Throughout the employee lifecycle there are critical inflection points that have an outsized impact - those key transitions where employees are learning, observing, understanding how to act and perform when faced with a new work situation. Promotions, role changes, reorganizations: these times shape not only the employee’s level of engagement, but also how they interact with team members, how they manage and lead, and how they represent your employer brand outside of work.
Perhaps none of these transitions affects more employees than onboarding. Our recent data suggests that organizations that treat employees’ first days as administrative - as a process to be completed, rather than a key moment to be cultivated - risk creating a culture of low engagement. CEOs who recognize that strong business performance comes from an engaged workforce should be obsessed with the onboarding experience for employees.
Analysis reveals crucial link between onboarding and employee engagement
Onboarding sets the tone for the employee journey at your organization. An analysis of data from Glint, the AI-powered employee engagement platform, shows the impact of the onboarding experience on employee engagement as well as employer brand.
The results revealed that new hires who experienced poor onboarding were eight times more likely to be disengaged in their work and eleven times less likely to recommend their employer after their first three months. Glint’s data also shows that although new hires tend to have significantly higher engagement scores than tenured employees, 40 percent of employees who had a poor onboarding experience became disengaged three months later and would not recommend the company to others.
Further, disengaged top talent was twelve times more likely to leave the organization within the next 12 months. By improving employees experiences, starting with the onboarding, senior leaders can diminish a significant threat to the organization’s ability to execute long-term.
World-class onboarding connects and enables new hires
Onboarding is more than a first impression; it is the foundation on which a new hire’s subsequent experiences will be built. An employee’s feelings of belonging, sense of purpose, and commitment to the organization are all formed in these first weeks and months of an employee’s tenure. The experience can have a significant impact on the employee’s motivation, and ultimately tenure, at the organization.
According to a recent article from SHRM, an impactful onboarding program drives three things: a) strong relationships between the new hire and critical partners in the context of the company’s culture; b) the resources - material and intangible - that enable the new hire’s success; and c) clearly definition of the employee’s role and responsibilities within the context of the business and their new team. With these elements in mind, here are three tips to help organizations improve the onboarding experience and set new hires up to be engaged, performing, and in it for the long-haul:
Recognize that the employee experience begins before Day 1 - The employee experience with your organization begins long before the first day as a member of your team. They’re getting to know you when they click a button to submit an application, on the first call with a recruiter, and during their sometimes nerve-wracking day spent impressing your hiring team. All these events contribute to the potential new hire’s feelings of excitement, her purpose within the organization, and her understanding of the value she will bring to your team.
To improve the pre-hire experience, build a concrete set of values and behaviors that you want to impress upon your potential new hires. Demonstrate those with both your in-house and external hiring teams and especially with individual hiring managers. The first impression new hire experience is really important (and potentially long-lasting) - so make it count.
Give hiring managers the tools to bolster training - In all likelihood, your new employees are bright, highly skilled, and ready to hit the ground running. But while your organization may succeed through an on-the-job training or a “drink-from-the-firehose” mentality, there’s no reason to leave new hires to figure out their own way. Senior leaders can hold hiring managers accountable for using whatever resources are at their disposal to help new hires understand their role, feel welcomed and supported, and quickly contribute to the success of team and organization. Immerse new hires into the organization by communicating your goals and training them on the processes they’ll need to use to be effective. Include cross-departmental processes and relationships that will help make their work lives run smoothly.
Carve out new employee’s place in your world and your place in theirs - A crucial element of an excellent onboarding experience is helping each new hire understand her role before she attempts tackle it. Have hiring managers clearly define new responsibilities before Day 1, then map them to new hire objectives and expectations. Encourage managers to take the time to understand each team member’s strengths and weaknesses, and adjust roles and tasks to improve team performance, as well as to give them opportunities to develop. A clear place and focus combined with an understanding of your culture provides new employees with direction and stability in those critical first days and weeks. Knowing what is expected of her and to whom she can go for guidance can really help a new employee navigate the uncertainty of a new, hectic, work environment.
With the rise of people analytics, CEOs can now rely on their HR teams to show the impact of employee lifecycle transitions on employee engagement, retention, and performance. Our early data at Glint shows how important onboarding is, inspiring me to help leaders recognize this opportunity. Failing to put sufficient attention on and effort into these transitions, especially onboarding, risks creating an organization that struggles to create high levels of engagement and retain top talent.