How to Onboard for Retention in a Competitive Hiring Market

Published On: February 21, 2019

HR Insights: Labor & Industrial Insights – February 2019

by Lilith Christiansen

When employees aren’t happy at work, they aren’t productive. Happiness at work is about feeling engaged and fulfilled–being confident, challenged and comfortable. When an onboarding process at a company is strategic, flexible and user-driven employees are more engaged and thus stay longer, allowing a business to save money.

People are what matter even with digital disruption

Simplifying internal business processes always pays off. Whether that’s modernizing long-standing businesses or catapulting start-ups, automating your onboarding will protect the very thing you can’t survive without…your employees.

However, the answer is not to merely automate onboarding. Often, onboarding focuses on the transactional part of joining a new company but doesn’t provide guidance on the culture within the company – how to meet expectations, set realistic goals that align with the company mission, or how to grow and succeed within the organizational structure.

In fact, there is an automation paradox. Companies with higher levels of automation have much higher levels of unwanted turnover – nearly a third of highly automated organizations lose more than 50 percent of their new hires in the first year, and one out of 10 say goodbye to 75 percent of their employees in the first year. Regardless of whether technology and automation can truly replace humans in a company, neglecting employees in terms of true orientation and acculturation has a consistently negative impact.

These findings are part of a new report released today by SilkRoad in partnership with Forbes Insights, which surveyed 212 U.S. executives acting as the senior-most official in the finance function for their organization.