Bengalore, August 10, 2018 : Simplilearn, one of the world’s leading online training providers for digital economy skills, in partnership with People Matters, a global human resources (HR) media company dedicated to solving talent challenges, announced their release of a joint research study on ‘Trends & Best Practices in Onboarding’. The report provides insights into how Indian companies are approaching employee onboarding.
106 organizations participated in the survey and some of the key findings of the report include :
The Current State of Onboarding : Trends and Challenges
- 93 percent of companies have a formal onboarding process, 61 percent of which have different programs for fresher and lateral hires.
- The most sought after methods by companies to engage and assimilate new hires include: Orientation programs (70 percent), Impeccable Day 1 Experience events (80 percent) and engagement activities during pre-boarding such as technical skills training, and projects and mentoring sessions by leaders and managers (68 percent).
- Top challenges companies face in their onboarding programs include: Getting new hires accustomed (44 percent), getting managers involved (44 percent), and providing learning engagement activities (42 percent). However, only 27 percent of companies are satisfied with the outcomes of their current onboarding programs.
Use of Technology in the Onboarding Process
- The overall adoption of technology solutions in onboarding is yet to reach critical mass in India. A whopping 76 percent of the participating companies responded that they do not have a dedicated onboarding technology solution.
- The top areas where technologies are being leveraged in onboarding programs across organizations include orientation (57 percent), constant communication during pre-boarding (46 percent), first-day experiences (45 percent), goal setting and expectation management (44 percent), and training and assessments (36 percent).
- The top technical fields for upskilling new hires, according to the survey, are Big Data, AI & Machine Learning, Cloud Computing, Programming, Cyber Security, and Data Science and Business Intelligence.
How Can Organizations Improve Their Onboarding Practices?
- The study revealed that it takes 3-6 months to train campus hires and make them productive for the job. Hence, it is necessary for organizations to begin their onboarding right from the time the campus hire accepts the offer, i.e. pre-boarding.
- 44 percent of the companies said that they begin pre-boarding the new hires while they are still on campus.
- 58 percent of the participating companies confirmed having a planned engagement during pre-boarding. However, the pre-engagement activities primarily included communication and new hire documentation. It was also unusual to find that while Indian companies have expressed their discontent with the skilled talent available to perform jobs on new technologies, only a few of them (32 percent) are implementing skilling and training initiatives for new hires while they are still on campus.
Speaking on the findings of the report, Krishna Kumar, Founder and CEO at Simplilearn said, “Onboarding is the golden period for companies and new hires to get aligned. In this age of digital transformation where upskilling is a critical focus, it was surprising to observe that only 24 percent of the companies leverage technology in onboarding. Companies endeavor to save time and costs to get their new hires up to speed with the core technical skills required for the job. I believe there is a huge potential for companies to leverage technology to engage and offer training during onboarding which leads to employee productivity and clear business ROI.”
“Onboarding is often overlooked as a formality rather than a key strategy to ensure well-performing new employees become productive and culturally aligned in an organization,” said Ester Martinez, CEO and Editor-in-Chief at People Matters. “Onboarding offers a great opportunity to augment competitive advantage by creating a committed talent pool that gives the desired performance. It remains an untapped area of creating an impact to the bottom line.”
