How can different stakeholders ensure relevant and meaningful onboarding metrics?

1 Define onboarding objectives

The first step to ensure relevant and meaningful onboarding metrics is to define the objectives of the onboarding process. What are the desired outcomes and behaviors that the organization expects from the new hires? How do they align with the organization's vision, mission, and culture? How will they contribute to the organization's performance and growth? These questions can help stakeholders to identify the key indicators of onboarding success, such as retention, engagement, productivity, and satisfaction.

2 Choose appropriate metrics

The next step is to choose appropriate metrics that can measure the onboarding objectives. Depending on the nature and scope of the onboarding process, these metrics can be qualitative or quantitative, lagging or leading, and direct or indirect. For example, qualitative metrics can include feedback, surveys, interviews, and observations, while quantitative metrics can include turnover, time to proficiency, goal achievement, and performance ratings. Lagging metrics can reflect the outcomes of the onboarding process, such as retention and satisfaction, while leading metrics can predict the future performance of the new hires, such as engagement and learning. Direct metrics can measure the specific aspects of the onboarding process, such as completion rate and quality, while indirect metrics can measure the broader impact of the onboarding process, such as culture fit and collaboration.

3 Collect and analyze data

The third step is to collect and analyze data from the chosen metrics. This step requires a systematic and consistent approach that can ensure the validity and reliability of the data. Stakeholders should decide on the sources, methods, frequency, and tools of data collection and analysis. For example, sources can include new hires, managers, mentors, peers, and customers, methods can include surveys, tests, assessments, and reviews, frequency can vary from pre-onboarding to post-onboarding, and tools can include software, platforms, and dashboards. Stakeholders should also ensure that the data is accurate, complete, and timely, and that it can be compared and contrasted across different groups, regions, and time periods.

4 Communicate and act on results

The final step is to communicate and act on the results of the data analysis. This step requires a clear and transparent communication strategy that can share the findings and insights with the relevant stakeholders and audiences. Stakeholders should also use the results to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the onboarding process, identify the best practices and areas for improvement, and implement the necessary changes and actions. For example, stakeholders can use the results to recognize and reward the high-performing new hires, provide feedback and coaching to the low-performing new hires, revise and update the onboarding content and activities, and align and integrate the onboarding process with the organization's strategy and culture.

5 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?