Still on the fence about your new employee onboarding process? You shouldn’t be. Whether you haven’t created a formal onboarding process, haven’t looked at it for years or are getting mandates from senior leadership about changing the program, you need to act fast. The more time you spend without a good onboarding process, the less productive your company is and the more employees you lose. So if you need a reason to fix your onboarding, look no further than these five signs it’s time for a new employee onboarding process.

1. You Still Think Not Spending Money is a Good Idea
Allocating none of your budget to a new onboarding process may seem like a good idea to save money… but in the long run, the opposite is true. The 68% of companies which rely solely on on-the-job training to onboard new employees do save money in onboarding, but the outlying costs are much higher. The cost of hiring, training, and putting a new employee to work is around $11,000, it doesn’t seem like a money-saving endeavor so much as a way to ruin the investment you’ve already made in your employees.

2. Your Lack of Onboarding Leaves Employees Confused
Setting goals for the new employees (a staple in the onboarding process) is crucial to the success of the new team member; but unfortunately, 60% of companies indicate they don’t set internal milestones for their new hires. Placing employees into their new roles without any understanding of how their work fits into the company’s larger vision, you set them up for failure. Investing in a robust onboarding program prevents new hires from floundering under the pressures of expanding their roles into other parts of the business. A clearly defined career path, according to 83% of frontline employees, supports employee longevity; a definition you provide during the onboarding process.

3. Your Onboarding is Getting Rusty
It’s not enough to simply spend on crafting a great onboarding process. Times change, and processes that were once state-of-the-art, clean and simple three years ago age. Updating your onboarding process is a constant endeavor, and you’re not alone in the sustained improvements: 71% of companies in a recent survey say they’re in the process of updating their onboarding. Take a look at your onboarding process every once and awhile. Better yet, go through it yourself. Notice any pain points? It’s probably time to address them.

4. Even Your Execs Notice the Problems With Your Onboarding
You know the old stereotypes about executives: they’re out of touch. Although they might sit in the corner office, they have a good understanding of how the onboarding process affects the recruitment strategy and their business outputs. Fewer than one-third of executives like their company onboarding; so if they say your onboarding needs to be reassessed, it probably does.

5. Your Hires Are Leaving
They’ve been through the onboarding process (either the scanty one you have in place or the simple employee handbook you gave them) and despite what you thought was a good fit, they continue to leave the company. Before you call a meeting to address this important issue, make sure you take a look at your new employee onboarding program. Getting a new hire up to speed means a short-term sacrifice in productivity.

What causes new hires to leave? According to a recent survey, 53% of workers who quit their job within the first six months mentioned “review and feedback of early contributions” as one of the main reasons they left. So if your new hires seem excited for the job initially then quickly fall off, you may want to look into extending your onboarding program past the first week.

Did you drive past all these signs without any active changes to your onboarding? Get to it! With a brand new onboarding effort, you can shorten time-to-productivity, get more out of your hires, and prevent them from leaving. There’s never been a better time to take another look at your onboarding than right now.


Bio: Christine Marino

Christine is the Chief Revenue Officer of Click Boarding, LLC, a company that offers employee onboarding software and solutions. She is responsible for the sales, marketing and business development strategies. Leveraging her 18+ years of experience in the Human Capital Management space, Christine drives company growth through strategic partner relationships as well new customer acquisitions across the small to large enterprise markets.