Onboarding set to combat staff attrition

03 Feb 2010

by: Margaret Snell

Staff attrition could cost the UK economy over £1 billion in 2010 as the economy and jobs market recovers and more people look for new jobs. This is according to Brightwave whose survey of large UK corporations also found an increasing trend in onboarding new employees to help combat this staff loss.

The survey found that 52% of large corporations believe that this pre-induction approach helps reduce attrition by engaging, training and embedding new staff in their new company culture from the moment they accept the job offer, as well as reducing induction time and cost and increasing productivity. 63% of HR departments surveyed plan to introduce a formalised onboarding strategy in 2010 if they don’t already have one in place.

Sky recently introduced an onboarding programme developed by Brightwave to its call centres. Kenny Henderson, head of talent development operations at Sky said: "Our ‘Get Up To Speed’ onboarding portal has already halved attrition in our call centres and we’re hoping that its national roll-out in 2010 will continue to improve our retention as the jobs market picks up across the country. This onboarding portal makes new starters feel part of the team and puts them in touch with others doing the same role and peers starting at the same time. It has already helped improve sales conversions for new starters, sped-up time to target performance and improved employee engagement.”

Charles Gould, MD at Brightwave added: “Our latest survey is reassuring in showing how UK businesses are putting people at the heart of what they do. Onboarding quickly engages new employees and provides knowledge when enthusiasm is high. It’s one effective approach to help minimise attrition as the economy starts to recover.”

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