What People Really Want from Onboarding [Infographic]

Each of your employees only gets to experience one first day on the job. Effective employee onboarding on day one (and through the weeks and months thereafter) can mean the difference between an employee who remains engaged for years to come or an empty desk after only a few months.

Why Improve Your Employee Onboarding Experience

Often, companies will spend large amounts of money to recruit new talent, but then spend little energy or few resources on onboarding new hires. Gallup found that only 12 percent of employees think their company did a good job onboarding. With the cost of replacing an employee ringing in between 90 percent and 200 percent of their annual salary, it saves your business time and money when you can retain employees from day one.

One essential key to achieving better retention, according to onboarding statistics, is effective onboarding. Glassdoor found that a strong onboarding process can improve new hire retention by 82 percent and productivity by over 70 percent. There is a huge opportunity for organizations to improve. It’s important to note that onboarding is more than just processes and paperwork, and should go beyond the first day or even first week on the job.

How to Improve Your Employee Onboarding Experience

The best thing you could possibly do for your new employees is to give them what they’re asking for. They want to learn how to do their job fast and to do it well. They also want to be involved and immersed in the company as quickly as possible. The following statistics and research findings tell may give you some hints on how to improve your employee onboarding experience:

76 Percent of New Employees Want On-the-Job Training

According to our employee onboarding survey of over 1000 employed US workers, 31 percent of people have left a job within the first six months, with 68 percent of those departing within three months. For many new employees, it seems the first three months at an organization are the most precarious.

And for good reason—during that time, new hires are trying to learn how to do their jobs well, how the organization operates, how they fit within their teams and the company culture, and more. It’s a lot to take in, and without help through onboarding programs, they can easily drown in information.

To keep your new hires from feeling overwhelmed and lost, it’s vital to continue the employee onboarding process beyond their first few days and into their first several months of employment. Doing so helps employees learn about job training, culture, policies, and benefits at their own pace, making it much easier for them to actually absorb the information.

New Hires Want a Full Idea of The Job and Their Management

When new employees have a negative or difficult onboarding experience, they are much more likely to second-guess their decision to join an organization. They may even quit in the first few months, as mentioned above. According to our onboarding survey, the top three reasons employees left within the first six months of a new job were:

• They decided the work was something they didn’t want to do anymore. (28 percent)
• They felt their jobs were different from what they expected in the interview. (26 percent)
• They felt their boss was a jerk. (23 percent)

Setting the right expectations during the recruitment process can help keep new employees from feeling like they have been the victims of a bait-and-switch, mitigating a lot of potential confusion and disappointment. This starts with an accurate job description, effective interviews, and a great pre-boarding experience (offer letters, paperwork, initial introductions, etc.).

Additionally, new hires who left a job shortly after their first day listed a few other onboarding elements that could have made a difference in their decision:

• 23 percent of respondents said they wanted to “receive clear guidelines to what responsibilities were”
• 21 percent wanted “more effective training”
• 17 percent said “a friendly smile or helpful coworker would have made all the difference”

In short, employees coming into a new organization want two things—the opportunity to do their best work and a sense of personal connection with their teammates. These fall right in line with Gallup’s 12 elements of engagement, which include employees’ desires for clear expectations, a sense of contribution and job alignment, positive manager and peer relationships, and more.