Three reasons why almost every company does a terrible job onboarding new staff

Source: Unsplash/Shridhar Gupta.

Why is inadequate onboarding so common? In my global survey of 1100 CEOs and hiring managers, only 4% had an onboarding process of 90 days, while 83% had a new hire onboarding lasting less than 14 days. Furthermore, according to Gallup, only 12% of employees strongly agree that their organisation does a great job onboarding new staff. How is it that so few organisations do a great job of it? There are three structural reasons contributing to widespread ineffective onboarding. 

No clear ownership

Onboarding is a “once in a while” process without a clear owner.  You’re probably very clear about who is accountable for budget allocation at your organisation. You’re probably clear on who is accountable for ordering supplies and who pays the supplier invoices. And you’re clear about who is accountable for resolving computer issues. And by accountable, I mean if they consistently do an inadequate job, they will probably be invited to attend performance management. 

Depending on your organisation’s size, all those things could be full-time roles, and perhaps they are the full-time focus within those roles. In addition, there might be supporting tasks or processes that lead to completing those tasks, but they are in silos and sit within a specific department or process. Perhaps you even know who is accountable for hiring. Maybe it’s managers, Human Resources, or your People and Culture department. 

But hiring has a very clear outcome: to fill a role. If the position is filled, the job is done. People then move on and get back to work. Sure, it’s a part-time distraction from a person’s day-to-day role, but there is a clear success metric. Vacancy filled.  Let’s move on and get back to work. 

But onboarding is perhaps the only key process that needs to be performed by the entire organisation, which doesn’t have a clear owner. According to Allied Workforce, even before we consider clear ownership, management participates in onboarding programs at only 35% of companies.

No clear outcomes

Onboarding doesn’t have a clear outcome like “vacancy filled” does for hiring. Unless you’re the new hire, it’s very difficult to know whether an onboarding was effective or not. If someone does an inadequate job of onboarding, there’s likely no chance they will be disciplined or fired. In fact, it’s quite likely that no one has ever been fired for doing a bad job of onboarding. Onboarding doesn’t contribute to a clear objective in the way other processes do, where that objective might directly lead to more sales or faster project completion. 

Part-time usage by very busy managers

And onboarding is part-time. A busy manager might only perform an onboarding process once every three or six months. Without clear ownership and clear outcomes driving effort, busy managers will want to ‘get back to their normal job’ as soon as possible.

And yet their normal job will be more difficult if new hires don’t understand what’s expected of them. For example, 92% of my survey respondents agreed with the statement, “If recent hires who report to me understood my expectations within 90 days, my job would be easier“. You can give a professional football player the ball and the uniform, but they won’t know the coach’s expectations, the technical plays and the team’s cultural expectations in order to succeed in that team.

As challenging as it is, the new hire’s manager must own the onboarding process for a new hire. An onboarding process will fail if it is owned by HR or People and Culture. An HR or People and Culture department must support onboarding, but they can’t own onboarding. Equally, if onboarding is something that HR must harass or nag a manager to complete so they can complete their own form or checklist, it will fail. 

Only the new hire’s manager can confidently say whether a person is a successful or unsuccessful fit. And managers can gain that confidence by viewing the onboarding process as the last in a series of filters, starting with a group of candidates and ending with a successful fit 90 days after they are hired. 

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