Hallmarks of Effective Onboarding for HR Professionals

Let’s face it, today’s onboarding process can be riddled with stress and a mind-numbing workload. With a skills gap that spans over almost every industry, finding strong potential candidates to fill your open position is daunting. Getting your new hire to engage, perform at full productivity, and stay for over 3 years (much less 1 year) can feel like Atlas trying to hold up the sky.

Over the last decade, the power of effective onboarding has made its way through numerous surveys and studies. Groups have studied the effects of onboarding on engagement, retention, productivity, culture, and the financial implications for businesses (both good and bad). Studies overwhelmingly support a defined onboarding process:

  • 69% of employees are more likely to stay with the company for at least 3 years after a great onboarding experience. (source)
  • 66% of companies with onboarding programs claimed a higher rate of successful assimilation of new hires into company culture. (Aberdeen Group)
  • 62% had higher time-to-productivity ratios. (Aberdeen Group)
  • 54% reported higher employee engagement. (Aberdeen Group)

With the ever-increasing accessibility and speed of technology, the onboarding process has the potential to be confusing, overwhelming, and stressful to HR professionals who are working tirelessly to provide their companies with top talent.

To provide some clarity, and to relieve you of some of that stress, here are some of the hallmarks to look for in an effective onboarding process:

Retention

An effective onboarding process will show tangible results in your ability to retain top talent. By getting consistent feedback on the effectiveness your onboarding process, if retention continues to be an issue, you can determine if lack of retention is based on an onboarding problem, or a culture “issue” within your organization.

Engagement

The onboarding process should immerse a new hire into the company’s culture, allowing them to feel like an integrated team member who has the opportunity to provide solutions. Understanding your new employee, and what drives him or her, can help you work with them to develop a plan that furthers their career. Engagement = Productivity

Efficiency

This sounds so simple, but it’s true: A world-class onboarding process will help you to be more efficient, not less. Are you frustrated with the lack of efficiency in your current onboarding process? It doesn’t have to be that way.

Multi-Process Platforms

Directly off the idea of efficiency, find an onboarding platform that hosts multiple processes. Is there anything more stressful or time-consuming than jumping from one platform to another in order to complete specific onboarding tasks? I-9 verification through this system, insurance paperwork through another, tax credit eligibility through that…you get the idea. A great onboarding platform can be a “one-stop” platform that delivers all your onboarding needs in one place, bringing efficiency and…sanity!

Training

Did you know that over 66% of companies do not offer ongoing training or education as part of their onboarding process? And yet, training is one of the most sought-after components of today’s workforce. Ongoing training and education provides employees their much desired opportunity for career advancement.

Technology

More than any other time in history, today’s workforce wants to work with companies who are technologically adept. SaaS and “Cloud” solutions provide you the opportunity to keep up with a mobile workforce, even having a new employee fill out required forms on his or her smartphone or tablet. With the growing ability of intelligent bots, chatbots, and automation disrupting the HR Tech space, it’s imperative that you leverage the latest technologies to maximize your recruiting and hiring expertise.

Compliance

Even a small “mistake” can cost a company thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars when it comes to compliance. A best-in-class onboarding program will help you remain compliant, saving money from potential fines, as well as helping relieve you of the personal stress in keeping up with ever-changing state and federal government regulations.

Productivity Metrics

An effective onboarding solution will actually provide you a way to quantify employee productivity. While 58% of companies do not measure new-hire productivity at all, an employee’s job productivity is the single most important determinant of his or her value to a company.

A great onboarding platform will help you increase retention and engagement, bringing your new hires to full productivity. All of these parts work together to create a great culture that delivers measurable results to the ultimate success of your company.

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