Measuring Onboarding Success: A How-To Guide

How long do you have to welcome new hires into your company and increase their chances of long-term success? Chances are it’s a much shorter window than you’d expect. Nearly one-third—29% of employees—say they know a job is the right fit within the first week. And the vast majority—70%—know within the first month.  

So we can agree that new hire onboarding is critical. But how do you know that you’re doing it right? In this article, we’ll explore several ways you can measure the success of your onboarding program.  

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Why is it important to measure your onboarding program’s success?

Starting a new job can be overwhelming. It involves meeting new people (and learning how to work with them effectively), getting familiar with new tools and workflows, and adjusting to a new company culture and work environment.  

Company leaders (especially those from HR or People teams) have started to recognize that it’s unrealistic to expect employees to absorb all of this information on their own. So instead of giving new hires an email address and company computer and sending them on their way, they’ve started building more comprehensive onboarding programs that are designed to help new hires feel more comfortable and supported during the early stages of their time at a company.

Let’s start with a fundamental question: Why should you measure the success of your onboarding program in the first place?

First, if you’re going to be investing resources into your onboarding program—like buying software, asking people from different departments to present to new hires, or creating an onboarding buddy mentoring program—you want to make sure you can measure the return on your investment.  

And beyond that, tracking metrics related to your onboarding program will give you insights into what’s working and what’s not so you can continue to improve the program over time.  

Throughout the rest of this article, we’ll share a few ideas of the types of objectives and metrics you can use to measure your onboarding program’s success.

What should your onboarding objectives be? An overview

When you decide to create an onboarding program, it’s important to create objectives. What exactly are you hoping will happen once new hires go through this experience? Here are a few ideas to consider.

Onboarding programs are generally designed to:

• Create opportunities for new hires to develop and become more competent in their roles faster.  
• Acclimate new hires to your company culture.  
• Answer new hires’ questions about processes and procedures.  
• Offer general support to new hires that falls outside the scope of what their manager can provide during the first few weeks (or even months).  

But remember, these are just a few ideas. Your objectives might be different, and that’s okay! What matters most is choosing objectives that you believe you have the power to influence (and that will ultimately connect to business goals, which we’ll cover below).  

Onboarding success metrics: What to measure

Whenever you have a program like onboarding that involves different people in your organization, it’s helpful to take a multi-level approach to measuring its success.

Here's the framework that we recommend at Together:

Reaction and satisfaction  

This level measures how participants feel about the program and how satisfied they are with the experience. You might measure this by tracking:

• Participant satisfaction scores and Net Promoter Score: How satisfied are new hires after they’ve completed onboarding? How likely are they to say the role and company are aligned with their expectations? How likely are they to recommend your company to a friend?
• ‍Completion rates and engagement metrics: What percentage of new hires complete onboarding? How does their engagement compare to other employees or employees who did not go through onboarding?

Learning and skill development  

This next level of measurement looks at whether participants are learning new skills. You might measure this by tracking:

• Pre/post onboarding competency assessments: Have participants gained skills they didn’t have when they joined your company? ‍
• Goal achievement rates: Have participants achieved specific goals they set for themselves? ‍
• Time to productivity: How soon after starting can new hires achieve productivity milestones such as hitting sales quota?

Behavior change and application  

This next level of measurement takes it from theory to practice. Beyond just having new knowledge, can participants actually put it to use? You might measure this by tracking:  

• Manager ratings: How do managers rate their new hires’ ability to use new skills?
• ‍Self-reported confidence increases: How do new hires rate their own ability to use their new skills?

Business results and impact  

Finally, it’s important to measure what impact your onboarding program is having on your organization’s performance. If it’s not making or saving you money, you will likely want to continue to make adjustments to the program (or risk having company leaders question why it exists in the first place!). You might measure this by tracking:

• Turnover rate: How many new hires who went through your onboarding program have left the company within a given time frame, such as six months or one year? ‍
• Internal promotion rates: What percentage of onboarding program participants have been promoted within a given time frame, such as six months or one year?  ‍
• Retention improvements: The other side of the turnover equation. How many new hires who went through your onboarding program are still with your company within a given time frame, such as six months or a year?  ‍
• Team performance metrics: Depending on the team in question, this might be measured in terms of output (e.g. meeting quota for sales teams) or in other ways, such as fewer escalations from customer success representatives or fewer bugs on engineering teams.

