Bringing New Hires Up to Speed: How Structured Onboarding Can Help

Facing rapidly changing markets and a challenging economy, organizations are under increasing pressure to improve performance while holding the line on costs. For knowledge-intensive organizations in particular, people make up a high proportion of these costs. In this briefing, author Katie O’Brien examines how organizations can make the most of their investment in people through the use of strategic onboarding. Onboarding is an extended process for transferring organizational, team, and role-specific knowledge to new employees. It reduces the time new hires take to become fully functional, increases productivity by improving employee engagement, and reduces new-hire turnover. Based on a literature search and interviews with HR practitioners, the briefing also describes how some leading Canadian organizations are implementing innovative practices and programs that are helping new employees launch their careers