Does employee onboarding experience have anything to do with their retention? If you thought it didn’t, reports show otherwise. The majority of the recent research figures indicate that about 15 to 20% of employees are influenced by the onboarding experience regarding whether to stay or not. In other words, if the onboarding experience sucks, they are more likely to leave the organisation within the first 50 days of their employment.

This raises important questions: What are the major onboarding challenges, and how can organisations improve the onboarding experience? This blog explores these issues and, of course, the solutions, including the role of HR task management software in enhancing the process.

Let's examine the key challenges and solutions.

Top 5 Obstacles in Onboarding and How to Tackle Them

Information Overload:

One of the biggest headaches for new employees, as we have heard from many in our research, is getting overwhelmed with too much information all at once during onboarding. Think about it - your new hire walks in and suddenly they're drowning in company policies, training manuals, and endless introductions to people whose names they'll definitely forget by lunch.

Research shows this information avalanche can often leave new employees feeling too stressed and confused rather than confident in their new role. Who can blame them? It’s like biting off more than you can chew.

So, what can be done otherwise? Here is a simple fix. Instead of overwhelming new hires with a lot of tasks, break down them into smaller, digestible pieces across four to five days. It can even start from a few days before they join the organisation. Your HR task management software can better organize this process. It is very crucial to give your new employees time to actually digest and understand their role, rather than expecting them to memorise the entire company handbook on day one. That makes sense, right?

With digital task management tools, you can easily schedule training sessions, track progress, and ensure new employees get the right information at the right time. Plus, you can create custom onboarding checklists for different roles, making sure each new hire gets exactly what they need - no more, no less.

Lack of Uniformity:

The best way to know about an organization’s culture is to go through its onboarding process. If it is a bad one lacking uniformity, one should expect to have a similar experience throughout their journey there.

For instance, when a new hire joins a company's marketing department, they typically undergo two concurrent onboarding processes. The first is basic HR onboarding, which can be efficiently managed using free task management software. The second is department-specific onboarding for marketing.

Both processes need uniformity and should avoid repetition. If the department-specific onboarding process differs from HR onboarding, employees can find themselves confused. For example, when the marketing department's processes and expectations conflict with general HR protocols, it will leave new hires feeling disoriented.

Therefore, instead of letting this go this way, the HR team can employee data directly and add it to the system, and then share this information across various departments that the employee will be working with. This eliminates the need for employees to complete multiple redundant tasks.

Administrative burden:

When bringing new people on board, HR teams are often forced to deal with paperwork nightmare: collecting signatures, setting up computers, booking training sessions, and on and on! No wonder why HR folks often end up buried under mountains of tasks instead of actually helping new hires feel welcome.

Just think about how much time it is going to save you if you were not chasing people around for signatures or inquiring who has completed what kind of training. Certainly a lot right? With the best task management software that is designed to automate all this stuff, it's more or less like having a super-efficient personal assistant who never forgets a thing. The system automatically collects documents, sends reminders, and keeps every little detail.

This means your HR team can finally catch their breath and do what they are actually supposed to be doing - making new employees feel at home and helping them hit the ground running. Everyone is a winner when you take the administrative burden off the shoulders of HR personnel by letting them automate the process with the best task management software.

Lack of Engagement:

Engaging employees from their very first day is crucial for retention. However, most companies fail to ensure that there is a conducive environment for employee participation. Even with free online task manager software available, a lack of engagement can lead to new hires feeling disconnected from the company culture.

The numbers tell a shocking story about workplace engagement. A Gallup survey reveals that in the U.S., only one in three employees actually feel connected to and excited about their work. The global picture is even more troubling - just 15% of workers worldwide are truly engaged in their jobs.

To improve this situation, companies can consider implementing interactive onboarding practices using the best task management software to organize and track activities such as:

• Meet-and-greet sessions with team members
• Social events and team-building activities to promote bonding among staff
• Assigning mentors or buddies to new hires to provide necessary support as they begin their journey within the organization

Combining these engagement strategies with efficient task management software, creating a more structured and welcoming environment for new employees is quite possible.

Unclear Lines of Communication:

How fast your employees develop a good impression of the company and integrate with the teams depends on the line of communication you have in place. Effective communication is crucial during onboarding. Many new hires report feeling isolated or unsupported after their initial welcome. Poor communication can lead to misunderstandings about job expectations and hinder relationship-building within teams.

Regular meetings between managers and new hires can create an open line of communication. Such meetings should be centred on the concerns a new hire might have and feedback on the new hire's performance. Finally, building a mechanism for the general circulation of documents and action items can help ensure that information is in the right places.

Here too, HR task management software can play a very big role. It can serve as a single point of access for information, instructions, and updates for new hires. Hence, there is no need to fear important messages being lost in emails or missed altogether.

The Bottom Line

Just as you value your new hires and their contributions to your business's prosperity, keeping them happy, engaged, and motivated should be a key priority too. By understanding the challenges discussed here, identifying which ones currently affect your onboarding process, and taking adequate measures to address them promptly, you too can create an excellent onboarding experience and enjoy the many benefits it offers.

If you're struggling with your HR onboarding process, we have a proven solution. Our HR task management software comes with innovative features that not only make the process easier to handle but also improve your employees' impression of your business and their willingness to stay with your company long-term.

It is completely free task management software for you to try for up to a year. Contact us now for more details.