It Can Take Eight Months Before New Starters Become Productive at Work

Employers must ensure their onboarding programs are more effective

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Employers are taking too long to get new joiners up to speed. While firms are desperate for new modern skills to deal with the challenges of a shifting business landscape, research shows that it can take between three to eight months for employees to become fully productive.¹

The new Questionmark report “Getting the Best on Board” explores the importance of a structured onboarding process to setting staff up for success. Team members that receive effective onboarding are 18 times more likely to feel committed to their organization.² Staff who have a negative onboarding experience are twice as likely to leave.³

Despite the importance of onboarding, the report notes five common challenges that make it difficult to achieve:

1. Diverse starting points – it is hard for a manager to get a clear read on a person’s previous experience and gaps in their knowledge.
   
   
2. Difficult to measure success – it might take several months for a manager to realize that a new joiner did not learn what they should have during the onboarding process.
   
   
3. Information overload – five to ten departments are often involved in a company’s onboarding process.⁴ Without structured and prioritized content, a new starter will likely be overwhelmed.
   
   
4. Time restraints – for a manager, taking time out for training and inducting a team member may not feel like a priority. But failing to make it one soon proves a false economy.
   
   
5. Remote onboarding – some 37% of respondents said they had experienced a significant problem with the remote onboarding process.⁵

John Kleeman, Founder of Questionmark, said: “Assessing the skills of workers before, during and after the onboarding process can give leaders the information they need to check it is working and unlock performance. Assessments show an individual’s starting point, enabling information and training to be tailored and prioritized. Tests during the process indicate whether the information and procedures are being understood. Tests later down the line show whether the information has stuck.”

Managers can use online assessments to check that new workers have understood crucial policies and procedures such as security and health and safety. With information from assessments, employers can make better decisions about a team member’s job readiness.

Read the full report: “Getting the Best on Board: using staff assessments to get new workers on board and up to speed as quickly as possible, with the modern skills to thrive”.

www.questionmark.com

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Notes to editors

About Questionmark

Questionmark unlocks performance through reliable and secure online assessments.

Questionmark provides a secure enterprise-grade assessment platform and professional services to leading organizations around the world, delivered with care and unequalled expertise. Its full-service online assessment tool and professional services help customers to improve their performance and meet their compliance requirements. Questionmark enables organizations to unlock their potential by delivering assessments which are valid, reliable, fair and defensible.

Questionmark offers secure powerful integration with other LMS, LRS and proctoring services making it easy to bring everything together in one place. Questionmark's cloud-based assessment management platform offers rapid deployment, scalability for high-volume test delivery, 24/7 support, and the peace-of-mind of secure, audited U.S., Australian and European-based data centers.

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¹ A range of sources indicate a long period of time that it takes to get new starters working at their most productive. Here are two examples: https://hronboard.me/blog/5-ways-to-fast-track-productivity-in-new-starters/
https://www.intuition.com/how-to-maintain-momentum-for-onboarding-programs/
² https://www.bamboohr.com/resources/infographics/the-incredible-impact-of-effective-onboarding/
³ https://digitate.com/blog/automation-and-ai-superheroes-in-disguise/
⁴ https://typelane.com/6-reasons-employee-onboarding-is-broken/
⁵ https://www.clickboarding.com/impact-of-covid-on-employee-onboarding/