Devlin Peck
Are you looking for the top employee onboarding statistics?
Employee onboarding is key for hiring successfully. After all, employee training starts before an employee has their first day at your company.
And here, you’ll get answers to questions like:
Ready? Let’s dive in.
(Gallup)
Did you know only 12% of new hires surveyed said their organization had a good onboarding process? That presents a huge opportunity considering employees who undergo effective onboarding are 2.6x more likely to be satisfied in their workplace. Just 29% of new employees reported that they feel fully ready and supported to excel in their new role. Extraordinary onboarding initiatives resulted in employees saying they have ‘the best job.’
(SHRM)
Providing new employees with interactive sessions, the right information, ample mentorship, and meaningful gifts improves the overall onboarding experience. A positive first few weeks at a firm wins employees’ confidence and increases their level of satisfaction. Around 69% of the employees with an exceptional onboarding experience are likely to stay with the firm for at least 3 years from the date of their joining.
(Karolinska Institute)
Employers offering active and effective onboarding journeys witness revenue growth of 2.5 times and profit growth of 1.5 times. This is in comparison to peers with reportedly less effective employee onboarding framework. Better economically performing companies regard employee onboarding as one of their 6 top HR practices.
(SHRM)
A strong onboarding framework improves metrics across the board. Employee retention rate is boosted by 52% and employee productivity increases 60%. In the long term, overall satisfaction also improves by 53%. Other outcomes include job satisfaction, lower turnover, lower stress, better performance, and organizational commitment. To back that up, an updated onboarding process at Texas Instruments had new employees fully productive 2 months faster than the employees who went through their traditional onboarding process.
(BambooHR)
Onboarding helps new hires feel a whopping 18x more committed to their new employer. This is compared to employees who felt their onboarding was less effective. Furthermore, 89% say that an effective onboarding experience made them feel ‘very engaged’ at work. These same employees are 30x more likely to feel overall job satisfaction.
(Leena AI)
For an average small to medium business, onboarding costs range from $600-1,800 per employee. Whereas large-sized organizations spend over $3,000 per employee during their onboarding. This makes the average onboarding cost per employee approximately $1,830. The average onboarding cost per employee varies by firm size, sector, requirements, and regulations.
(SHRM, bambooHR)
Hiring a new employee costs a lot of money and time. According to SHRM, it costs around $4,425 to hire a new employee, much higher than the previous average. Additionally, it takes on average 36 days to fill a given vacancy or opening within a firm.
(Center for American Progress)
How much does it cost to replace an employee? Approximately 21% of their annual salary. Analyzing 27 different case studies found that the median cost of turnover was about one-fifth of the position’s annual salary. Workers making less than $50,000 per year account for three-quarters of all new hires in the United States.
(bambooHR)
In the process of recruitment and onboarding, two types of major costs come into play – hard costs and soft costs. Hard costs involve job board fees, background checks, the new hire’s training, and so on. Whereas soft costs majorly include lost productivity. Of the total hiring and onboarding costs, hard costs account for ~40% of the total costs and soft costs account for ~60% of the total costs.
What are the 4 C’s of employee onboarding? Compliance, Clarification, Culture, and Connection.
Compliance generally involves making sure that the new hire is legally fit to represent the employer and meets all the pre-boarding requirements.
Clarification determines if new hires are clearly aware of their roles and responsibilities at the firm and are ready to deliver what is exactly expected of them.
Culture is the stage of onboarding where new hires are made aware of the company’s policies around work style, vision and mission, and office environment. Diverse perspectives from mentors, managers, and colleagues helps understand the culture of the firm.
The Connection component of onboarding strengthens the employee’s belongingness to the place. New hires are given opportunities to build their network and make new friends at the workplace.
The 4 C’s framework has become popular in recent years. It is designed to improve new employee processes and all four C’s are critical to fully integrating people into organizations. Now, let’s share some stats about them!
(bambooHR)
Setting clear expectations is very important. Expectations include things like roles and responsibilities, goals, and regular check-ins. Over 80% of employees who express clarification during onboarding hold their organization in high regard.
(Gallup)
During a strong employee onboarding process, new hires start to feel connected to the firm. Building connections can happen in any form including making friends at work or aligning with the vision of the firm. 44% of employees who report having a best friend at work would recommend their workplace to others. Having friends at the workplace helps in building a strong connection with the workforce at the firm.
(Leena AI)
Poor onboarding practices include abandoning candidates after their offer is accepted, delays in onboarding, unorganized or unstructured onboarding process, no feedback, information overload, and more. The inefficiencies negatively impact the overall culture and compliance of the firm, resulting in lower attrition. Large organizations with poor employee onboarding practices face an over 16% attrition rate within the first 6 months of joining.
(Gallup, bambooHR)
Relations between a manager and employee are highly important at every stage of the employee’s journey. A study from Gallup found that employees consider their onboarding experience to be 3.5 times better if their manager is actively involved in the process. Meanwhile, one-third, or 33%, of newly joined employees wished their supervisor or manager would have guided them through their onboarding journey.
