Onboarding new hires is more than just paperwork and introductions—it’s a strategic investment in your company’s present and future. How can you tell how effective your onboarding process is, though, and why is it important? Effective onboarding isn’t just a nice to have—it’s a critical driver of employee retention, satisfaction, and productivity. Today, only 12% of employees feel their employer has a satisfactory onboarding process.
Join us as we dive into onboarding KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that will measure effectiveness and provide actionable insights to refine and elevate your onboarding strategy. From time-to-productivity to employee engagement scores, these metrics will help you create a welcome environment where new hires can thrive from day one.
Definition: The duration it takes for a new hire to meaningfully contribute.
Why it matters: Time-to-Productivity helps determine how quickly new employees can perform their duties independently and effectively. On average, an employee can take 8 months – 1 year to reach full productivity. A shorter time to productivity indicates a more efficient onboarding process.
How to measure: Track the start date and when the new hire achieves a pre-defined level of productivity, typically based on specific performance goals or milestones.
What you can do: Creating a tailored, yet standardized training environment for your new employees is a great way to ensure they learn organizational procedures both specific to their new roles, and universal across the company. Implement benchmarks to measure success of new hires, and get real-time feedback on if an employee needs to spend more time on specific segments.
Definition: The percentage of new hires who stay with the company for a specified period, such as 6 months or one year.
Why it matters: High retention rates suggest that onboarding successfully integrates new employees and meets their expectations, reducing turnover costs. Organizations with a strong onboarding process can increase retention by 82%.
How to measure: Compare the number of new hires still employed after the specified period to the total number of new hires during that time.
What you can do: Foster a welcoming environment where new employees feel safe to ask questions. Manufacture team building exercises to mesh both new and current employees together so they can learn while meeting their new co-workers.
Definition: The performance level of new employees compared to their peers and initial performance benchmarks.
Why it matters: Monitoring new hire performance helps evaluate the effectiveness of training and support provided during onboarding.
How to measure: Use performance reviews, manager assessments, and productivity metrics to compare new hire performance against established benchmarks.
What you can do: Make sure to create realistic goals to measure performance and take into account experience levels of new employees. Mix in varied levels of easy to hard goals, nothing is worst than new employees not hitting unrealistic expectations, or breezing by soft targets inflating performance indicators.
Definition: The level of engagement and satisfaction among new employees during and after the onboarding process.
Why it matters: Engaged employees are more likely to be productive, stay longer with your company, and contribute positively to the workplace culture. Companies with highly engaged employees are 21% more profitable and 17% more productive than those with disengaged employees.
How to measure: Conduct surveys and feedback sessions at various points during and after onboarding to gauge engagement levels. Key questions can focus on satisfaction with the onboarding process, clarity of job expectations, and overall morale.
What you can do: Similar to the employee retention rate, fostering a welcoming environment is key to ensuring productivity. Capturing survey answers is helpful in adjusting new hire policies, to ensure that your team engages in meaningful interactions with new employees.
Definition: The total cost associated with onboarding new employees, including training materials, time spent by HR and managers, and technology costs.
Why it matters: Understanding the cost helps budget and identify areas where efficiencies can be gained.
How to measure: Calculate all onboarding-related expenses, including direct costs (training materials, software) and indirect costs (time spent by HR staff and managers).
What you can do: Research technologies that can help consolidate hiring processes such as onboarding, document signing, and candidate engagement. Leveraging one platform can decrease costs and make your process more efficient.
Tracking the right onboarding KPIs can transform your process into a powerful tool for employee success. These metrics enable you to continually refine your strategy, ensuring that new hires are well-prepared and engaged from day one.
SmartSearch’s native, scalable, and configurable solution is designed to meet the unique needs of staffing professionals. Schedule a demo today and discover how SmartSearch can help you create exceptional onboarding experiences.
