Dive Brief:
- Transmitting culture in the onboarding process is a key goal for organizations, but it's also a challenge, according to the findings in a new SilkRoad survey, The When, Why and How of Onboarding for Results. The survey's more than 900 respondents identified their organizations' onboarding procedures and results.
- Most organizations have designated onboarding processes for new hires and employees promoted internally, the study showed. Designed to shorten the time spent filling out paperwork and raise productivity, 46% of the respondents' organizations have a preboarding procedure, too. And more than half of the organizations have an offboarding process, in which 91% use exit interviews.
- SilkRoad's VP of onboarding solutions, Lilith Christiansen, said that strategic onboarding processes should provide early career support, immerse new hires in the organization's direction and the strategy for getting there, and allow them to master the culture. SilkRoad conducted the survey with the Human Capital Media Research and Advisory Group.
Dive Insight:
All organizations, regardless of industry or size, need a process for welcoming new hires and helping them get up to speed in their new roles. The onboarding process should set a tone of inclusion and provide ongoing support for new hires — and if it doesn't, it may be worth rethinking how new employees join the team.
New hires will always have stacks of papers to work through on their first days, and that was once the focus of new employee orientation. But by setting aside time upfront to read and fill out forms in the preboarding process, employers spend more time getting hires trained for their jobs, interacting with their team members and immersing them in the organization's culture. And in a tight labor market, in which retention is a top priority, employers can use data from offboarding processes to learn why employees, especially new hires, leave and what can employers do to keep future hires from bailing early on.
