The onboarding process is an important part of any new hire’s orientation to a company. It can be crucial to the success of any new employee in their job. If done well, it can get a person off to a good start. If done poorly, it can lead to higher turnover. Here are some ways to evaluate your onboarding program to see how well it is working.
Is Your Onboarding and Training Actually Working?
1. Look at turnover
One way to tell how well your onboarding process is working is to look at the turnover rate of new hires, focusing on how many leave within the first year. Naturally, there are many different reasons why employees leave a company, but with new hires, onboarding plays a crucial role in a person’s retention. If the onboarding process does not clearly explain what is expected of the new employee, he or she may have problems from the start.
Without a comprehensive onboarding process, the new person won’t have the information needed to succeed in the job and may begin looking for something else in short order.
2. Compare new hires to other employees
Another way to gauge onboarding effectiveness is to compare the performance of a new person to more experienced employees and see how long it takes them to get up to speed. For most jobs, people should be up to speed within a month if the onboarding has been done well.
3. Test the new people
After a new person finishes the onboarding process, give him or her a short survey about what they learned, focusing on the day-to-day duties and responsibilities of the job. If the person does not have a good understanding of what these are, it is a sign that the onboarding process needs to be improved.
If a number of people have trouble answering a particular question, you know that it is an area to focus on to make changes.
4. Get the opinion of new hires
Find out what the new people think about the onboarding process. This is not a test to determine what they have learned, but rather, their opinion about the effectiveness of the process. Your questions should be simple and address exactly what you are trying to assess.
5. Get diverse opinions
In addition to getting the opinions of the new hires themselves, talk to the people the new employees work with also to see how well the new workers are acclimating to the demands of the job.
Are you looking for help as you hire?
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