It’s Called Onboarding, Not On-boring.

How good is your organization at onboarding? If you are like 68% of global executives who responded to a 2024 SHRM onboarding survey, it probably isn’t very good. Study after study shows that well-designed, comprehensive, and long-lasting onboarding programs drive employee retention, engagement, and performance for at least the first two years of employment. That means that a bad onboarding experience isn’t just a boring first day or first week. Making a bad, or even lukewarm, first impression, can affect employees’ overall experience with your company and cost you a lot in poor performance and high turnover.

If you are unsure about your own organizational onboarding, here are a couple of hints that it isn’t great.

1. Your company’s onboarding program is mostly filling out administrative paperwork (this is the boring part, maybe necessary, but definitely boring).

2. The duration of the program is one week or less.

3. Onboarding is employee driven and relies on websites, asynchronous training, or reading documents (yawn, also boring).

4. You observe high turnover and low engagement and performance in new employees first two years.

Luckily for you, all these are solvable problems. With a bit of time and effort, you can build an onboarding program that drives retention, engagement, and performance.

1. Focus your onboarding program on introducing and welcoming the employee into organizational culture, connecting them with colleagues and stakeholders, and getting them focused on key performance objectives.

2. Create a structured program that ramps up responsibilities and provides extra support over time. Take As much as needed  for them to be assimilated into the culture, connected to key relationships, and confident in independently performing their duties. That can range from several months to two years. If you are unsure, a solid standard is a one-year structured onboarding program.

3. Start the onboarding program with high-touch support from others and transition to employee-driven efforts over time. The new employee’s supervisor should be heavily involved, especially in the beginning. It is also a good idea to assign an “onboarding buddy”, a peer who can show the new employee the ropes and answer questions they may be nervous to ask a supervisor. Once the employee feels secure and supported, start assigning solo tasks to grow their knowledge and confidence.

4. Seek constant feedback from new employees on their onboarding process and adjust as needed. Most new employees with bad onboarding experiences suffer in silence. They may be disappointed in the organization or embarrassed of their lack of knowledge. If you ask them what they need and do what you can to meet those needs, they will start to trust the company and you will see progress and better performance.

Sounds simple, right? I’m sure you have the bandwidth and staffing to go ahead and create a customized, year-long onboarding program for every new hire. Oh, you are a little too busy? Don’t worry, HPRev can help. Schedule an appointment today and jump onboard the revolution and un-bore your onboarding.