Most companies know they need to induct new employees into their roles. Far fewer are aware of the importance of onboarding: the extended process of embedding a new team member into their role and the company over several months, even up to a year.
Good onboarding increases engagement, retention, and perhaps most importantly, can transform productivity in your business.
1. Onboarding Results in Faster Time to Full Productivity
It takes on average 8-12 months for new employees to reach their full productivity in a new role.[i] A comprehensive and extended onboarding programme can cut these times down dramatically, boosting productivity and profitability.
2. Onboarding Brings ALL Staff up to Performance Expectations
While poor onboarding can mean the time to full productivity takes longer, it also means more staff won’t meet productivity expectations at all. One third of all new hires fail to meet company productivity expectations.[ii]
Onboarding speeds up that process, but it also ensures that any problems and weaknesses are spotted sooner rather than later, avoiding long-term underperformance that hides under the radar.
3. Good Onboarding Reduces Attrition Rates Amongst New Employees
23% of all new hires leave before the end of their first year.[iii] Not only does that bring with it increased disruption and recruitment costs, but if new hires are leaving before they’ve reached full productivity, they might never be anything other than a drain on resources.
Employees are 58% more likely to still be at a company three years later if they’ve completed an onboarding programme.[iv] That means that the time and resource invested in recruiting and getting people up to speed pays dividends over the longer term.
4. Onboarding Reinforces Company Culture and Values
If employees are disengaged with their roles and the company they work for, their negative influence can be felt much more broadly. Actively disengaged employees can destroy the culture and values you’ve carefully cultivated in your business through their interactions with customers and other staff.
Onboarding is a chance to reinforce the values that your company lives by, and help employees understand the standards and culture of the company. Setting clear expectations and continuing to ‘sell’ the company vision to your team through onboarding ensures every employee will be working to their full capacity.
5. Onboarding Leads to More Cohesive Teams
Because onboarding reduces attrition, and increases engagement, that means teams are able to work better together. Less disruption from people leaving and joining, and the fact that every individual is motivated to work towards the same values and goals, results in maximum productivity from every team in your business.
Want to master your companies Onboarding and get new hires up to peak productivity sooner? Download our 'Onboarding Best Practice' report below:
[i] Allied Workforce Mobility Survey: Onboarding and Retention, (Texas: Allied HR IQ, 2012), http://hriq.allied.com/pdfs/AlliedWorkforceMobilitySurvey.pdf.
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Roy Maurer, ‘Onboarding Key to Retaining Engaging Talent,” SHRM, April 16, 2015, https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/onboarding-key-retaining-engaging-talent.aspx
