Findings from a study into on boarding activities among European companies has found that 40 per cent of employees do not get the absolute minimum support required to start their new job. Moreover the same study has found it took 43 per cent of new employees more than a week to get basic workstation logistics and tools in place. The study comes from Prof Dr Dirk Buyens, Professor of Human Resources and Partner of Vlerick Business School (the triple-accredited, international business school at the heart of Europe) and his team. The research was carried out in collaboration with onboarding software provider Talmundo.
“What we found is that the state of onboarding is indeed still far from perfect,” says Professor Buyens. “All of the HR professionals who participated in the study were of the opinion that onboarding is incredibly important, and yet 34 per cent of employees have not witnessed such a program at their organisation at all.” Furthermore, the study confirmed that, if there are onboarding processes present within an organisation, they seem to be a result of assumptions made by HR that do not always correlate with the actual employee experience.
Knowing that the success of new hires starts before their first day and goes far beyond the first week on the job, it is therefore paramount for HR professionals to get their pre- and onboarding journey back on track. Additionally, there’s also the reported issue of a rushed onboarding process. 52 per cent of employees stated that their integration period was over after the first month on the job, despite the fact that 48 per cent of HR professionals understand the importance of continuing onboarding for at least the first three months in a new company.
It stands to reason that figuring out the discrepancies between the view of onboarding of HR professionals and new hires is only the first step in building a good onboarding process. “Companies need to listen to what their new hires need, implement helpful solutions, create opportunities for feedback and continue to improve their onboarding offering,” says Stijn De Groef, CEO of Talmundo.