How to Create a Successful Onboarding Plan for Market Research Analysts: From Hire to High-Performer

You wouldn't be late for a first date. So why would you fail to make a great first impression when onboarding a new market research analyst?

Hopefully, you're looking for many happy years together. 

But today's employees know their worth. And if you don't treat them right from day 1, they may soon start to look elsewhere. 

This article will give you the tools to create a market research analyst onboarding plan that makes your new hire forget that other companies exist. After this onboarding, they will want to commit and evolve within your business instead of your competitors.

✈️ Why is onboarding important for market research analysts?

Onboarding has gone from a necessity that companies rush through to get their employees up to speed to a potential dealbreaker. 

To impress your new market research analysts, you must create a memorable experience. This experience begins the moment they sign their contract. 

There are many aspects to a successful onboarding experience – from logistics to learning to cultural and social integration. These can be further broken down – for example, learning can be about soft qualities like communication skills or technical knowledge and competencies. 

A major upgrade from traditional onboarding is that the spotlight is less on productivity and more on people. 

Tip: Instead of involving only the HR staff and a supervisor, coworkers are crucial in onboarding a new employee. 

Role ambiguity is common and leads to confusion, causing lower workplace satisfaction and reduced productivity.

So, when making a market research analyst onboarding plan, another important feature is to be clear about the role's responsibilities by defining the tasks.

📝 Market research analysts onboarding 30-60-90 day plan template

There are some role-agnostic best practices for training new employees. You should check them out before creating your market research analyst onboarding plan.

Onboarding begins when your new market research analyst has said yes to joining your team (congrats!). It starts with paperwork and administrative tasks and continues with creating a fun and engaging experience. 

Here's a checklist for effectively onboarding your new market research analyst.

Preparation & Preboarding

Admin prep may not be the funniest part, but setting a solid foundation for the onboarding experience is essential. 

Here are the critical elements of preparation.

✔️ Onboarding paperwork

Send the paperwork related to the role to your new hire and tell them to read, sign and return them to you: 

• legal employment papers;
• documents treating taxes and compensations;
• internal documents related to the market research analyst role, e.g., organizational charts, performance appraisal forms, hybrid work arrangements, and leave entitlements;
• onboarding documentation covering the tools, processes, company policies and procedures, mission statements, and company-specific intellectual property. 

✔️ Access and hardware

• Prepare a list with the necessary hardware and systems, e.g., laptop, phone, email, building access, knowledge base, market intelligence platform, etc.
• Order new equipment, if required. 

✔️ Education material review

Ensure that all material about the organization is updated, including company presentations, internal policies, handovers from their predecessors, and more.

✔️ IT onboarding

IT onboarding is a crucial part of onboarding in our digital era, regardless of the role. 

Your market research analyst needs to know how to use the software required to execute their tasks, which may differ from their previous use. 

Preboarding

Preboarding should include the following steps:

• Send relevant documents. 
• Order hardware and ship it to their home (if applicable).
• Grant access to software.
• Brief the team and book intro meetings and training with team members. 

Tip: Introduce your new employee to your colleagues well before their arrival. 

• Set up personal meetings to integrate them into the team and an in-person/virtual happy hour or team-building activity by the end of their first week.
• Make your new employee feel welcome (with a welcome package and email). 

💡 Welcome package tip: Send your new employee a welcome packet with company swag and a gift card at a lunch restaurant of their choice. 

💡 Welcome email tip: The welcome email serves two primary purposes: 

• Making them feel welcome. 
• Setting the tone for the working relationship. 

The welcome email should introduce new hires to the company culture and values encouragingly and inclusively. You want them to know what's expected of them without being intimidating.

Day 1

People:

• Arrange a welcome reception to make your new market research analyst feel comfortable and included from day 1.
• Introduce them to their onboarding buddy. 

Paperwork:

• Sort out all the logistics needed.

Productivity:

• Get a soft introduction to their tasks – through an overview or presentation by a senior colleague or your onboarding experience software.

Week 1

People:

• Announce your new hire in the company newsletter/social network. 
• Host a team building/happy hour.
• Arrange individual meetings with each team member. 

Productivity:

• Familiarize them with the company and its products or services. This task might involve reading company reports, talking to employees, and learning about the company's target market and competitors.
• Focus on learning about the industry. Market research analysts should have a solid understanding of the industry in which their company operates, including trends, growth areas, and significant players.
• Understanding current research needs: Market research analysts will typically work closely with the marketing and sales teams to identify areas where research is a pillar of strategic decision-making.
• Understand the role requirements and scope of their work and how their role fits into the organization's overall strategy.
• Establish what onboarding metrics you will use to determine the success of the market research analyst onboarding experience. 

First 30 days 

People:

• Build relationships within the company: The analyst should begin to build relationships with key stakeholders in the company, such as the marketing and sales teams.
• Bring them to a networking event for marketers or analysts in your area.
• Alternatively, sign them up for an online event.

Productivity: Introduce them to their first tasks:

• Achieve a full understanding of your company's tools and software.
• Familiarize them with your company's databases used for market research and the methodologies used.
• Assign them to evaluate the existing data collection methods, together with a short presentation. 
• Have them perform a SWOT analysis of your market research activities.
• Task them with evaluating the best methods for advertising and distribution of your existing product/service suite.
• Task them with designing a research study. Once they have understood your company's research needs, the new analyst can create studies to collect the data other departments need. This task might involve selecting a sample, determining how they will collect data (e.g., surveys, focus groups, interviews), and developing questions or discussion guides.

