“Do I belong here?”
It’s the question everyone asks themselves as they start a new job. And today, organizations are seeing rising rates of first-year resignations because their new employees can’t answer that question with an enthusiastic, “Yes!”
It’s no surprise that effective onboarding strategies have become front-and-center in retention efforts. A recent article in HR Morning, “Why the Best Onboarding Happens Outside the Conference Room,” highlights that approximately 20 percent of new hires quit in the first 45 days. For managers and current staff, that early turnover is frustrating, disruptive – and extremely expensive. Unfortunately, these statistics shouldn’t be a surprise when only 12 percent of employees think their company does a good job of welcoming new team members.
The good news is that when we get onboarding right, the benefits are huge. Studies show that a good onboarding process can boost retention by 82% and increase productivity by over 70%.
Given the insightful statistics above, it’s time to rethink onboarding and what makes it effective. Here are four myths that are potentially holding us back.
Myth 1: New employee orientation is the most important event during an employee’s first few weeks.
For years, we’ve seen organizations struggle with the perfect format, content, and timeframe for new employee orientation. Is the session too long – or too short? Is content too detailed or too basic to be meaningful? Are we answering the questions new hires care about most?
But is all this time, effort, and hand-wringing focused in the right place? New employee orientation can and should play an important role in giving employees a strong introduction to the company, its history, and its purpose. But often, too much detailed information feels overwhelming, disconnected, and even counterproductive to the goal of helping the new employee feel like they belong.
Myth 2: Human Resources carries the bulk of the responsibility for effective onboarding and helping new team members feel welcome.
Yes, HR plays an important part in choreographing an overall effective strategy and approach to onboarding. But their role is in many ways akin to a stage production director that the audience never sees. The stars in the onboarding play are the new hire’s colleagues and leaders in their department. Like a great director, HR professionals help operational leaders know what to do, how to do it, and where to prioritize their efforts to make onboarding effective.
Myth 3: Managers are the primary influencers of a new hire’s experience in the organization.
Sure, an employee’s direct supervisor plays a key role in their onboarding experience. But their peers in the department and in other departments they may interact with arguably have an even more significant impact on their initial perceptions of the work environment. Onboarding is a team sport, and all players need to understand how critical their welcome, attitudes toward, and support for new colleagues can be in the entire team’s success.
Myth 4: Providing new hires with all the critical information they need right away ensures onboarding success.
Yes, new members of the team need training and specific information regarding their job, employee benefits, and other policies and procedures. But in addition to that information, they need a clear understanding of where they can ask clarifying questions about that information. New employees often feel reluctant to ask questions because of two basic fears:
- Fear of looking stupid and being judged; and/or
- Fear of bothering their colleagues who are busy with their own work.
Creating an atmosphere of openness to questions and concerns not only makes a new colleague feel welcome. It also can help prevent costly, harmful mistakes that hurt the entire team.
Assessing the onboarding process through the eyes and experience of its primary “customers” – new employees to the organization – can help uncover new ideas and fresh approaches that truly help new team members feel welcome. In our next blog post, we share ideas on how to overcome the myths above to make onboarding more effective success for new hires and their colleagues.