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Processes and Productivity

7 tips for building an onboarding hub on your intranet

Starting a new job can be overwhelming for both the employer and the employee. Here's some tips on how to improve the employee onboarding experience with an intranet.

3 minute read
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Last month we hosted a webinar on fast tracking employee onboarding (click here to watch the recording). 

We talked about the importance of employee onboarding, the challenges of onboarding remote and hybrid employees, and why an intranet is an excellent platform for creating an onboarding hub. 

We also walked through a live example of what an onboarding hub could look like on an intranet. Below are seven tips for building an onboarding hub on your intranet. 

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Makes important links easily accessible

Important employee information should never be more than a click away. As you can see in this example below, we included valuable information in an area called “Useful Links”. Alternatively, users can always bookmark any pages they might need to access in the future. 

ThoughtFarmer Blog Onboarding Cards

Add a calendar

The first few days and weeks on the job can be chaotic and overwhelming—and full of meetings. This is why it makes sense to add a calendar to the onboarding page. The calendar shows upcoming events, meetings, and holidays. When you click through to an event, there are even further customization options available. For example, if an event is a team lunch, participants can add in their dietary preferences. 

Create visibility with organizational hierarchy

Most employees have a good understanding of their role and their manager’s role. But who are their other colleagues? Who are their teammates? And who do these people report into? Having organizational clarity helps new employees understand where they fit in in the organization, and how their role impacts the entire organization. 

ThoughtFarmer Blog Onboarding Org Chart V03

Make important reading required reading

Much of the information presented in an employee’s first few days on the job is essential reading. Depending on your industry or organization, this could include health and safety information, dress-codes, and HR policies and procedures. In our example below we leverage a feature called Required Reading. Once an employee clicks on the confirm icon, the manager or designated person is alerted.  

ThoughtFarmer Blog Onboarding Reading

Make form completion is easy

Form completion is a necessary and essential part of the onboarding process. From benefits enrollments to tax information, to payroll information, to ordering supplies, it can get overwhelming and burdensome—especially if you don’t have access to a printer. By adding digital access to forms on your onboarding portal, you can reduce paper, and easily track form completion. 

ThoughtFarmer Blog Onboarding Form

Ensure mobile accessibility   

Even if your workforce operates entirely onsite, you will want to ensure new employees can access all documents and forms through their mobile device. Having onboarding on a mobile device also enables immediacy, so employees can instantly access the information they need without awaiting further guidance. 

ThoughtFarmer Blog Onboarding Mobile

Get personal 

Finally, your onboarding experience should be as human as possible. Videos, welcome announcements—it all makes a big difference! In our fictional example below we included a welcome note from the CTO. We also assigned the new employee an onboarding buddy. While this isn’t essential, it does help to personalize the onboarding experience.

ThoughtFarmer Blog Onboarding Video

Interested in learning more? Watch our webinar: Fast-track new employee onboarding in a hybrid workplace.