(Harvard Business Review)
It may be alarming to learn that 20% of employees quit within the first 45 days of employment. A negative or unsatisfactory onboarding process can fail to build the confidence in employees. This may result in high employee turnover. It can be mitigated with the implementation of strong onboarding standards and frameworks.
(bambooHR)
Along with frequent interactions from managers, fresh employees also want an ‘onboarding buddy.’ This is a stand-in friend to make their onboarding process more enjoyable and seamless. Approximately 56% of new hires said an onboarding buddy or mentor helps tremendously. Why? A buddy is someone to consult with to clear up simple doubts or queries which might make a new hire feel embarrassed to ask a higher-up.
(bambooHR )
New hires want to feel like they belong to the firm. This can be achieved with clearer knowledge about their new role and responsibilities. In a survey by bambooHR, 23% of employees quit their jobs because they did not have clear guidelines about their responsibilities. In short, they were expected of things that were not clearly communicated. Another 21% expect more effective training and 17% reported a friendly environment could make them stay in their current workplace without the thought of quitting.
(Harvard Business Reviews)
Along with a positive onboarding experience, new employees should also be provided with short-term milestones and goals to attain. 60% of the companies do not have any frameworks around milestones and goals for the newly joined workforce. Best practices recommend check-in programs scheduled for new hires 30, 45, and 60 days from the date of joining. These help monitor the employee’s experience and satisfaction at work.
18. New hire onboard programs cost enterprise companies millions of dollars due to lost productivity
(Digitate)
Along with the direct costs, there is a huge loss of productivity during onboarding periods. These losses in new employee productivity cost millions of dollars to the employers. For instance, a 5-day new hire onboard program is equivalent to new employee revenue productivity losses of $35 million to Salesforce. The same costs Amazon $678 million in 2 years.
19. 1 in 10 employees quit because of a poor onboarding journey
(HRD America, Paychex)
Around 9% of newly joined employees reported leaving their company due to a poor onboarding experience. Why? Onboarding is a new hire’s first impression of a company. A bad experience instills serious doubts of whether this role or company culture is right for them. And a whopping 52% feel untrained after their onboarding experience. Remote workers (63%) and employees of small businesses (66%) suffer the most.
20. 53% of organizations have an onboarding program of less than 7 days
(CEOWORLD Magazine)
Nearly all, 98%, of CEOs and hiring managers say that onboarding programs are a key factor in their retention efforts. However, only 69% have a formal onboarding program for employees across the company and 53% have an onboarding of less than 7 days. These programs don’t last long enough to have any meaningful impact.
(Digitate)
For most companies, employee onboarding is a time-consuming process. However, most of the involved processes are manual and depend on human interactions. These processes can be automated with the help of automation and AI-based technologies. Companies have realized a savings of 5 days through automation of new hire onboarding tasks and processes.
22. 56% think onboarding process automation will increase employees’ productivity
(Leena AI)
In a survey by Leena AI, more than half of survey respondents agreed that automation of the onboarding process would increase overall employees’ productivity. 50% reported that it will help increase employee engagement and 48% shared that it will increase the speed of onboarding programs. Meanwhile, 42% of respondents reported that complex tasks will be made easier by AI in the future.
23. eSignature software can save up to 40 hours per month for a company of 100 employees
(bambooHR)
A major component of employee onboarding is mundane paperwork and a collection of information about the new hire. It is also one of the most dry and boring parts of the onboarding process, and the future is making it faster! With the deployment of e-signature software, a company with 100 employees can save up to 40 hours every month.
24. 5 out of 10 organizations moved to online applications and virtual onboarding post-covid
(Leena AI)
After the COVID-19 pandemic, HR professionals had to adapt to new ways of hiring and onboarding. In-person sessions have been shifted to virtual environments. 54% of companies have opted for virtual onboarding and 59% have shifted to online applications framework. At the same time, traditional ways of recruiting and onboarding have been shifted to a virtual mode, too.
25. 92% of HR professional are familiar with using AI during the onboarding process
(Leena AI)
The future of onboarding, like many other industries, is all about AI. 92% of HR professionals are already familiar with AI during the onboarding process, and 87% are ‘very committed’ to adopting AI for hiring and onboarding demands. 41% of survey respondents said they anticipate adopting an automated onboarding process within 6-12 months. Another 50% say that an improved onboarding experience is a leading factor to considering AI within the organization.
That's it! You just read 25 interesting employee onboarding statistics to understand the global state of the workplace. We covered the success rates of exceptional onboarding processes and expectations of employees from their onboarding journeys. Meanwhile, the negative statistics provide promising opportunities for organizations to improve their processes and employee satisfaction overall.
Read more:
Top Employee Training Statistics
Top eLearning Statistics and Facts
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