Everything You Need to Know About the Onboarding Phase and How to Improve It

In today's market, attracting and retaining talent is harder than ever. To bring in top talent, companies must offer more than just a competitive salary—they must provide a unique professional experience. The moment a candidate accepts your offer is key, but what happens next is even more important. That's why a well-structured onboarding process is the key to successful hiring.

Why is onboarding important?

The onboarding process can make or break a new employee's experience. Studies show that companies with a strong onboarding process improve new hire retention by 82% and productivity by over 70%. In other words, adopting Leexi ensures all new hires are trained in no time. The same study reveals that employees with a good onboarding experience are 18 times more likely to feel connected to their employer.

High new hire turnover is often the result of a poor onboarding experience—if the ship sets off badly, it’s bound to capsize.

Research also shows that a new employee’s decision to stay long-term is made within the first six months. A high turnover rate in this period means your onboarding process needs improvement. With Leexi, you can quickly upskill your new hires and encourage them to stay with you.

How to speed up the onboarding process?

Speeding up onboarding isn’t easy: it’s not about rushing in an ever-faster work world, but about convincing quickly and delivering results even faster.

Train with a purpose

Always consider the inevitable knowledge gaps your new hire may have. What skills are transferable? What needs to be learned or relearned? Even if your new employee is highly overqualified, they may not know how you work. Prioritize filling these gaps and use them as a guide for targeted learning.

Be a teacher

There’s a reason teachers make lesson plans. A daily plan keeps things organized and reduces wasted time. Make sure you have a detailed plan for how you’ll structure your new team member’s learning, and take notes as you progress through each phase to stay on track. Of course, you can improvise—but your results may suffer.

Put yourself in the new hire’s shoes

The best way to learn something new is to teach it to others. A good technique to ensure new hires get to know your processes is to ask them to explain what they’ve learned. The goal isn’t to put them under pressure or test them, but to see how they’ve processed the information. If it doesn’t work, try another approach.

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Mix up your methods

If your training system is 40 hours of video, new hires will either fall asleep or get overwhelmed. Try to integrate different learning styles into your training phase. Remember, there are visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners—most people are a mix of all three. Use a variety of training techniques to share information and engage new hires.

Analyze early results

What’s working well in training? What learning style does your new employee respond to best? Are they an avid reader or more hands-on? The closer your training style matches their preferences, the faster they’ll progress. Celebrate small milestones and wins. If something isn’t working, fix it right away and change course so you don’t have to correct bad habits later.

Make learning ongoing

As employees get faster and more efficient, they’ll want to focus on performance over skill-building. There will always be tasks that seem more urgent than learning something new, but continuous skill development is no longer optional—not just for those looking to advance, but for those who want to maintain the status quo. Make ongoing training part of every job description. Schedule time for it and stick to it. It’s not just a big investment in your people—it’s an investment in your Business.