How employee onboarding is evolving

Successful employee onboarding is good for business. See what’s changing in how you can onboard new staff.

Personal interaction is key to the employee onboarding process. But new technology and more employees working remotely is creating a new era of virtual onboarding. Here’s how to make sure your organisation is keeping up.

Why employee onboarding matters

Onboarding your new employees can be lengthy and costly.

Some estimates put the cost to business for onboarding a new team member at $150,000 – split across advertising, recruitment, training and lost productivity.¹

Poor onboarding can have a negative impact on your business. Figures show up to 20% of staff turnover occurs within the first 45 days of employment.²

But a positive onboarding experience can have a significant impact on employee productivity, retention and safety.

How onboarding well can help your business

Research shows that onboarding matters:³

• 69% of employees are more likely to stay with an organisation for three years if they experienced great onboarding.
• New employees who went through a structured onboarding program were 58% more likely to be with an organisation after three years.
• Organisations with a standard onboarding process experience 50% greater new hire productivity.

How employee onboarding is evolving

As well as onboarding basics like documentation, compliance training and technology, you might like to add these three steps to your onboarding process:

Accelerating learnings

Help new starters navigate your organisation's decision-making system. Connect new employees to people of influence within the business and share inside knowledge about how decisions get made.

Engaging with the big picture

Schedule an in-depth conversation about your new employee’s goals, their tasks and the role they play in achieving business outcomes. Clarifying work expectations, making sure you can get them what they need to do their work, explaining development opportunities and promoting positive co-worker relationships can all increase employee engagement.

Asking for feedback

You can evolve your onboarding process with insights from your new employee. Taking on feedback can also signal to new employees that your organisation aims to build a strong relationship with every individual, listen to its employees, and keep them engaged, motivated, and connected.

How artificial intelligence can be used in onboarding employees

One of the main ways that onboarding is changing is through automation and the application of artificial intelligence (AI).⁴

Automated onboarding tools can create a seamless, structured onboarding process. This is especially useful for small and medium businesses that require robust, compliant yet nimble processes.

AI could help you with:

• Facilitating the general onboarding process
  AI can give your new employees access to onboarding documents or helpful tools like an organisational knowledge graph that can help them find the right people for their questions.
• Creating an individualised onboarding experience
  AI applications can process large data and help you personalise the onboarding process. AI can help you adapt the onboarding process to the new employee’s skills, personalities, and preferences.
• Matchmaking profiles
  Use AI to match new employees to other employees through common interests. This can help newcomers establish social contacts. Creating a skill profile of your new employee can also help identify skill gaps and recommend suitable re-skilling or up-skilling courses and material for them.

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If you have any questions about the updates or super arrangements, please contact our Employer Solutions team

1 RMIT, 21 June 2023, Are your best people quitting in 2023? accessed 8 August 2023 at online.rmit.edu.au
2 Carucci, R, 3 December 2018, To Retain New Hires, Spend More Time Onboarding Them, Harvard Business Review at Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, accessed 8 August 2023 at dewr.gov.au
3 Society for Human Research Management, 19 January 2022, Onboarding at Startups – It Matters! Accessed 8 August 2023 at shrm.org
4 Ritz Eva, et al, Artificial Socialisation? How Artificial Intelligence Applications Can Shape A New Era of Employee Onboarding Practices, 2023, University of St Gallen, accessed 8 August 2023