The Benefits and how to Improve Your Onboarding Process

Onboarding refers to welcoming, training, and integrating a new employee. Although this seems like an important part of recruitment, most companies lack a good onboarding process. Many studies have been conducted into employee onboarding and how it can improve everything from employee retention to higher levels of engagement and productivity; however, implementing a thorough onboarding process can initially be costly due to the time it takes.

HCI research shows that 20% of employees leave within their first 45 days of employment, so could it be worth investing time and effort into creating a great onboarding process? This may convince you to do so… 

Improve your onboarding to save you money

Your onboarding process is probably not as good as you think it is

What do you want your onboarding program to look like?

Onboarding length and goals

Improve your onboarding to save you money

Finding, replacing, and training employees are three of your business's highest expenses. Removing or reducing just one of these elements could save your business a lot of money. Eboarder reported that the total cost of losing an employee is estimated to range from 90% to 200% of the employee's annual salary.

According to an analysis by LinkedIn, the worldwide average staff turnover rate is 10.9%, with industries such as Tech having one of the highest rates at 13.2%. There are many ways to increase employee retention, including implementing employee benefits, offering flexible working, or improving company culture; however, if you don’t focus on the foundations of your employee experience, all these factors are unlikely to help.

Research by Glassdoor showed that companies with a great onboarding experience improved employee retention by 82%.

This showed that sufficiently investing in training and welcoming new employees encouraged them to stay with the company longer, reducing the cost of finding or replacing employees.

In markets with a high demand for highly experienced talent, people have the choice of where to work. If you’re attracting the right people, make sure you can keep them.

Your onboarding process is probably not as good as you think it is

According to Gallup, only 12% of employees strongly agree that their company has a good onboarding program, meaning that 88% think there is room for improvement.

If you want to know what your current employees think of your onboarding process and what you can do to improve, ask them. Set up an anonymous questionnaire and let your employees critique it. The only way to improve processes is to ask the people they affect.

Continue to test, develop and improve your onboarding process so that you can reap the benefits.

What do you want your onboarding program to look like?

Welcoming, training, and integrating a new employee is never easy. Not every company’s onboarding program looks the same, either. Unfortunately, many companies create a boring onboarding solution. 58% of companies say their onboarding program is focused on processes and paperwork.

This includes filling out necessary HR forms and training on internal systems; however, there is much more to integrating an employee than standard procedures.

Get the paperwork out of the way and move on to the other, more important elements of your onboarding program, such as introducing your new employees to the team and teaching them the company's core values and dynamics. Make your new employees feel welcome and part of the team. The closer they feel to their new colleagues, the more comfortable they will be asking questions and understanding how the company works.

In a recent study by HCI, 87% of organisations that assigned a buddy or ambassador to a new employee said that it was an effective way to speed up new hire proficiency; however, less than 47% have implemented one. A buddy program is one of the easiest ways to ensure new employees feel welcome as they have someone to introduce them to the team, ask questions and show them the surrounding areas, such as where to get lunch or the bathroom.  These may sound like simple things, but making sure a new employee doesn’t feel ‘alone’ on their first day, and that you care, can significantly impact their decision to stay with you.

Onboarding length and goals

Your onboarding program may last one day or one year. However long it runs, it will affect the employee’s entire experience at the organisation and how they perceive (and talk about) your brand.

Different roles in different companies will require different onboarding lengths, which will consist of different elements. However long your onboarding process, make sure it targets several goals:

• Reinforce a positive first impression

• Set clear expectations for their work and future at the company

• Communicate what to expect in the first week

• Connect new hires to the team and help them build relationships with co-workers and colleagues

• Provide structured opportunities for new hires to offer feedback on their job, company processes, and culture

• Start planning for their long-term future and development at the company

Will you be implementing a more extensive and welcoming onboarding process in the future?