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We often think of onboarding as a simple welcome process—perhaps a day or two of orientation, paperwork, and introductions. But in reality, effective onboarding is far more significant. It’s your organisation’s opportunity to introduce new starters to your company culture, clarify expectations, and lay the foundation for high performance, engagement, and retention.
In today’s working environment, businesses cannot afford to get onboarding wrong. The cost of hiring is high, competition for talent is fierce, and the first few weeks of a new hire’s journey can make or break their long-term commitment.
This blog explores onboarding best practice, its benefits, and the five essential types of onboarding that every organisation should deliver—drawing from expert insight, real-world examples, and research-backed evidence.
Why Is Onboarding So Important?
The data speaks volumes. According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the Harvard Business Review, up to a third of new employees leave their job within the first six months. This is especially worrying when we consider that many new hires take six to nine months to reach full productivity. The cost of replacing them? Equivalent to 6–9 months of the previous incumbent’s salary.
In short, ineffective onboarding results in:
In contrast, effective onboarding is linked to:
It’s clear: an effective onboarding strategy isn’t just a nice-to-have—done well it kick starts job satisfaction, provides a positive employee experience resulting in improved organisational performance and employee retention.
An effective onboarding process helps your new starters get to know the organisation, obtain clarity on their role and understand what’s required from them. A poor onboarding process (or lack of) results in confusion, takes longer for the employee to be productive and have a sense of belonging. Ultimately this results in lower engagement and potentially early attrition.
Evidence suggests that one-third of all new starters quit their new jobs within the first six months which is especially concerning when we consider that most new employees take over 6 months to get up to speed. In contrast, joiners who experience great onboarding are 69% more likely to stay with the organisation for 3 years or more. In addition, organisations with a standard onboarding process experience 50 percent greater productivity. When we consider how much we spend on recruitment, it should surely be a ‘no-brainer’ to support this with an effective onboarding process if we want a return on this investment. In a nutshell, an effective onboarding process can result in the following business benefits
Structured onboarding helps employees feel supported and connected, reducing turnover through early exits. This is especially vital when considering the cost and disruption of replacing staff.
Clear objectives, the right tools, and early guidance help new hires increase productivity and contribute sooner—cutting the time it takes to become fully effective.
When you successfully onboard new employees they understand your company culture and feel personally welcomed making them more likely to be motivated and committed.
Having early visibility of a new hire’s skills and aspirations supports better alignment, succession planning, and internal mobility.
Recruitment is expensive in time and money. Onboarding is where we start to see a return on that investment—so it’s vital to get it right.
It is really important to clarify your hiring process and ensure that line managers take ownership for their role in it. Some advocates suggest the use of software to lessen the load on HR managers providing clarity and transparency for all involved.
A more robust onboarding process can be achieved by using onboarding software for your new starters. This reduces manual intervention and human error, providing a more consistent experience for all new starters. Overall, it can shorten the time it would normally take to complete the employee onboarding lifecycle. It can also provide greater visibility around how new hires are being managed, whether they have short term objectives and relevant development. It can also be used to manage probationary reviews to signal the end of onboarding.
To increase new hire retention employee onboarding should ideally start from the recruitment phase and not wait for the first day. Some onboarding practices allow you to gather key facts about the new hire beforehand, allowing you to personalise their first day and maximise that sense of belonging. For example, if their favourite colour is blue and they like specific chocolate, you can put a blue balloon and chocolate on their desk (or send it to their home) to welcome them into your team from day one.
A good approach is to involve team members beforehand and notify them of the start date of their new colleague. Share out responsibilities for training, support and buddying the new team member so that it doesn’t all fall on one person and provides a variety of relationships. By coordinating ahead of time, you can ensure employees are ready to go right from day one. Think of all the little things that could potentially cause roadblocks; email, access and permissions to the relevant documentation, where to park, where to eat. If you are organised, this can cause great comfort for them, allowing them to push past the nerves and get started
An employee on their first day would be looking to avoid feeling overwhelmed. In order to remove their initial apprehension about feeling like an imposter in the role, it is important to break down the onboarding process into phases.
One potential reason why nearly one-third of new hires leave in the first six months could be a lack of clear communication of the responsibilities of the role. This can lead to the employee feeling “this is not what I signed up for”. Therefore, it is essential that a line manager sets out their expectations for entering the working environment and culture. It should be made clear to new hires what their objectives are for their first week, and then for the following months.
Crucially, it is also important to set the foundation for good employee relationships between directors, managers, and teams. This can be achieved through introductions, or something we like to do is to have each team member designate 30 minutes to have a sit-down with the new hire. This enables us to explain the team member’s current roles, where their skills lie and how they can help the new hire with any tasks they may have. This helps new employees to settle into their roles as well as fit into the overall company culture.
An employee on their first day would be looking to avoid feeling overwhelmed. In order to remove their initial apprehension about feeling like an imposter in the role, it is important to break down the onboarding process into phases.
The next two years of development should be all about the new hire communicating with the employer and finding out ways they can make a meaningful difference to the output of the company.
This would be a key phase for the Learning and Development (L&D) team within your company to engage with the new hire to find out about continual professional development courses that would be relevant to the new employee. This will boost engagement with the company, which will likely improve retention.
If you are from a smaller company without dedicated L&D, you can promote development in other ways. Perhaps through online courses from sites such as LinkedIn Learning, through advocating internal knowledge-sharing or by organising an external trainer. With cost constraints, it’s especially important to conduct a thorough training needs analysis before deciding on what staff development to invest in. It’s also important to think about what approaches would work for your organisation.
As mentioned above, particularly in a virtual world, there is no need to wait for day 1 for onboarding, in fact it makes sense to start to create that sense of belonging as early as possible to build candidate loyalty and make sure they actually show up on their first day! Some of the more ‘boring’ aspects of onboarding, or perhaps we should call them more formal and operational such as reading HR policies and the company handbook or essential compliance training can be completed before day one with the right technology.
A comprehensive onboarding experience should include the following five types:
Clear process documentation and company policies
It’s not just about training courses—it’s about ensuring people know who to go to, what to do, and how to do it.
A buddy scheme also allows new hires to ask those ‘silly questions’ without fear of judgement, smoothing their transition.
Sadly, research shows that most organisations are only delivering two out of five types of onboarding. Often the social and operational basics are in place, but the more strategic aspects—like performance or talent onboarding—are left to chance.
The opportunity? By delivering all five onboarding types as part of a structured, software-supported process, you can stand out from the competition and create lasting loyalty among your people.
During the onboarding process, communication is key. Many firms get the “social” part of the equation right, but maybe at the expense of also managing onboarding-related tasks successfully. Some organisations stop socialising after the obligatory new hire lunch on day one of employment. The call to action here is for employers to start thinking beyond the first week for chances for new employees to collaborate with others.
In conclusion, an effective onboarding process should form a key part of your recruitment and engagement strategy. Many organisations fail to do this, which provides those who do with an opportunity for competitive advantage. Communication of objectives, goals, and outcomes with timelines for achievement will provide clarity, speed to performance and additional motivation. It is also really important to create opportunities to build social relationships (particularly if working remotely) beyond just the first week. Those who feel they belong are going to contribute to their full potential for the long term.
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