Onboarding in Healthcare: Here's How to Do It Smartly

Within large healthcare organizations that have an HR department, there is a trend toward implementing onboarding and employer branding. This is because a well-designed onboarding process helps create a positive experience with the organization. And that is very important now that the healthcare sector is increasingly required to operate in a commercial manner.

That’s why a solid onboarding process is becoming increasingly important, even for smaller healthcare organizations. If you’re a healthcare professional working at a HOED or an IT manager overseeing more than 30 employees, these 6 tips will help you move forward.

You can also start the onboarding process before the employee actually starts. This prevents a situation where someone is hired but then doesn’t hear from you again until their first day on the job—which, after all, can easily take two months. It’s precisely during that exciting period between signing the contract and starting the new job that you can really fuel their enthusiasm.

A pre-boarding session shows that you understand the new job is a big step, but that you’re ready to provide guidance. You can alleviate uncertainty by sharing company updates and administering a quiz on job-related topics. Or, map out the new employee’s journey to your healthcare facility.

Get there right the first time
> Take the A2 and take exit 14 toward Woerden
> Follow the Europabaan/N204 and Noordzee to the Oostzee
> Park at Oostzee 2 and continue on foot to the main entrance
> Check in with the always-smiling Anna
> Take the stairs to the second floor
> Knock on the first door on your left

To provide inspiration for work attire, send a photo album featuring your immediate coworkers, photographed from head to toe. This will help the prospective employee feel less anxious about what to wear and allow them to get to know all their coworkers right away. For example, let the applicant know that you always wear company uniforms unless you’re on vacation.

Onboarding new employees involves more than just the HR department. Ensure that the format, content, and implementation of the onboarding process at your healthcare institution are agreed upon by all stakeholders. To this end, involve the department where the new employee will be working and ask subject matter experts and the employee representative body for assistance. They can help establish values and guidelines. Use this input when designing the program.

During onboarding, define what you expect from a new colleague. What needs to be accomplished in the first 30 days, and what responsibilities are already in place? What about the first 60 days and the first 90 days? Create a step-by-step plan with checkboxes. This way, employees will not only have a better grasp of their first three months on the job, but also greater confidence that they will successfully complete their own tasks and responsibilities.

Traditionally, onboarding takes place through presentations that new employees listen to attentively. There’s another way to do this—for example, using serious games, where the focus isn’t on winning or losing, but on quickly introducing new colleagues to your healthcare organization.

A virtual tour helps you quickly explore the work environment. In large organizations, this allows you to discover—even on your first day—departments and areas you probably won’t need to visit, but it’s still nice to know where they are. The IT department, for example.

Examples of alternatives

• Onboarding app
• Video
• Checklists
• Quizzes
• Assignments
• Virtual Reality
• Interactive Work Program
• Pair up with a buddy
• Private Instagram Group

Store the tools you use directly in a central, secure DMS. This way, new employees can access them (temporarily), and HR can make them available to every new employee.

Not everything has to come from your own ideas. Ask for feedback from colleagues who have already gone through the onboarding process. And at the end of your onboarding session, immediately have the new employee fill out a standard questionnaire. This will help you identify areas for improvement and optimize the onboarding process every time you hire new staff.

Make sure the entire onboarding process doesn’t take place entirely online. Direct contact with coworkers is what makes most jobs the most enjoyable. The conversations you have during a procedure under anesthesia, the monthly Friday afternoon drinks, the chit-chat by the coffee machine—they all foster a sense of community.

Bring everyone together and organize a get-together where you play a company quiz. This way, employees can learn about your healthcare organization’s mission and vision while meeting new colleagues in a casual setting.

A new colleague also needs personal interaction. That’s why you should assign a buddy to guide the onboarding process—someone who can show them how tasks are handled and how systems work. Be sure to provide peer-to-peer guidance, though. Being trained by your manager or boss feels a lot more uncomfortable than being trained by a colleague on the same level.

The workflow involved in onboarding a new employee entails many tasks. This applies to both the HR and IT departments. New employees must have access to the company’s software and both the offline and online work environments from the very first minute.

Depending on their role, employees must have immediate access to active patient files and archives. This requires careful consideration of access rights. In a smart DMS, it’s easier to grant employees access to the appropriate folders and documents with just one or, at most, a few clicks—for example, through a tagging system.

Components of the digital onboarding process from the very beginning

• Gathering Information for the Job Opening
• Collecting Job Applications
• Distributing Resumes
• Schedule Appointments
• Drafting a Contract
• Add to the HR system
• Attach a copy of your passport and the signed contract
• Issuing a laptop and a phone with a business number
• An office key and an internal drop
• Email
• Access to (software) systems and cloud services

All in all, it takes a lot of time, and you have little control over the process. And once the new employee starts, the work doesn’t stop there. All those access grants and issuances also involve paperwork. The lease car’s inspection expiring, ID cards expiring, the contract expiring, losing a company ID card—all these matters need to be tracked. Do you put them on your calendar for all your colleagues?

No, it’s much smarter to track the onboarding process in a document management system right from the moment the job opening is posted. That way, you can keep track of the process and the statuses at each stage. Just note along the way when important papers and documents need to be updated. Then the program will automatically notify you when the time comes.

The more your new employees are engaged with the company, the more enthusiastic they’ll be. And the more hours they can spend on their core responsibilities instead of dealing with the bureaucracy surrounding patient care, the happier they’ll be as they head to your healthcare facility each day. So make sure your onboarding process aligns with this approach. That’s how you’ll retain the best employees for your organization.

Would you like to automate the onboarding process within a workflow? Don’t reinvent the wheel—let our professionals help you. They’ve already done this dozens of times for the largest healthcare institutions in the Netherlands.