The Key Challenges of Onboarding
The first 30 days of a new employee are crucial. The employee already has a positive impression of your organisation, given that 80% of candidates form their impression about a company based on the interview experience given by the company.
However, many businesses fail to capitalise on this, with only around 12% of employees finding that their organization did a good job of onboarding them onto their new work environment.
This lack of efficiency also negatively impacts the organisation’s attractiveness, given that a mere 1 in 5 new employees state that they are unlikely to recommend the company to a friend or family member after the onboarding experience.
But why does this happen? The team at Brightspark believe that there are several key challenges that come in the way of a business’ ability to properly onboard. Here are some of them!
#1 Paperwork-Heavy Processes
Recent studies conducted by HCI found that 37% of organizations cited that their onboarding process follows a formal program, focused on paperwork. This prevents onboarding from being a customized, reactive experience for new employees, allowing the HR staff to rely on rigid, formal processes rather than hearing out the new employee and addressing different concerns.
Only 21% of organisations that participated in this study claimed that they have a program based on the people and culture of the specific workplace.

Overall, a paperwork-heavy onboarding process may negatively impact the impressions of the new employee, while also adding further workload to the already-busy HR staff tasked with handling the vast quantities of paperwork.
Key Stats
of organisations focus on paperwork-heavy, formal employee onboarding (hci.org)
of companies continue the onboarding process after the first thirty days (clickboarding.com)
tasks on average which must be completed during the onboarding process (hci.org)
#2 Shortened Onboarding Times
Onboarding is more than just a month-long activity. However, many businesses refuse to extend onboarding past the 30-day timeline. In fact, only over 35% of companies continue the onboarding process after this time period.
This puts pressure on the organisation to squeeze out all the vital information required during this one-month period.
At the same time, it also puts a great deal of pressure on the new employee, who would often sacrifice a large amount of time that could be spent more productively to ensure that they are properly onboarded as soon as possible.
Given the average of over 50 activities that need to be completed during the onboarding process, this would mean that both HR and the employee have to deal with added burdens during the first 30 days of the new employee’s experience.
#3 Inconsistent Application across your Business
The HCI study also identified that one of the top challenges faced by organisations is in establishing consistency in applying onboarding across the organisation, as well as the competing priorities that must be balanced.
Managers and HR Executives often have to collaborate to ensure that all new employees are properly onboarding, and this often takes up the most time out of all the onboarding-related processes that are handled.

To learn more about Brightspark and how it can help ignite your team performance, visit our Benefits page, or get in touch on info@mybrightspark.com!
About Brightspark
We believe that teamwork is the key to success. Perfecting the art of teamwork, however, is no small feat. Ensure that your employees are motivated, ready and available for the next big project with Brightspark!