5 employee onboarding buddy program success metrics  

If you’re already investing in an onboarding program, you might decide it makes sense to create an onboarding buddy or new employee coaching program. While typical onboarding programs are designed by HR or People teams and involve a one-way flow of information to the new hire, buddy programs are a little different.

Buddy programs pair new hires with an employee who’s already been with the company for a while and who can show them the ropes. These programs often focus on helping new hires feel integrated into the company culture, help them meet people outside their own department, and give them the chance to address topics they might be hesitant to ask their manager.  

“I think it’s important for new employees to have someone who can explain a few things about the company in a casual setting,” says Biljana Rakic, vice president of human capital at Cake.com.  

If you’re running an onboarding buddy program, you might survey program participants (both the new hires and their buddies) to learn about the experience. Here are some ideas for questions to ask.  

Questions to ask new hires about their onboarding buddy experience

• How has your buddy been helpful in your onboarding journey?
• Are there areas where additional support from your onboarding buddy would be beneficial?
• How comfortable do you feel asking questions and requesting help?
• Do you feel welcomed and integrated within the team?

Questions to ask buddies (mentors) about their onboarding buddy experience

• What resources or training would help you better support your new hire buddy?
• How has this experience been rewarding for you?
• Do you have any suggestions for improving the program for future pairings?

And if you’re already a Together customer, great news! You can use Together to get valuable insights into:

• Signups and participation rates: Are employees actively engaging with the program? ‍
• Goal completions: Are buddies and new hires achieving their set onboarding goals? ‍
• Session feedback: How are participants experiencing their interactions? ‍
• Pairing relevancy: Are buddies well-matched with new hires in terms of interests, skills, and roles?

Additional tips for onboarding goals and metrics to keep in mind

Now you’ve got plenty of ideas for different goals and metrics for your onboarding program. Here are a few additional tips to keep in mind:

• Make sure to set benchmarks for the metrics in your area of interest (e.g. retention) and regularly compare your results to those figures.
• If you’re running a buddy program, encourage feedback from mentors and mentees through regular check-ins and surveys so you can get an objective evaluation of the program’s impact.
• Don’t rely solely on quantitative results and neglect qualitative feedback from the program’s participants.
• Don’t focus too much on short-term ROI metrics instead of the long-term impact and sustainability of the program.
• Don’t ignore the importance of setting up an effective system for data collection and analysis.

How to calculate the ROI of your onboarding program

While we’ve talked a little bit about the investment you’re making in your onboarding program, we haven’t gotten into the specifics—until now. Chances are, if you’re going to be spending a significant amount of money on an onboarding program, your leaders or finance team are going to want to see the return on this investment (ROI).

Here’s a simple way to calculate the ROI of your program:

ROI = (Program Benefits - Program Costs) / Program Costs × 100

Example ROI calculation  

Let's say you have 100 participants in your onboarding program:

Retention improvement
  

20% reduction in turnover saves $500,000 (assuming $50,000 average replacement cost) Productivity gains
  

15% improvement in performance equals $750,000 in value  

Total benefits 
 $1,250,000 Program costs
 $200,000 (platform, staff time, materials)  

ROI: (1,250,000 - 200,000) / 200,000 × 100 = 525% ROI

You may not have the exact numbers for things like improvement in performance, but you can come up with estimates or placeholders. Often, your leaders don’t necessarily need an exact number. They just want to know that you’re in the right ballpark.

Commit to creating a measurably better experience for your new hires

Remember: Those early days when a new employee joins your company are critical to their likelihood of staying. Almost half—44% of new hires—say they regret taking a new job within the first week.  

One of the most effective ways of making your new hires feel welcome is creating a comprehensive onboarding program, especially one that pairs them with a peer who can help them navigate your company.  

And no matter which elements your onboarding program includes, you’ll need to have systems in place to collect insights and track your success. Otherwise, you’ll be putting a lot of energy and resources into something but you’ll have no way of showing all that hard work was worth it!

Get more actionable tips on building out your new hire experience in our detailed guide. Download our onboarding mentoring programs ebook.