There has been an ongoing debate on an ideal duration for an impactful and effective employee onboarding program. As per various studies, very few companies emphasize their employee onboarding program. In such companies, the employee onboarding program lasts, at best, for all employees for a week. But things will have to change. Talent has become critical for organizations, and they must spend more time onboarding new employees to retain them. According to industry research, 20% of employees leave their employers within 45 days of joining due to a disappointed employee onboarding experience.
Taking inspiration from some of the leading companies, such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft, have a robust employee onboarding process that lasts longer. In progressive firms, the onboarding process lasts at least 90 days or three months. As per Apple’s employee onboarding structure, the direct managers are expected to play a significant role in assimilating the new employee for the first 90 days. On the other hand, Microsoft lays out a plan or structure for the first 30, 60, and 90 days of a new joiner. Moreover, as a standard procedure, Google sends a checklist to the direct manager of the newly joined employee, which mentions that the manager needs to do a regular check-in every month with the employee for the first six months.
What factors define how long your employee onboarding needs to be?
After evaluating best practices in employee onboarding, it is observed that three to six months is an ideal duration for any employee onboarding program. But these are just guidelines. The needs and requirements of every organization are different, and one size does not fit all employees. It is better to evaluate the needs of your employee onboarding processes and decide the ideal duration for the employee onboarding process. For instance, when onboarding a blue-collar employee in the factories, the onboarding process would be very different, and the duration would be different depending upon the skills required to carry out duties and responsibilities.
Similarly, the onboarding duration of a white-collar employee can be much longer, depending on the complexity of the role. Moreover, the onboarding duration of a CXO or a senior leader would be much longer than that of a regular employee. Different factors influence the time of an employee onboarding program.
1. The job role
The complexity and skills required to carry out the role will define how long it will take for the employee to be fully ready. For instance, in the information technology sector, companies hire freshers from tech colleges and train them for four to six months before putting them on an actual project or assignment. On the other hand, a regular management role will not require this much training and development before the employee hits the ground.
2. Seniority level
The seniority level also defines the onboarding duration. The hiring of senior leaders and CXOs is very complex. It requires collaboration and assimilation at various levels to onboard a senior leader. Multiple stakeholders get impacted by a CXO hiring, and the error margin is minimal in senior leadership hiring. At the same time, such complexities are not present in hiring a regular mid or entry-level employee.
3. Cultural complexity
A company like Apple thrives on innovation. Their uniqueness lies in the integrated process of their hardware, software, and operating system. Such a high level of integration requires collaboration. In such a culture, employees cannot work in isolation. This a cultural nuance that an employee coming from outside may take time to get used to. So, such cultural nuances and complexities may become significant in defining how long an employee takes to settle down in an organization.
Type of onboarding
Post the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies have shifted to a hybrid working mode. Some employees are working on a permanent remote basis. That is why when onboarding an employee in an entirely physical setup, the interaction is real-time, and communication is very convenient. But onboarding an employee remotely is much more challenging. You cannot do frequent check-ins with the new employee at will. In virtual onboarding, it is hard to understand the individual’s body language and gauge their emotions.
Infrastructure
The kind of infrastructure we use to deliver training content and the medium in which we share information about the culture and basic knowledge of the organization also defines the duration of the employee onboarding program. Some organizations have automated certain mundane processes as part of the onboarding processes, such as documentation and paperwork. Moreover, when we use digital mediums such as videos as content for training, employees also save time. Moreover, automating mundane processes saves time and allows HR to focus on other essential parts of onboarding an employee, such as cultural assimilation.
As a standard guideline, it is ideal to have an onboarding program that lasts three to six months. But we must not follow a more than one-size-fits-all approach. After evaluating the above factors, HR teams must develop personalized onboarding journeys for newly hired employees. As per the requirements of the employees, the demand of the roles and duties, and company needs, every employee will take their time to settle in a new organization.
