Onboarding Quality: It Matters More
Than You Think
It’s no secret. Approximately 80% of new hires decide whether they want to stay with a company
or not within the first 6 months. The majority of new hires fail to complete their first milestone
on time – and it might take as much as 6 months before they are adding significant value
to the organization.
So why do employees quit after less than a year? Better yet, why do some new hires come
up to speed faster than others?
It depends on the quality of your onboarding processes
It’s true. Onboarding is one of the least mature talent processes, even though it is a critical
part of any good talent management strategy. As a result, onboarding strategies rarely deliver
the positive impacts most business leaders expect. Instead, there are piles of paperwork, m
issed details, and busy managers who often make poor first impressions on their new employees.
However, if done properly, onboarding has the potential to make a big impact on new hire retention,
time to productivity, and employee engagement – all prerequisites for business success.
But how do you get there?
The 4 C’s of onboarding
With all of the information out there about onboarding, it can be overwhelming –
especially if your HR organization does not know where to start.
Talya N. Bauer breaks down the concept of onboarding into four core areas:
Compliance
This is the first-day basics for every new employee. It includes completion of tax forms,
employment paperwork, badges, e-mail accounts, computers, workstations, and any other
basic tools needed for a given job. Businesses that have effective – and sometimes automated –
compliance processes are able to make the experience less onerous for new employees
and HR personnel alike.
Clarification
The goal is clear: The sooner new employees understand the job and overall business, the sooner
they add value to the entire organization. This objective calls for giving new hires details and
context of the job, including job requirements, first objectives, norms for accomplishing tasks,
and internal and external language.
Culture
Like individuals, organizations have different personalities, patterns, and expectations.
When new employees can accurately and quickly interpret and understand the business culture
as well as the department’s subculture, the more likely they will succeed over the long term.
Connection
Interpersonal relationships. Support mechanisms. Information networks. These factors are all
needed when helping new employees establish themselves, become an integrated part of the
organization and start getting their job done.
Every single one of the four C’s is important in their own right. Organizations that can effectively
coordinate these key aspects of onboarding have greater potential to realize workforce outcomes,
such as higher job satisfaction rates, higher productivity, and lower turnover.
For example, according to the Aberdeen Onboarding report published in 2013 organizations ranking
in the top 20% in terms of onboarding practices had 91% first-year retention, and 62% of new
employees reached their first year goals. In comparison, those in the bottom 30% of organizations
were only able to report 30% retention and 17% goal completion during the same time frame.
SuccessFactors Onboarding delivers a comprehensive approach for tackling the 4 C’s
SuccessFactors Onboarding uniquely combines the critical and tactical aspects of onboarding
(compliance and clarification) with more strategic aspects (culture and connection) in all
talent management processes.
As a result, organizations have the end-to-end process they need – and want – to drive better
business results, such as:
- Improving efficiency and compliance with new hire practices
and orientation - Getting new hires engaged with the right people and relevant
content immediately – increasing the changes that the employee will stay with
the company well past the first year - Turning
new hires into productive employees in record time through seamless integration
of onboarding processes with the overall talent management program
To find out how your HR organization can lay the foundation for the success of your new hires,
take a look at the white paper Onboarding: The
Power of Connection.
