The Value of Onboarding

Onboarding is the process of integrating a new hire into a business, to the point they feel like an integral part of the team. A good onboarding process minimizes the amount of time before a new hire can begin to provide value and it maximizes the chances that a new hire will stay on for many years.

A structured onboarding process is essential to achieving these goals and unfortunately, many businesses do not have a highly-structured process. Typically, companies use “checklist” approach to onboarding that mostly focuses on paper work and training modules. However, onboarding must be more than a basic checklist, a stack of forms and a few PowerPoint programs. This approach is bad for the company and its employees. Businesses that take a structured approach to onboarding, on the other hand, tend to realize big returns.

According to a 2014 survey by Aberdeen Group, 83 percent of top-performing companies start onboarding ahead of new hires’ first day, and 52 percent of respondents said a senior leader in their organization is actively involved in onboarding.

Top businesses do an exceptional job of holding onto new hires, getting them to a high degree of performance rapidly and attaining a high level of manager satisfaction. Their onboarding operations also minimize disruption new hires can cause to operations and purposefully build trust between new and experienced employees.

How Does Better Onboarding Impact Business Functions?

1. Lower Time-to-Productivity

As a performance measure, time-to-productivity is quickly getting acceptance as a key way of measuring hiring and talent management. Some define it as the length of time necessary for new staff members to have all of the knowledge, abilities and habits needed to carry out their job at a significant level. Others say time-to-productivity is the period of time for new hires to reach the same level of performance as a worker who has been with the company for two years.

Either way, proper onboarding has been shown to significantly reduce time-to-productivity, bringing new hires to up speed much more quickly than a subpar program.

2. Lower Stress

The uncertainty experienced by new staff members is enough to trigger a considerable amount of stress. Proper onboarding cuts down on the uncertainty and the associated damaging effect that has on new hires, helping them pay attention to their job duties rather than asking questions.

3. Lower Turnover

Typically, companies lose up to 15 percent of their staff each year. Good onboarding programs are highly-visible investments that show new hires and established employees the company values them. In acknowledging the value of employees, good programs make it less likely that employees will look for another employer.

4. More Well-Rounded Employees

A good onboarding program helps new employees better comprehend their roles and how they fit into the overall mission of the company. New employees not only learn what’s expected of them, they also learn how to interact with other outside their team and how the work they do is seen throughout the organization. This helps to inform decision making and supports long-term employee advancement.