Employee onboarding – warm welcome or completely clueless?

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We know how important onboarding is for our candidates. The wrong experience can have a hugely detrimental effect on a new starter. The process ensures new employees receive all relevant information and understand how the company works and what is expected of them. This information allows them to transition from a new joiner to a productive team member, and so is a vital process within any organisation. 

So how does it change in a fully remote working world?

Really, it shouldn’t affect the fundamentals:

  • New equipment
  • Communication
  • 121s
  • Introduction to the team
  • Training and coaching

But it does mean being organised and ensuring that everything is prepared way ahead of the new team member starting. Equipment needs to be ordered and sent to their home address, an introduction to the business, the team and regular 121s need to be diarised and the induction needs to be planned out and communicated clearly.

It’s not just about the new starter

It’s not just about the new joiner either, your onboarding process can affect existing team members who will register the way a new employee is treated.

Onboarding begins before the new team member starts – both internally and externally. Calling the new employee is clearly important to let them know the basics, but also letting the existing team members know what is happening.

Returning to work onboarding

My wife, Gemma, wrote a blog about onboarding, with a difference – the importance of onboarding returning maternity leavers. “Yes, they’ve always been employed and aren’t “new’, but when I returned to work after 10 months out, a lot had changed, and I mean a lot. It was almost like returning to a new business. This, coupled with the fear of returning to work, was surely a recipe for disaster.”

Some key points are addressed about being introduced back into the company/role after a substantial period away, including new technology, new faces and new structure. You can read the full blog here.

In any capacity, onboarding is important to your business – it makes for happy employees and better business efficiency, as it gets employees up to speed quickly.

To have a chat about your experiences with onboarding or returning to work you can contact me on carl@refind.co.uk.

You can view more about Carl Hinett our Executive search of HR professional’s specialist here.

Helping our clients make the impossible, possible

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“We’ve always done it this way” is the most dangerous phrase in the English language. But how many times have you heard it? When it comes to hiring, it is one of the biggest mistakes a business can make. This is where we can help – we actively work with our clients to break the mould, to ensure they get the right person, even on the toughest of briefs.



And that’s not to say that the tried and tested approach hasn’t worked in the past, but if you’re looking to fill a challenging role, it might not be enough. This is our sweet spot: we fall between recruitment agencies and executive search – we offer the service of a search firm, with the agility of an agency, which means we move quickly, but we get it right.



Businesses choose to work with us because we work in shades of grey to help them fill the toughest roles including:

  • Roles that aren’t fully defined
  • A role that is new to the company
  • Confidential roles
  • A role that requires a discreet search


Our fill rate is above 95% and that’s because we only work a few briefs at one time. It’s far more important to us to do a great job and fill the role, whilst giving a good candidate and client experience at the same time.



Some of the roles we’ve placed in the last 12 months:

  • Managing Director – UK’s fastest-growing privately-owned hospitality company
  • Director of Customer Experience – Private Equity backed Manufacturing Business
  • Director of Business Services – Multibillion turnover FTSE100
  • IT Director – Engineering business
  • Head of Procurement & Supply Chain – Engineering business
  • Head of Operational Excellence – Global Listed Pharmaceutical business
  • Head of Professional Services – Leading Russell Group University
  • Regional COO – Privately Owned Hotel and Restaurant chain
  • Group Property Director – UK wide retail business
  • Operations Director – Care business
  • Finance Director – Waste management company
  • Head of Change – Large multisite retail business
  • HR Director – B2B wholesale business, 12k employees UK wide



Our clients enjoy working with us because we’re approachable and easy to work with, but there is still a robust process at the backend, which enables us to find the best talent in the market and fill a challenging role.



James Cumming is our MD, Interim and Transformation Search specialist. If you’ve got a hard-to-fill role and need some help, get in touch. Connect with me on Linkedin.



We’re hiring, so if this sounds like it’s up your street, get in touch with James@refind.co.uk.