Employee onboarding is more than just orientation, paperwork, and training that happens when someone is hired into a company. From the perspective of talent management, the first 90 days after a new employee begins working for your company are important to subsequent employee performance and retention. Here are some ways structured employee onboarding can enhance your talent management strategy. 1. Create relationships by assigning a mentor. If new employees do not begin to develop relationships with their supervisors and colleagues shortly after starting employment, it is less likely they will stay at the company over the long term. Assigning a mentor to each new hire helps them develop a relationship with a superior or senior colleague and gives them a place to go with questions they might be embarrassed to ask otherwise. A mentor can also facilitate relationships with other colleagues and give the new hire an “in” with the new team. 2. Explaining the why, not just the how, gets employees to buy in. Having a rationale for why you do things and being willing to explain the “why” to new employees helps them gain a better understanding of how your corporate culture works and helps them buy in, or engage with, the company’s way of doing things. Employees who are engaged perform better in their jobs and stay in them longer than those with low levels of engagement. eBook: How to Attract Top Talent Using Inbound Recruiting – Find out how to harness the power of an inbound recruiting strategy in order to attract, hire, and retain top talent. 3. Ongoing communication helps develop a rapport. After going through the hiring process a few times, the hiring staff should realize that most people will have similar questions. Identifying what these questions are and pre-emptively answering them, either in writing or in one or more face-to-face meetings, will help the initial weeks go more smoothly and help new employees feel more comfortable in the new environment. Scheduling a few meetings during the first 90 days will allow for communication of both routine information and other concerns, and will help supervisors develop a rapport with new hires. 4. Structured onboarding gives employees a sense of purpose. When onboarding is structured and follows a set process, new employees will quickly begin to see where they fit into the company, and they will develop a sense of purpose for their position. When employees understand what they are expected to do, they will quickly begin to contribute in valuable ways to their department and the company as a whole. 5. Making the process transparent gets everyone on the same page. It may seem like structured onboarding is a complicated process, but with ThriveTRM software, the process can be automated so that no one forgets what they are supposed to do at each stage of the game. Meetings can be scheduled, information can be distributed, and every member of the hiring team can be kept in the loop about what has been done to facilitate the onboarding process with each new employee. Schedule a demo and see for yourself how ThriveTRM can help you with talent management today.