Most managers think employee onboarding is about making sure new hires have completed their paperwork, but when done properly, onboarding benefits the businesses as a whole.
This infographic breaks down the four main benefits of a strong onboarding program:
- Increased Retention
- More Productive Employees
- Better Revenue
- Happier Customers
The Link Between Onboarding and Employee Retention
The most obvious benefit to a successful onboarding program is increased retention. Employees that are happy and well adjusted in their jobs are more likely to stay with their employer. Companies with an engaging onboarding program retained 91% of their first-year workers.
Improving your employee retention saves time and money but not having to search for a replacement. Companies spend weeks and thousands of dollars just trying to fill one position. HR experts estimate the organization costs of replacing an employee are one to three times the employee’s annual salary.
The solution is to make sure employees feel confident and comfortable in their jobs from Day 1 instead of just hoping things will work out.
Onboarding Improves Productivity
Not only does onboarding make employees more likely to stay, it also makes them better at their jobs. Employees who go through an onboarding program are nearly 2X as productive, according to research published by Glassdoor.
Onboarding eliminates confusion and confusion can kill your team’s productivity and your bottom line. Businesses in the United States and United Kingdom lose an estimated $37 billion each year from employees not understanding their jobs.
One of the main goals of an onboarding program is for employees to gain role clarity. Employees need to know both what is expected of them and how to use the company’s systems and technologies to meet those expectations.
Employees can’t be productive if they don’t know what to do or how to use your enterprise software. Onboarding makes sure employees have both the institutional knowledge and technical training to be successful.
Driving Revenue and Boosting Customer Satisfaction
The final two benefits of employee onboarding might be the biggest selling point – onboarding boosts both revenue and customer satisfaction. Research from the Aberdeen Group shows that great onboarding can lead to 60% year-over-year improvement in revenue and a 63% year-over-year in customer satisfaction.
An engaged and productive workforce will create better results. Onboarding equips employees to be better at their jobs. Happier and more confident employees lead to happier customers and better revenue. The process starts with your onboarding process. If onboarding at your company only consists of sitting with an HR manager for 30 minutes, you’ll need to consider in building out a full onboarding program.
Seeing the Benefits of Employee Onboarding
Realizing the benefits of an employee onboarding program will require investing time, staff and money to building an onboarding program. Onboarding is not just an HR activity. Department-level supervisors and managers should be involved in developing and executing your onboarding strategy. For more help in developing an onboarding strategy check out this resource – What Employees Want Out of Onboarding
