Kevin Martin, in the Human Capital Management group at Aberdeen, details important factors contributing to best-in-class performance in employee onboarding:
In February 2010, Aberdeen’s research on Onboarding will uncover the organizational performance impact of designing and implementing an Onboarding strategy that starts with engagement and thrives on active collaboration from all relevant parties in all aspects of the business. Engaging the new hire early on ultimately leads to shorter time to productivity, better retention, and most importantly, a more engaged customer. This is enabled by supporting tools that automate basic processes like forms completion, benefits enrollment, and email reminders, leaving more time to be spent on the meat of the process – formal development, goals management, and stakeholder reviews. This is backed up by research that directly correlates engaging onboarding efforts with measurable gains in profitability and customer satisfaction.
In his report, Martin discusses his findings, including:
- Top internal challenges to overcome via onboarding
- Top external forces driving onboarding efforts
- Most important goals for onboarding
- Alignment impacts on engagement
- Onboarding and revenue/profitability
- Formal process and best-in-class organizations
- Importance of process maturity
- Strategies to optimize onboarding
- Technology adoption rates
The further I looked into these findings, the more I discovered successful onboarding is about the transfer of positive culture. Says Martin, “Engagement…is less about how happy the employee is (although that plays a big part) and more concerned with how committed they are to the goals of the business and how well they understand their role in impacting the business.” At it’s basest, this “understanding” indicator is reduction to propaganda; but at it’s best can be true empowerment of the newly-indoctrinated toward the just goals of the organization.
One case study contained in the report details the metrics impact of onboarding in a Fortune 50 sales organization: most specifically around quota attainment for reps systematically onboarded versus that of reps who were made to “find their own way.” I would imagine significant data worth tracking include that on process compliance, tools acceptance, breakeven point (or time-to-productivity), quarter-by-quarter performance, and ultimate average rep tenure.
Martin explains capabilities and enablers for onboarding success, from process/organization to knowledge management and technology perspectives, then provides a series of recommendations for interested organizations based on their current level of maturity in the onboarding context (from laggards to the best-in-class).
Highly-recommended reading.