2021 is a year of (big) change - and HR is no exception.
In the next 6 months, organizations should expect to see focus shifts around flexible working, serious health and safety overhauls, new approaches to fixed-location structures, and much more.
So it’s no surprise that the onboarding space is seeing its fair share of shakeups too.
To help you prepare, we’ve taken insights from the recent Talmundo by Talentech onboarding study to see how leveraging good onboarding can help you combat the effects of COVID-19 on HR.
#1
47% of employers don’t know how to measure the benefits and failures of their existing employee onboarding programs.
What does it mean?
Onboarding is known to improve engagement and shorten time-to-productivity - two incredibly important measures in a post-COVID future of work.
If you don’t know how your onboarding activities are impacting these key metrics, then you’ll be unable to curtail poor practices, or leverage successful strategies, for elevated onboarding success.
How to do better
Learn how to measure your onboarding activities. Here are two ways to get you started:
Engagement
[Basic]
Observe how many new hires, on average, open your onboarding emails with an easy email tracking tool like MailTrack.
[Advanced]
Monitor employee satisfaction, value-fit, and upward mobility expectations with a new hire quiz through SurveyMonkey.
Time-to-productivity
[Basic]
Record how many employees fully complete their onboarding activities, use the average length of completion as a benchmark for your productivity learning curve.
[Advanced]
Create an in-depth quiz to test onboardee knowledge and deliver it to all new hires at the end of each of their first 3 months - Typeform can help with that.
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#2
43% of onboardees are without basic work tools for more than a week after they start.
What does it mean?
If almost half of your new hires don’t have the basic tools to be able to perform their work, expect first-week productivity to plummet. And it’s likely to be even worse if your staffer is working from home.
This is bad news for already cash-strapped organizations who need their onboardees to hit the ground running in the wake of COVID-impacted profit margins.
How to do better
Be proactive, pre-install, and prep. It’s a super simple process:
1. Provide your new hire with an equipment request form as soon as they accept their offer. Include everything from computer specs to required programs.
2. Facilitate a swift handover to IT so they can order the equipment and pre-install any programs and required tools for your hire.
3. Create short training videos to prepare new hires and get them working with their new equipment.
It’s that simple!
#3
64% of new hires receive no preboarding experience.
What does it mean?
A strong pre-boarding process can boost new hire retention by up to 82% AND minimize non-starters.
If you don’t offer a preboarding experience, you’re simply missing out on these gains and will likely see more hires walking out the door in the first 6 months of employment.
Considering the average cost of recruiting for a newly created role is $3328 and can grow to more than $200,000 to fill high-level executive positions, you really can’t afford NOT to preboard.
How to do better
Start building your preboarding process today.
Effective preboarding is about engaging your new hires from the moment they accept a job offer, through until their first day on the job - it is essentially the digital bridge between recruitment and employment.
Here are 4 preboarding staples to kick things off:
1. Cut the admin
Remove tedious admin from an onboardee’s first week by getting it out of the way in the preboarding phase.
2. Be crystal clear
Ensure your new hire has everything they need for a successful first week like a comprehensive first-week schedule and access to pre-start training.
3. Show your colors
Showcase your companies values in interesting ways through short videos and staff testimonials.
4. Buddy-up
Assign your newest hire a ‘preboarding buddy’ so they always have someone to lean on for questions queries or even just a chat!
Summary
These are just 3 eye-opening statistics that can help HR get to grips with their onboarding process. There are many more, and your organization will have its own unique scenarios.
One thing we can be certain of is that investing in your onboarding process today, is a proactive step you can take to safeguard against the challenges of tomorrow. So don't wait, start the process now and invest in the future of your new hires.
Next steps_
Want to build an AMAZING first-week for your newest hires?
Try the Talentech 10-step onboarding guide to a perfect first week!
