Every employer wants new hires to hit the ground running. For many companies onboarding new employees can be a challenge and if that’s the case for you, you’re not alone.
With recent Australian research suggesting the typical onboarding process costs a business $150,000, it’s important to get it right.
And with previous research in the US concluding that up to 20% of staff turnover occurs within the first 45 days of employment, a standardised onboarding process is essential.
The same research also concluded that organisations with a standardised onboarding process experience 62% greater new hire productivity, along with 50% greater new hire retention.
According to Qualtrics research based on a survey of more than 2,000 workers in Australia, while 70% of HR leaders are focused on attracting and hiring talent, only 62% prioritise the onboarding of new employees to ensure they’re properly integrated into the company.
Resonating strongly with the mountain of reports that look into onboarding globally, Qualtrics research concludes that poor onboarding processes can lead to new hires feeling less engaged and less likely to stay with their employer.
Three drivers of ineffective onboarding
Based on his global survey of 1,100 CEOs and hiring managers, Brad Giles, owner of professional trainer Evolution Partners, claims there are three structural drivers of ineffective onboarding.
No clear ownership: Giles says onboarding tends to lack clear ownership within SMBs because it occurs relatively infrequently in these businesses. He says once the job has been filled there’s a tendency for SMBs to quickly leave the new employee behind.
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 onboarding was effective or not… and onboarding doesn’t contribute to a clear objective in the way other processes do,” says Giles.
Onboarding on the fly by time-poor managers: While busy managers charged with onboarding want to ‘get back to their normal job’ as soon as possible, Giles reminds them that their normal job will be more difficult if new hires don’t understand what’s expected of them.
Beam, part of the Australian Retirement Trust (ART) group, is doing its bit to optimise onboarding for both employers and their staff.
There’s a lot to successful onboarding and adding to what is already a complex process, a lot of new hires are now in hybrid roles, while remote workers also present employers with unique onboarding challenges.
Unsurprisingly, employers big and small are looking to automation to solve their onboarding hurdles and make meeting their employer obligations such as superannuation easier in the process.
Getting the right details from new team members, like their super fund choice and tax file number (TFN) declaration, is an important part of the overall onboarding experience, and this is where Beam’s Super Fund Onboarding (SFO) solution comes in.
Secure, trackable and compliant
SFO lets you as an employer create a simple, secure and trackable digital onboarding experience for your team, so you can better manage paying super and easily meet your employer super obligations.
SFO also allows employees to smoothly take control and choose their super fund when they’re onboarded. And by knowing which super fund a team member would like their super contributions paid into, employers can spend less time on admin or checking for stapled funds with the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).
By letting you get the correct details of your employees, their TFN declaration and super choice in one secure place, SFO removes the need to send and have endless paperwork. More importantly, by using SFO you’re able to keep accurate records of your employees' super decisions and TFN declarations readily at hand, so you can stay compliant.
Research links
https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2023/poor-onboarding-leads-to-less-engaged-workers.html
RMIT, 21 June 2023, Are your best people quitting in 2023? accessed 8 August 2023 at online.rmit.edu.au
Important information
Super Fund Onboarding (SFO) is powered by Beam. Beam is issued by Precision Administration Services Pty Ltd (Precision) (ABN 47 098 977 667, AFSL No. 246 604). Precision is wholly owned by Australian Retirement Trust Pty Ltd (ABN 88 010 720 840, AFSL No. 228 975) as trustee for Australian Retirement Trust (ABN 60 905 115 063).