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Hurray! You’ve found that right person to join your team, and you can’t wait to get him/her started as soon as possible. But have you mapped out how the onboarding process should be like yet?
Getting the onboarding part right is very important – it impacts how quickly the new hire becomes productive and how likely that person is going to stay at your company.
Wondering what are the areas that you should pay attention to when onboarding new hires? Here are 17 stats that’ll give you some ideas and at the end of this articles are a few tips on how to nail your onboarding process 🙂
17 stats that show how important onboarding is to company success
1. Most employees feel out-of-touch with their company’s mission
If your team isn’t passionate about what your company does, how well do you think they’ll represent them? Research shows that only 25 percent of employees worldwide feel connected to their company’s mission. And what’s even more worrying is that 50 percent of the global workforce do not find meaning or significance in their current role.
2. If someone’s going to quit, they’ll do it soon after being hired
In most companies, nearly 20 percent of their overall turnover is from newly hired employees who are just less than 45 days into their roles. So make sure you understand the aspiration of your new hires, help them blend in to the team so they can see their potential in your company quickly.
3. It’s expensive to replace employees
When someone leaves a company, it can cost anywhere between 15 and 20 percent of that person’s salary to replace them. Why? With ever-increasing inflation rates and the sheer amount of legwork needed to find a replacement, finding a new hire is as costly as it is time-consuming.
4. If an employee has a great onboarding process, they’ll stick around
Research shows that if a person experiences an overall great onboarding process, they’re likely to stick around for three or more years. That retention rate can literally save hundreds of thousands of dollars in recruiting expenses later down the line. So, word to the wise: make the hiring process good, and both parties will come out winning.
5. Consistency is key to hiring effectively
Consistency is vital to having successful onboarding practices. Research shows that companies with standardized hiring processes have nearly a 50 percent greater retention rate. Really laying out your onboarding process allows you to spot areas that need improvements and avoid missing any important steps.
6. We spend a fortune keeping unproductive employees around
It’s estimated that the United States loses billions a year keeping unproductive, unhappy employees. While hiring is necessary, so is firing. And like keeping any good garden vibrant and healthy: you’ve got to pull out the weeds, every so often. Otherwise, this can harm your culture and affect the morale of new hires.
7. Good businesses keep up with the quality of their onboarding process
Your company shouldn’t only be keeping tabs on the quality of your products and services, but also on your internal processes. Good businesses who regularly assess their onboarding practices report nearly three-times greater employee retention than those who don’t.
8. Longer onboarding process, better results
Most employees report feeling underprepared for their jobs, rushing into positions they don’t yet feel they can adequately fill. However, companies that have month-long or longer onboarding process have nearly 40 percent higher retention rate than those who rush the process. Employees also report feeling more “competent and fulfilled” at their posts when they are part of a longer onboarding process.
9. It takes a while for employees to start being good
Statistically, employees won’t reach “acceptable” levels of productivity until they’re about eight or nine months in their role. So, word to the wise: Be patient with your new hires because, odds are, they’re doing the best they can.
10. Set clear goals and give feedback
It’s been shown that new hires respond positively to being given 60-day and 90-day goals and milestones. They, too, appear to react well to what analysis called “balanced feedback”; acknowledgment that they’re doing one thing well, and another maybe not so well. Consider following both pieces of advice to ensure your new hires stick around for years to come.
11. Millennials want more from their employer
By 2020, millennials will make up nearly half of the workforce—which may forever change how companies onboard new hires. Almost 50 percent of millennials report wanting more quality and attention to detail when it comes to onboarding. It’s high-time organizations start stepping up the quality of their hiring process, should they wish to employ the next round of talents.
12. Online onboarding is the future
Roughly 70 percent of businesses report using some sort of online onboarding process to help staff. This modern-day approach to hitting not only cuts down on time but saves corporations money by streamlining the entire process, mitigating the need to overstaff HR departments.
13. Gratitude is key
With each passing year, it’s becoming clear that onboarding practices are becoming more personable. About half of new hires said that when an employer showed gratitude during the onboarding process, be it for their time or attention to detail during the interview process, they were more likely to stick around.
14. Want to see if a senior hire will last? Flip a coin
Nearly half of all senior-level hires will leave their new post within eight months of being hired. Why? They usually report changes in job expectation. Suffice to say you should be communicating clearly how that hire will fit into your company’s overall model, especially when filling senior-level positions.
15. The work environment is important, especially with millennials
The quality and atmosphere of the workplace are becoming increasingly more important to workers. In fact, most millennials cited that they’d take cuts in salary for jobs that had better work environments.
16. Mentorships matter
Over a third of new hires report that having a mentor during the onboarding process made them not only more comfortable in their jobs, but more engaged with their work as well. Successful mentorship programs can help both employee retention and performance; nothing to complain about there.
17. When done well, onboarding practices can increase job performance
Employees who went through concise, consistent, structured onboarding process perform about 11 percent better at their jobs, overall. If that doesn’t drive the point home about just how important successful onboarding practices are, we don’t know what will.
It’s never too late to improve your company’s onboarding process
The moment a potential hire fills out and submits an application, the onboarding process begins. And contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t end after they’ve been hired—it ends when they leave that position, that is if they leave at all. Here are some tips on how to improve your onboarding practices, making sure your company doesn’t become one of these negative statistics:
1. Don’t try to stuff everything into the first week
Nobody can remember so many things if you just try to pack everything into the first week. On-the-job training are often more useful than simply stuffing the new hire with tonnes of presentations or docs just on their first week.
2. Let the new hires know what are the go-to-resources when they need help
Assign a mentor to the new hires. Having a well-organized company knowledge base also helps a lot so new hires will always have a go-to-resource when they don’t know or forget something that has been gone through in the onboarding process.
3. Over-communicating is better than under-communicating
Most new hires’ complains are caused by misunderstandings made during the onboarding process. When in doubt, over-communicating is always better than under-communicating. Team leads should set up regular 1-on-1 sessions with new hires so they can give feedback (both positive and negative) to the new hires and also identify areas that the new hires would like to have more help with or see improvements in.
If you have more interesting stats or tips 💡 on onboarding, leave a comment below and we would love to hear your stories 😀
