How can you effectively follow up with new employees after their first week?

To effectively follow up with new employees after their first week, schedule a meeting to check in on their progress, address any challenges they may have encountered, and provide feedback and praise. Clarify expectations, offer support, and discuss training and development opportunities. Foster social connections and seek their feedback to ensure a smooth transition and ongoing support.

The first week is a blur at most positions. Creating a written game plan and goals with metrics. Asking questions to ensure that both employee and employer are on the same page. What one person sees as clear are sometimes foggy to another. Ensure that two-way communication is starting off effectively here.

I recommend a lunch or coffee in a neutral space the second week of work to check-in. At this time working through questions and reviewing things such as career development and goal planning. Scheduling a follow-up time after this is important too. Too often after the first week or two we settle into new routines and are not touching base.

Having a 1:1 check in after their first week is critically important to understand how it is going, build rapport with them and start to layout the expectations for getting them up to speed and longer term goals (the first week is a blur so take it slow, this is a long term investment). I also think for this 1:1 have a list of questions you send it advance to discuss to get to know them better: how do they like to receive feedback, what motivates them(money, praise, career opportunities etc), what do they like doing, what do they hate doing, and what would they like you to know about them.

Have different modalities for feedback. You are more likely to get honest feedback if there are different avenues to approach this. Too often it is in an exit interview that feedback and suggestions are heard when it could have been addressed in the first couple of weeks of employment.

At my current company every employee gets an on-boarding buddy that isn't their manager. The on-boarding buddy should be someone on their team who can answer their questions (like where is the bathroom, how do lunch breaks work, what is the manager like etc.). This person also helps get them up to speed and should meet regularly with them for the first 90 days. A bonus would be a team lunch paid for by the company either virtually or in-person to build rapport and a sense of team.

Retention starts day one on the job. Knowing goals and revisiting opportunities for growth is a key to keeping employees from jumping ship.

A few other suggestions. The best practice is to have the on-boarding process be for the first year of employment. With this in mind, a best practice is to send out a new employee survey after 30 days to see how it is going and do a 60, 90, 180 and one year check ins by the manager or HR with set questions for each one. Think about what your company values and how during this time you can inculcate them in it through training, videos etc. Finally, if you have a group of people who start around the same time think about creating new hire cohort groups that meet regularly to discuss their experience, ask questions and create an internal network.