SilkRoad technology Sponsored Report Indicates Growing Uptake of Onboarding

By TMT Newswire

Aberdeen Group report surveys 600 HR executives; Complimentary copy made possible in part by SilkRoad sponsorship.

Sixty-eight percent of corporate human resources executives recently surveyed indicated that their companies have a formal onboarding process in place, according to a recent Aberdeen study sponsored in part by SilkRoad technology, inc., the leading provider of talent management solutions. The study, Fully On-Board: Getting the Most from Your Talent in the First Year, found that top-performing companies with formal onboarding procedures in place saw a 31 percent average improvement in new employee engagement and a 24 percent average decrease in time-to-productivity for new employees.

Effective onboarding of new employees is so crucial that more than half of the 600 human resources, talent management, and line of business executives surveyed and interviewed in December 2008 and January 2009 for the study indicated that the current state of the economy would increase the importance their organization placed on onboarding in 2009.

Two-thirds of survey respondents also indicated that their organizations start the onboarding process even before the new employee's start date of employment to smooth the transition process. Top concerns related to onboarding included retaining new employees, increasing their productivity and improving the reputation of the company as an employer of choice.

A complimentary copy of the Aberdeen report has been made available by SilkRoad and other sponsors at: http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=5729.

We have long joined others in the HR industry to tout the importance of formalized onboarding programs, and this study underscores how they can contribute to improvements in efficiency and engagement, said SilkRoad technology CEO Andrew J. Flip Filipowski. One of our products, RedCarpet, provides massive increases in new hire satisfaction and day one readiness for many of our clients, ultimately keeping employee morale and productivity high while automating time-consuming HR tasks.

SilkRoad provides a suite of Web-based talent management solutions, including RedCarpetô, an onboarding and life events management solution that automates the socialization and transition of employees into their new roles while alleviating the burden and cost of paperwork and task management, saving companies time and money. Other SilkRoad products include OpenHireô, a market-leading recruiting management solution, WingSpanô for flexible employee performance management, GreenLightô for learning management, and Epriseô for employee intranets and content management.

It is very clear that for a majority of Best-in-Class organizations, onboarding is the continuation of the recruitment process well into the first year of a new employee's tenure with the company, noted the co-author of the report, Kevin Martin, vice president and principal analyst, Human Capital Management at Aberdeen. If they haven't done so already, these organizations seek to integrate onboarding with recruitment and performance management. At these companies, onboarding not only improves hiring quality and efficiencies, but also increases the new employee's ability to contribute productively in a timely manner.