On one end, you may have an exceptional onboarding experience that leaves employees feelings mentally prepared to tackle the challenges of their role for the first time. The other end of the spectrum? Remember when your third grade teacher was nursing a hangover so you just watched videos all day and learned nothing? It’s that.
Up to 50% of newly-hired employees plan to leave their roles in the near future. Depressing, right?
This is where we start to see that each side of the spectrum has its rewards and consequences. 52% of employees who’ve had a bad onboarding experience say they feel undertrained and 80% of those who feel undertrained plan to quit. Conversely, 70% of employees who feel well-trained plan to stay in their roles. So, this begs the question? Where, on the spectrum does your onboarding fall?
Lift HCM is a trusted provider of onboarding management solutions. We’ll walk you through some telltale signs it's time to throw your existing onboarding overboard and revisit your workflow with fresher eyes.
#1. Inaccessible Pre-Employment Paperwork
If an incoming hire makes fourteen bus rides and seven subways to fill out pre-employment paperwork (you know, before they ever earn a dime), don’t be surprised to sense a sour attitude from them on day one. If this sounds like you, it may be worth considering a digital onboarding solution with remote access options.
This allows you to permit new employees the option of filling out certain forms from the comfort of their own homes. It can also be a great way to accommodate employees while skirting the logistical headache of pre-employment paperwork sessions.
#2. Employees Check Out During Training
Bueller…Bueller…while a textbook thick enough to prop your dining table up isn’t ideal, training your team with videos isn’t necessarily a silver bullet. Yet both may still be appropriate given the duration of the training and its subject matter. Interactivity and assessments go a long way to keeping your employees engaged during trainings throughout their onboarding.
#3. Your Data Doesn’t Offer Effective Guidance
It may seem easy enough to develop a one-size-fits-all, set-it-and-forget-it curriculum. In reality, That assumption is the fastest way to find yourself with an ill-fitting and forgettable onboarding experience. Does this mean it’s time to tune up the keytar and bust the pyrotechnics budget wide open? No (but if you’ve got one, use it).
An effective onboarding platform can keep you in the loop on noteworthy anomalies, trends, and patterns in an employee's performance throughout their onboarding. This will help managers identify areas worthy of praise or course-correction. Leveraging data and performance metrics from an employee’s first few months on the job goes a long way in fostering a positive perception of the company culture and administering training that resonates.
#4. You Struggle to Maintain Compliance
Making sure your workforce passes muster in an ever-shifting regulatory landscape is no easy task for even the most organized organizations. However, should you increasingly find yourself taking reactive measures to regain compliance instead of proactive measures planned well in advance, you may have a problem. Any onboarding software (or manager thereof) that would allow you to fall out of compliance without setting off one metric marching band’s worth of alarm bells well in advance is not worth your time.
#5. Company Culture is Stained by Misalignment
If your managers share a sarcastic look while rattling off a heavily recycled first-day spiel, it may be time to rethink your onboarding. A disconnect between a company’s culture and its “culture-on-paper” has put more knots in C-suite stomachs than Auntie Anne's.
This discomfort often comes as a byproduct of a misalignment between the first impression and understanding employees form about their roles throughout onboarding and the day-to-day responsibilities they face shortly thereafter. A survey of 366 HR professionals found that a mere 40% of employees believe that their role reflects the description provided during their interviews. Your onboarding software needs to be simpatico with your ATS and talent acquisition infrastructure, lest you risk hiring for one role and filling another.
Begin Your Search for a Better Onboarding Program
If any of what we’ve described seems eerily familiar, then it’s time to hope aboard the “Better Onboarding Bandwagon”. If you continue to ignore the warning signs, you may well find yourself fighting an uphill battle against atrocious attrition rates. Lift HCM has been helping businesses in your industry onboard new team members since 1967. Follow our blog to read more about the ins and outs of effective employee onboarding and learn about the benefits it has brought to one industry in recent years.
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