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Losing a great employee is one of the toughest things a business can experience. The performance of an entire department or function may rise (and fall) with that employee’s knowledge and expertise. Besides, you work hard to source the right candidates for roles, and hiring new employees is expensive and time-consuming.
The competition for talent is fiercer than ever, which is why it’s no surprise that Google searches for “employee retention” rose exponentially post-COVID-19. It seems that all employers are looking for new and creative retention strategies. In doing so, they’re served well to go back to the very beginning of their employees’ tenure: your business' onboarding program.
In this post, we’ll explore how the onboarding program serves as an effective and creative retention tool—so that your hires can start adding value to your company sooner and staying with you longer.
As opposed to orientation, onboarding is a much longer-term process, and not every step of it must be structured. A comprehensive onboarding process allows for immersive interaction between an employee, their colleagues and their supervisors.
During this period, managers will come to understand their learning styles, goals, and skill sets. You can think of onboarding as the responsive, feedback-filled push-and-pull that occurs as an employee learns what is expected of them and how they can meet those expectations.
While orientation may carry the reputation of a planned “welcome week,” onboarding is a slow ramp-up and encompasses background processes of learning and socialization that can take up to a year to finalize. When an employee completes orientation, they’ll know the basics of how to exist in the company and where to turn for help. When an employee completes onboarding, they’ve proven they understand their role and how to succeed in it.
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According to the research and advisory firm Brandon Hall Group:
“Organizations with a strong onboarding process improve new hire retention by 82% and productivity by over 70%. Companies with weak onboarding programs lose the confidence of their candidates and are more likely to lose these individuals in the first year.”
This data, collected as part of the group’s Talent Acquisition study, shows a clear link between onboarding and retention. The psychology behind the link, however, may be more nuanced. Several factors come into play in the relationship between comprehensive onboarding programs and retention, which should be kept in mind when designing or revamping your procedures:
Comprehensive onboarding allows employees the ability to figure out how they best fit into your organization, align with its values, and identify with its culture. Forbes recently reported on a workplace study published in the Journal of Personnel Psychology, which outlines how “employees who fit well with their organization, coworkers and supervisor had greater job satisfaction, were more likely to remain with their organization and showed superior job performance.”
If an employee doesn’t understand what’s expected of them, they’ll not only struggle to identify and meet those goals, but they’ll also begin to feel frustrated with your company itself, leading to attrition.
Whether you’re aware of it or not, you’re already onboarding your employees. If you don’t have defined strategies, your employees are likely learning on the fly. Take control of your onboarding processes with the following retention-minded tips:
This connection may become the person the employee can turn to for help down the road, helping them sort through career issues that may otherwise steer them in the direction of another employer.
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At Axcet HR Solutions, we serve small businesses and lean organizations that are focused on growing and scaling their core business. Axcet is a full-service, certified professional employer organization (PEO) that develops comprehensive onboarding processes unique to your company, including customized leadership and development coaching, interpersonal skills training and more.
For all things employee relations, recruitment, retention, compliance, and more, the human resources experts at Axcet HR Solutions have you covered. Onboarding and orientation are just the beginning of what we can help with at Axcet. To find out how we can help your small business, reach out to our experts today.
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