LSA Global Insights Newsletter: Benchmark Your New Employee Onboarding Process

June 26, 2017

Benchmark Your New Employee Onboarding Process

A hand is helping a kid climb over a wall

Is your speed to productivity for new hires where it should be?
Most new employees take between 3 and 24 months to get up to speed. This wide disparity provides wonderful opportunities for organizations to decrease ramp time and improve speed to productivity for new employees.  

In a recent survey, 210 CEO's estimated the time for a typical mid-level manager to reach breakeven as 6.2 months. Using an average salary of $100,000, the difference between a 3-month ramp and a 6.2-month ramp is approximately $26,500 per employee. 

This does not account for differences in revenue, margin, utilization, or productivity. It is only the salary side of the equation. For a company hiring a minimum of 100 new employees per year, this creates a $2.6m window of opportunity for an improved new hire process. For companies closer to the 24-month ramp-to-productivity mark, the opportunity is as large as $17.5m. 

The main point is that, when combined with the common challenges of hiring the right employees and creating an environment for them to thrive, most organizations have ample room for improvement in their new hire processes. 

Unfortunately, many companies continue to struggle with the most controllable part of the equation - effectively and efficiently assimilating new employees. When companies decide to improve their new hire process, they are typically reacting to some combination of the eight drivers listed below with "speed to productivity" being the #1 mega-driver for most organizations.
  1. Increase speed to productivity
  2. Improve the company's ability to scale
  3. Increase employee engagement and retention
  4. Improve utilization of key methodologies, systems and practices
  5. Improve the overall new employee experience
  6. Improve the overall consistency of the new employee experience
  7. Increase company, product and service knowledge
  8. Decrease assimilation time and costs
These eight drivers typically occur for companies that are facing high growth rates, struggling to retain top talent, changing go-to-market strategies, or feeling increased pressure to improve productivity.

So the question becomes, how do you create a new employee orientation process that hits the mark for your specific situation?   Properly designed new employee orientation programs can make a measurable difference.  Just ask our clients. 
  • At Microsoft, we decreased their new hire ramp time by 50%.  
  • At VMware, we increased speed to quota by 27% and had 100% new hire and hiring manager satisfaction.


Voice of the Customer

"Congratulations on your pro-activity in establishing this new hire program and developing such an effective New Employee Orientation course."
Farhat Ali | President and CEO | Fujitsu

About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned