If you’re an HR professional in a large organization, you understand the paramount connection between great onboarding and employee retention. You realize the tangible value of a positive onboarding experience and how it can significantly increase employee retention. In addition, you connect with your employees for frequent or regular feedback pulse checks. Whether onboarding and retention are connected is no longer a rhetorical question; it’s a fact. Organizations with a standard onboarding process actually have 50% greater new hire retention.
But why is onboarding so important? Because it’s your opportunity to set the fundamental tone with new hires, establish a solid connection with them and double down on their affirmation of saying “yes” to joining your company.
Onboarding is how retention begins
Ron Carucci of the Harvard Business Review backs up these powerful statistics. “In my experience as a consultant for Fortune 500 companies, I’ve found that the most effective organizations onboard new hires for the duration of their first year — their most vulnerable period — and focus on three key dimensions: the organizational, the technical and the social.” Carucci says this methodology offers a more integrated approach that empowers employees to “stay and to thrive” at a company.
What’s more, experts say that 69% of employees are more likely to stay with a company for three years if they have a positive onboarding experience. When you consider that 20% of staff turnover typically occurs within the first 45 days of a new hire’s employment, you’d better make sure your onboarding raises the bar…especially right now.
The shift in employee expectations
With the unmistakable shift in employee expectations created by the pandemic, employee loyalty can no longer be assumed. The days of lifelong employees became history after the “new normal” began. Now, employers only get a limited window of opportunity to be genuinely authentic, intentional and empathetic with new employees. This abbreviated timeframe must start with unforgettable onboarding.
Ultimately, onboarding is the critical time that will make or break your new hire’s long-term success and your retention statistics. And if you’re doing a poor job of meeting the needs of your employees, it’s likely they won’t stick around and wait for you to get it right.
Of course, there are variances across specific groups of employees or generations. Millennials, for example, are known for “job hopping” like it’s a popular, new trend. And while baby boomers would like to stay put for the breadth of their career, this segment’s tendencies have also shifted given the dynamic of today’s working world. In short, all employees – regardless of age, experience or industry – are at risk to walk out the door at any time. Are you prepared?
The challenge is really, really real.
How real? Forbes cautions businesses across industries to prepare themselves for the great 2021 Covid job churn. They contend the US should expect a substantial employee attrition increase within industries across the nation as a direct result of the pandemic.
Click’s Chief Product Officer Pete Olson says that rather than look by department, more closely assess your organization’s key performers. “When you look at employee retention across your organization, the key performers are the superstars and the rockstars that are the sum total and engine of your company’s growth,” Olson stated. “We must collectively provide a superior employee experience for this group.”
When you look at employee retention across the organization, you’re going to think in sum totals. In particular, we see an emphasis on the highest value workers within the company. Oftentimes, those are knowledge workers or more specifically sprinkled throughout. They represent the heart and soul of the business.
If you want results with a competitive differentiation in today’s business and a leap forward in the competition, Olson strongly recommends the following:
- Provide a superior experience for this high-performing group and a path forward.
- Offer them new opportunities, bigger projects, special assignments – whatever it takes to get them excited and keep their eye on the prize.
- Turn them into brand advocates, referral sources and brand ambassadors.
Think about it: everyone, everywhere was affected by this global event. Between social distancing, lockdowns, social injustice and political unrest, people were impacted and continue to be impacted by far more than we could have ever anticipated. In addition, the ripple effects from COVID-19 continue to underscore the urgent need for better onboarding, especially now in an increasingly remote world.
It’s why Click Boarding recommends you start onboarding and actively retaining your new hires long before their first day. This includes preboarding tactics tied to digitizing new hire paperwork as well as strategic, cadenced engagement efforts. Once officially on board, provide the best first day ever, and carry that forward long after Day 1. Invest your efforts and resources into maintaining the continuity of your onboarding program throughout their tenure at your organization. Most importantly: to win the war on talent, the onboarding process never really stops.
Gallup estimates nearly 85% of employees worldwide are still not engaged or are actively disengaged at work, post-pandemic, despite more effort from companies. With more than 60% of the workforce transitioned to remote work last year and new hybrid remote solutions evolving, now is the time to put the power of employee engagement surveys at your fingertips.
According to SHRM.org, an organization’s responsiveness to employee feedback can have a significant impact on the employee experience, including:
- Higher retention rates
- Lower absenteeism
- Increased productivity
- Improved customer service
- Higher employee morale
Maximizing the employee journey experience: employee surveys
To further improve the onboarding process, Click engineered a tool that leverages your new hire onboarding while creating better employee engagement and increasing employee retention. We’re proud and excited to announce ClickEngage(sm), a comprehensive set of science-backed employee engagement surveys to complement Click’s onboarding platform!
ClickEngage: the intersection of better onboarding & higher retention
As Click’s employee experience experts always say: create a best-in-class workplace, and you’ll enjoy the intrinsic benefits of a positive employee experience. ClickEngage surveys easily allow you to build a baseline for ongoing employee engagement, delivering employee surveys at post-start date intervals to:
- Automatically sync your existing candidates into the survey app;
- Put the power of science and data behind modern survey experiences to capture and glean insights, building a baseline; and
- Analyze and evaluate your results for insights, benchmarks and the continual improvement of your onboarding process.
You’ve invested countless hours of time recruiting, interviewing and hiring great talent to join your company. But do you know what they really thought of the recruitment process, their first few days, or better yet, your onboarding program as a whole? Onboarding doesn’t end on Day 1, so why should your employee feedback? Reaffirm the new hire “yes” with ClickEngage.
The need to retain is the name of the game
When you’re ready to maximize your new hire investment, contact us to learn how our exclusive ClickEngage employee surveys can move your organization forward…in 2021 and beyond!
The Business Transformation Network has shared this article in partnership with Click Boarding.
