is that a poor onboarding process that doesn't have regular reinforcement doesn't make an employee feel welcome and aligned with the company and mundane tasks have a higher risk of driving away new hires and retaining possible hires.

So use HR software, learn the 4 C's of onboarding and apply it to your corporation to ensure a successful system.

On the path toward perfect succession planning, implementing a tool like Applicant Tracking System can help smoothen your ride while ensuring that a solid recruitment strategy is laying on the table.

‍Manatal is an ATS tuned to help organizations strengthen their recruitment while laying a strong foundation for sustained growth. Start your 14-day Free Trial now to explore our innovative features and find out how you can leverage your succession planning within a few clicks.