Successful onboarding is the key to integrating new employees into your company quickly and effectively. However, onboarding problems such as unclear processes and a lack of support can severely affect productivity, cause high costs and lead to high early turnover.in this article, we highlight the most common onboarding problems and give you practical tips on how to successfully overcome these challenges and retain your new employees in the long term.
Effective onboarding can make the difference between a committed, long-term employee and a quick termination. These common mistakes occur during the onboarding process and should be considered before new employees’ first day on the job:
Another common problem is the lack of a cross-departmental, systematic onboarding process. Different departments often carry out their onboarding according to their own ideas and capacities, which leads to inconsistent and ineffective induction processes.
Practical example: The challenges often begin with fundamental questions: Where should knowledge be stored? Which portals make sense for this? How do we manage to digitize knowledge? Without structured and digital onboarding and offboarding processes, knowledge cannot be shared effectively.
The induction of new employees is often more time-consuming than many companies allow for. This often leads to an additional workload for colleagues or inadequate training for the new employee. In many cases, the new employee is thrown in at the deep end without sufficient support and guidance.
Simplify onboarding processes with AI-supported systems
Digital solution: Use digital platforms such as great2know to quickly and effectively train new employees in their role. You can simply enter or speak in knowledge and have it optimized and summarized with the help of AI-supported systems. This makes knowledge transfer much easier.
Unclear expectations and an inadequate introduction to the corporate culture can lead to new employees not feeling integrated and not fully understanding their role. Around 70% of new employees do not feel fully integrated into the corporate culture, which often leads to uncertainty and frustration.
Practical example: Our clients, who hire several hundred new employees every year, often experience strong growth. With so many new hires, the focus is often primarily on administrative and general processes, while cultural onboarding is often neglected.
Without regular feedback, new employees do not know whether they are performing their tasks correctly, which can lead to frustration and uncertainty. A weak feedback culture often prevents problems from being identified and rectified at an early stage.
Many companies neglect preboarding, the phase between signing the contract and the first day of work. This can lead to new employees not feeling welcome. According to the Haufe Onboarding Survey 2023, 36% of respondents stated that they had experienced dismissals between signing their contract and their first day at work.
If new employees are confronted with too much information and too many tasks at the same time, this can lead to excessive demands. A hasty induction without sufficient structure quickly has a demotivating effect.
A lack of a welcoming culture can make new employees feel isolated and less motivated. This significantly affects their retention and satisfaction and can increase early onboarding turnover.
Without a fixed contact person, new employees do not know who they can turn to if they have questions or problems. This leads to uncertainty and delays in the induction process.
By integrating these solutions, companies can ensure that the induction of new employees is comprehensive and consistent right from the start. This not only increases satisfaction and productivity, but also strengthens long-term loyalty to the company.
A well thought-out and systematic onboarding program that takes sufficient time and resources into account and is structured across departments contributes significantly to the success of the company and considerably reduces the reasons for early turnover.
Worth knowing: A high early turnover rate is particularly problematic in today’s world. The increasing willingness of employees to change jobs and demographic change mean that more and more jobs are going unfilled.
While standardized onboarding processes are increasingly widespread and typical onboarding problems can be solved through targeted measures, one important element is often neglected: the tacit knowledge of your employees. This offers a great opportunity and yet is often not used.
Implicit knowledge comprises detailed information on the specific requirements and processes of a position, which is often only available in the employee’s head. Through targeted knowledge transfers, you can capture this valuable knowledge and make it accessible to new employees. This enables them to become productive more quickly and complete tasks more efficiently, leading to greater satisfaction and faster integration into the team.
Companies with successful onboarding often keep the entire employee lifecycle in mind and do not just focus on the onboarding process alone. This promotes sustainable employee retention and increases overall productivity.
This might also interest you:
Targeted communication of position-related knowledge helps to avoid mistakes and misunderstandings. If new employees know exactly what steps they need to take in certain situations and what pitfalls to avoid, the likelihood of making the wrong decisions is reduced. This not only improves the quality of work, but also boosts new employees’ confidence in their skills and understanding of the role.
Digital solution: Use platforms such as great2know, which ask position-related questions and support various formats such as text, audio and video, as well as using AI-supported speech2text to capture relevant knowledge in a targeted manner.
These approaches not only improve the induction of new employees, but also sustainably strengthen continuity and efficiency in the workflow and eliminate further errors during onboarding.
Well thought-out onboarding is crucial for the long-term success of a company. Inefficient onboarding processes can not only affect productivity, but also cause high costs and increased early turnover. Common onboarding problems – such as the lack of a systematic process, a lack of time and resources, unclear expectations, a lack of preboarding, excessive demands, an inadequate welcome culture and the absence of fixed contact persons – can be effectively resolved through targeted measures.
By implementing a cross-departmental, standardized onboarding programme and using digital tools such as great2know, companies can ensure that new employees are fully supported and integrated right from the start. This not only promotes the satisfaction and productivity of new employees, but also strengthens their long-term loyalty to the company.
The transfer of position-related knowledge is particularly important here. By documenting and passing on this knowledge in a targeted manner, errors and misunderstandings can be avoided and the induction of new employees can be significantly accelerated. Systematically recording and structuring knowledge using modern technologies ensures that employees’ valuable know-how is not lost and remains accessible in a digital corporate memory.
The biggest advantages that our customers see are:
In summary, it can be said that efficient onboarding, which takes both explicit and tacit knowledge into account, contributes significantly to solving typical onboarding problems. Invest in your onboarding processes in order to optimally integrate your new employees and retain them in the long term.
