Page 33 - Successful Onboarding

22 • Successful Onboarding

this new value can be realized in the course of Year One and will continue
to develop well into the future as employees come to excel in their jobs.
Overall, new hires become more productive more quickly, and they oper-
ate at that higher level as part of the new steady state. This, combined with
the gains attributable to lower attrition and better attrition mix, yields what
we term the Onboarding Margin. TM

Onboarding Objectives and Business Results

This exercise has hopefully provided you a rough sense of how much value
more effective onboarding can unlock. To explore further how onboard-
ing can add value for particular enterprises, let’s consider the many spe-
cific performance improvements and business results individual managers
can hope to accomplish with a strategic program in place.
To the extent that most leaders today think about enhancing new hire
onboarding, they usually have at least the following business result in
mind: Decreasing the time and money devoted to serving new hires.
Companies do spend a fair amount of direct spend on onboarding (in
addition to indirect spend, which includes all the costs associated with
unproductive new hires), much of it wasted because of their insufficiently
organized and poorly designed efforts. An effective onboarding program
can address this basic requirement and help cut waste in a number of
ways. For instance, many companies have employees fill out paper-based
forms, which in turn means the company needs extensive administrative
departments to collect, organize, and collate the data. By standardizing
and having employees read and complete forms online before their start
dates, you can drive cost savings and compliance while also creating a
potentially more interesting first day (as time is freed up to tackle far more
engaging experiences). New hire training programs offer another exam-
ple. Currently, many programs are unable to address new hires’ needs in
a number of areas. Lacking standardized information, hiring managers
are left to improvise their own solutions to integrate the new hire. A more
effective onboarding program avoids the duplication of efforts, saving time
and money and avoiding needless frustration for the new hire and his or
her manager.