All Aboard: Effective Onboarding Techniques and Strategies

All Aboard: Effective Onboarding
Techniques and Strategies
January 2008All Aboard: Effective Onboarding Techniques and Strategies Page 2
Executive Summary
The need to retain new hires and enable them to more quickly perform Research Benchmark productively in their new capacity and environment has organizations Aberdeen's Research looking beyond traditional new hire orientation programs and towards Benchmarks provide an in- formalized onboarding strategies. This report, a compilation of 794 survey depth and comprehensive look responses (primarily from human resources and line of business managers), into process, procedure, is a roadmap for organizations that desire to achieve superior performance methodologies, and through Best-in-Class use of onboarding with regards to strategy, technologies with best practice capabilities, and technology utilization. identification and actionable recommendations
Best-in-Class Performance Aberdeen used three key performance criteria to distinguish Best-in-Class companies. Their resulting metrics are:
· 100% improved retention rate of new hires · 60% reduced time-to-productivity for new hires · 57% increased completion rate for onboarding tasks / activities
Competitive Maturity Assessment Survey results show that the firms enjoying Best-in-Class performance "Onboarding of employees is a shared several common characteristics: strategic, deliberate business process to enable, facilitate, and · Best-in-Class organizations are 35% more likely than all other assure that each employee is organizations to provide a formal new hire training program as part successfully immersed into the of the onboarding process company culture, quality, and · Best-in-Class organizations are more than twice as likely as all other operational systems." organizations to clearly define the performance metrics assigned to ~ Director, Large, North their onboarding efforts American-based Medical Device Company· Best-in-Class organizations are 78% more likely than all other organizations to extend onboarding up to or beyond six months for senior-level executives and twice as likely to do so for regular, full- time employees
Required Actions In addition to the specific recommendations in Chapter Three of this report, to achieve Best-in-Class performance, companies must:
· Make "socialization" a primary component of onboarding · Begin the onboarding process before a new employee's first day on the job and extend it through the first six months of employment · Identify business issues that can be addressed by onboarding and put in place programs and measures to reinforce those business issues
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Table of Contents Executive Summary.......................................................................................................2 Best-in-Class Performance.....................................................................................2 Competitive Maturity Assessment.......................................................................2 Required Actions......................................................................................................2 Chapter One: Benchmarking the Best-in-Class.....................................................4 Business Context.....................................................................................................4 The Maturity Class Framework............................................................................5 The Best-in-Class PACE Model............................................................................5 Best-in-Class Strategies...........................................................................................6 Chapter Two: Benchmarking Requirements for Success....................................9 Competitive Assessment......................................................................................10 Capabilities and Enablers......................................................................................12 Chapter Three: Required Actions.........................................................................16 ** For All Organizations **..................................................................................16 Laggard Steps to Success....................... [download for more]