Effective onboarding has been shown to have a hugely positive impact on new employees’ productivity, loyalty, and team integration. In fact, employees who have a good onboarding experience are 2.6 times more likely to be extremely satisfied with their jobs, while companies with well-structured onboarding programs achieve 82% better staff retention rates overall. So, with this in mind, why do only 12% of employees say their organization does a great job of onboarding?
The reality is that effective onboarding is a complex set of processes, requiring organizations to combine multiple personal, administrative, compliance-based, and regionally-specific tasks together in a seamless, well-structured manner. Getting it right is tricky and without the right tools and workflows in place, key pieces can start falling through the cracks, resulting in a fragmented experience that leaves new employees feeling confused and overwhelmed long after their official onboarding period is over.
We’ve identified four of the most common barriers to effective employee onboarding faced by businesses today, and how they can be overcome:
1. Not allocating enough time to back-end processes
One of the biggest reasons onboarding fails is because organizations rush the face-to-face aspect of the process with their new employees while simultaneously taking too long to onboard them on the back end. Recent research found that 43% of companies aim to complete new employee onboarding in just one day or less, while a further 26% limit it to one week. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, HR is struggling to manually organize key administrative tasks like IT equipment provision, email account creation, and IRS compliance paperwork in a timely manner. As a result, it’s no surprise that less than a third (29%) of new hires feel fully prepared to do their job after their onboarding is complete.
According to experts, the sweet spot for effective onboarding is 90 days, with check-ins extending throughout an employee’s first year. Alongside this, companies must ensure they have consistent and reliable back-end workflows in place that enable the completion of crucial administrative tasks both quickly and efficiently. Doing so not only rewards them with higher employee productivity levels from day one, but also significantly reduced staff turnover in the ensuing weeks and months.
2. Focusing on the wrong things
Starting a new job is always a nerve-wracking experience, so the last thing most new employees want on their first day is to be hit with a mountain of administrative tasks. Instead, they want to meet their managers, start building relationships with co-workers, and immerse themselves in the culture of their new company.
Unfortunately, research shows the majority (52%) of organizations still focus their onboarding programs on paperwork and compliance instead of delivering a welcoming day one experience. While the administrative side of onboarding is crucial, most of the tasks involved can (and should) be completed ahead of a new employees’ first day through pre-established automated workflows. Doing so not only means employees hit the ground running on day one, but HR teams can ensure their first day is one that builds their confidence up, rather than knocking it down.
3. A lack of structure
As an HR professional, you know the onboarding process is often a new hire’s first real experience with your organization — and a poorly structured process reflects poorly on your team and the organization as a whole. When onboarding is inconsistent or ad hoc, it signals that the organizations lack the clarity they need to help new employees hit the ground running. That ambiguity quickly translates into disengagement and early attrition … which then lands back on HR to manage.
A structured, automated onboarding process means every new hire moves through a defined, repeatable sequence: Documents generated and signed before day one, IT system access provisioned automatically, and each stakeholder — from the hiring manager to IT — knowing exactly what they’re responsible for and when. Otherwise, start dates come and go and important tasks fall through the cracks: Forms aren’t signed, IT hasn’t been looped in, and your new hire and their manager spend their first week chasing information.
With an employee onboarding solution that connects information and processes across systems, the onboarding process essentially runs itself. The moment a hire is confirmed, automated workflows trigger across your existing systems — routing documents, notifying stakeholders, and giving the new hire a clear, guided experience from day one.
4. Over-reliance on manual workflows
Many instances of poorly structured onboarding can be traced back to an over-reliance on manual workflows and spreadsheets throughout the process. Such approaches create fragmented information silos that are much harder to track and monitor effectively, often leading to key steps being missed or overlooked due to human error.
Automated workflows eliminate these issues, freeing up human resources team members to focus on better onboarding delivery instead of box-ticking. With Nintex, HR teams create fully customizable onboarding workflows that can be initiated at any time, with the click of a button. Once initiated, new employees automatically receive key information, can digitally sign/submit forms and contracts, hiring managers can request IT equipment, and even complete virtual inductions ahead of their first day, with everything tracked across systems and tasks. The result is a comprehensive end-to-end onboarding experience that leaves new employees feeling motivated, empowered and ready to get to work.
Effective onboarding plays an integral role in making employees feel welcome and valued from the moment they walk through your door, instilling loyalty and laying the groundwork for a successful long-term partnership. Getting it right isn’t always easy, but thanks to the growing number of fantastic onboarding solutions now available, companies and HR teams can overcome many of the key barriers to success and create seamless onboarding process that perfectly meet their needs.
Learn more about how to enhance the employee experience with Nintex
