10 Mind-blowing Employee Onboarding Statistics

When you hire new employees, the first few weeks of their employment are the most crucial. It is both an exciting and stressful time and anyone who has begun a new role at an organization can attest to the importance of a structured onboarding program.

Employee onboarding is arguably the most important part of making sure an employee stays engaged. If you don’t take the appropriate steps to onboard a new employee, they’ll likely quit. Remember, great people, are always in high demand.

Researching this topic we found some pretty mind-blowing stuff around employee onboarding that will make you think twice before skipping investing in employee onboarding, along with a solution to make it even better. Below is the most relevant employee onboarding statics you need to know:

Mind-blowing employee onboarding statistics

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1. Lack of a productive onboarding program

According to Gallup, a whopping 88% of employees suggest that their companies don’t provide a good onboarding program. This causes issues in terms of increasing time to productivity, weakness culture and affects employee engagement. Most organizations, a whopping 58% of them focus their onboarding program on process and paperwork.

Focusing too much on checklists will cause issues in itself. One may have 100% checklist completion but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we have successfully onboarded a new hire. The best onboarding processes are the kind that find a good balance between the practical moments, the company’s story and the employee’s needs.

2. The impact of a great onboarding experience

Giving employees a great onboarding experience will be more than worth the time invested. Tons of research shows that a structured employee onboarding process affects employee engagement, retention and productivity.

There are also other soft benefits a structured onboarding program gives new hires like a better understanding of a companies culture, builds trust and improves employee communication.

3. Many organisations still have a long way to go

Even though the importance of employee onboarding is highlighted by many and employee onboarding software exists many companies still yet have to invest in a proper onboarding process.

The effect is unnecessary turnover amongst new hires, increased stress among employees. This also affects productivity and reduces employee engagement. Companies spend thousands of dollars on recruiting new hires but still few spend the amount necessary to get the onboarded properly.

4. Unnecessary employee turnover

Not giving new hires a good onboarding experience will affect turnover rates amongst new hires. A report from HBR states that 33% of employees start looking for a new job within their first 6 months at work and another 23% leave before their one-year anniversary.

Most business owners know that it cost much more to hire a new employee than to retain a current one.

5. The impact employee onboarding has on engagement.

There is a wide consensus among HR reps that good employee onboarding will increase employee engagement. Over half of HR professionals have seen an improvement in engagement thanks to better onboarding.

Remember that a disengaged employee also cost your business a lot of money. Just one disengaged employee who earns an average salary may cost you nearly $16,000 per year.

6. Employee onboardings effect on productivity

It might seem like you’re taking a lot of time with a new hire, but remember that they are an investment. The cost of losing a new hire is at least three times their salary, so it’s worth taking the time to bond them to their team and department since it will increase engagement.

Those first few days or weeks can be quite influential. In fact, research by O.C Tanner conducted as part of their 2018 Global Culture Report, which surveyed more than 15,000 workers across a dozen countries, shows that when onboarding is successful — centered on training, connecting the new hire to purpose, and recognizing early accomplishments — there is a 70% increase in an employee’s sense of belonging, a 50% increase in their engagement, and a 37% increase in their understanding of organizational purpose.

7. Why managers are an essential part

Being a manager today is increasingly complex and many managers struggle to keep up. Managers spend today about 14 hours onboarding each new hire according to Gartner and many struggles to understand how to best onboard a new hire. Today only 30% of employees agree managers are effective at onboarding new employees.

8. It’s time to invest in employee onboarding

The first weeks and months are crucial for an employee’s success at your company. This is the time when a vast majority of the new employees are evaluating their decision of joining the company and if they will stick around or not.

Over a third of all companies expect onboarding to happen organically.

ServiceNow survey found that about 80 percent of workers experienced some issues when starting a new job, HR Dive reports. One in 10 new hires reported that their new employer completely forgot it was their first day

9. The complexity of employee onboarding is increasing

It’s no surprise that once you get multiple people and departments involved, the entire onboarding process becomes more complex. Nearly one third of managers said it takes ten or more interactions to get ready for an employee’s first day on the job.

Often there is one person that tries to manage the entire process which becomes unsustainable as soon as the company starts recruiting a few people every month or quarter. Who should get what and by when?

10. The difference an onboarding buddy can have on employee productivity

A recent study from Microsoft showed that pairing a new employee with a mentor or “buddy” had a significant effect on productivity. In 97% of the cases studied they could see and a big impact on employee productivity.

Many companies today still don’t pair new hires with mentors or other employees, it’s a great way for the new hire to get to know the organization and to get some support while new from someone that isn’t their closest manager.

We hope these employee onboarding statics really got you thinking more about employee engagement and the importance of onboarding new talent properly.