Process:

• Run an onboarding survey to get insights on improving your recruitment and onboarding processes. 

💪 Take advantage of our ready-to-use onboarding survey.

First 60 days

People:

• Have a quick cultural check-in where you ask if they feel included in the group, know their closest colleagues and their tasks, and feel comfortable participating in social activities. 

Tip: Explain that this meeting is standard at your workplace to ensure everyone can thrive socially.

Productivity:

• They should continue working on their first research study at this stage, especially collecting and analyzing data. After collecting the data, the analysts should analyze it and use it to answer the research questions. This task might involve using statistical software, creating charts and tables, and writing reports. 
• Now it's time for them to communicate findings to the company's marketing, sales, and management teams. They should be able to explain the results clearly and meaningfully, so they can inform decision-making.

Tip: How did their first presentation go? Do they need any support in sharpening their communication skills? Provide support, if necessary.

First 90 days 

People:

• Get them to teach an area of their work to new hires.
• If you have regular team-building activities or take turns arranging meetings, give them the responsibility to host.

Productivity:

• Make an evaluation of the design and pricing of products and the opportunities for change based on the data-driven insights from competition and trends.
• Ensure they routinely monitor market trends and updates and share findings with key stakeholders in the company that can update the company's strategies to keep the company in the competition.
• Identify new research needs that drive new business strategies. 

Tip: You can create a knowledge-sharing ritual where your marketing analysts share market trends and monthly updates. 

• Have them complete a probation period review. 
• Share new employee feedback focused on performance and growth.

🚀 Is your marketing department growing at the speed of sound? Check out onboarding plans for your new customer marketing managers and chief marketing officers. 

➡️ If you need other templates, we have you covered. Check out our growing vault of onboarding templates.

👀 What does an effective market research analyst onboarding process look like?

Now you know all the details of the market research analyst onboarding plan. 

It can feel overwhelming at first. 

Let us zoom out and look at the experience through a different lens that hopefully anchors the understanding of effective onboarding.

Zavvy has established four pillars of onboarding.

1. Preboarding

Preboarding refers to the period between finally getting that "YES!" from your new market research analyst until their first workday. 

This phase consists primarily of preparation, paperwork, and sharing access to programs and software.

Goal: Ensuring their first day and week run as smoothly as possible.

2. Orientation

During orientation, the focus shifts from paperwork to people: you introduce your new employee to their team, manager, and everyone they will regularly interact with. 

Goal: Make them feel welcome, comfortable, and eager to start adding value to the team.

3. Role-specific training

In this phase, your new hire will have to take in a lot of information. They will learn how to perform their tasks, communicate, report, and do presentations. Therefore, it's crucial to establish the role expectations during this phase.

Goal: Get them up to speed and clear on their work.

4. Ongoing development

This phase aims at supporting career growth and personal goals. It stretches beyond the onboarding experience and continues for the entire employment period. 360 feedback is a crucial component of ongoing development.

Goal: Challenge your employee to constantly grow and evolve while making sure they have the opportunity to pursue their personal goals.

➡️ Don't forget about engaging your new hires. We share 11 ways to engage new employees starting from day one. 

⚙️ How can you overcome onboarding challenges with automation?

You now know how vital a successful onboarding experience is for employee retention. 

Automation helps save you the headaches of creating the optimal experience.  

Zavvy has cracked the code for automated onboarding experiences with our highly customizable software.

Here are some of the ways it can help you to overcome onboarding challenges.

1. Bridging the gap between signing and the start date 

Some companies and countries have long periods between signing the contract and the start date. This extended timeline can lead to a drop in confidence or the employee flaking out and choosing another employer. Automated preboarding helps bridge the gap by continuously checking in with your new hire. 

➡️ We even have a ready-to-use preboarding template you can use on Zavvy.

2. Preventing information overload

No one likes too much information. 

Automation helps send out paperwork gradually instead of overwhelming your new hire. It can also help automate specific processes without the need for employee involvement. 

For example, you can automatically send a survey right before the start date to ask the employee if there is any information they are missing before starting work. 

3. No more unclear roles 

Few things are as stressful as not knowing what's expected, especially in a new role.

Onboarding automation helps with concrete and measurable goals related to the job, which helps define role responsibility.

4. Create human connection 

In post-Covid times, more people than ever are working remotely. It will inevitably lead to isolation and loneliness at some point.

An automated onboarding experience helps ensure that the human touch is thereby scheduling regular meetings with colleagues and mentors – something that can tend to be forgotten in a manual onboarding process.

5. Start progress tracking 

Feedback should be a critical part of the onboarding process – and the more objective it is, the better. With automated onboarding, your new employees get clear, tangible KPIs to measure progress and remove subjectivity and bias.

➡️ Set up your marketing department's new hires for success with Zavvy

Our onboarding and preboarding software help you to not only onboard – but keep – your new market research analysts. 

Follow up on the success of your onboarding program with: 

• 🌱 People development plans that guide people along their development path in your company. 
• 🔄 Feedback systems that you can customiz according to your organizational culture, and foster a culture of growth and learning. 
• ☕️ Coffee roulettes that connect colleagues, even remotely.
• 💪 Training programs that deliver step-by-step content instead of overwhelming learners.

Try it for yourself to discover how our automated onboarding tool will take your onboarding to the next level.