How Culture Affects Onboarding

By Michael Rosenberg

I read on the Internet that 80 percent of all new employees decide within the first six months if they are going to stay with their current employers or begin looking for “new opportunities.” Whether this figure is the result of research or not (or simply overblown), it does point out the importance of quickly incorporating new hires into the workplace. Onboarding, or the formalized process of incorporating talent into the organization, is the hot topic right now in human resources. From a strategic view, it makes a lot of sense. You go through a long, formalized hiring process that takes months (far too long in my opinion—but that’s the subject of another column). You have hired the people whom you think are the best fit for the organization. It only makes sense to ensure that you can fit them into the organization and “ramp them up” as quickly as possible. We also know the other reasons why onboarding them into the organization is important—they become quickly become engaged and productive and the time for return on investment in those employees is greatly enhanced. Hey, you hired them for a reason!