34 Employee Onboarding Statistics for 2026 (With Sources)

of all employee turnover can happen within the first year of employment.

of employers believe new hires decide whether to stay within their first 90 days.

of new hires know within their first month whether the job is right for them; 29% know within the first week.

of new hires who feel undertrained after onboarding plan to quit soon, compared with 7% of those who feel well-trained.

of employees with a poor onboarding experience left their job, and 33% started looking for a new one.

of recent hires with poor onboarding plan to quit soon, compared with 32% of recent hires overall.

of base pay is the estimated cost of replacing an employee.

of employees with exceptional onboarding say they have the best possible job, and they are 2.6 times as likely to be extremely satisfied with their workplace.

is roughly how long new employees take to reach their full performance potential, in Gallup’s experience.

of new hires have regrets or second thoughts about their new role within the first week.

of recent hires had second thoughts about joining during onboarding, rising to 49% of Gen Z.

of recent hires said paperwork-heavy onboarding crowded out getting ready for the actual job.

of recent hires said onboarding did not fully reflect their real job responsibilities and company culture.

of recent hires named unclear expectations as their top onboarding frustration.

of employees say their first-day impressions of the company are still accurate.

of job seekers who ghosted an employer did so between accepting the offer and their first day.

of job changers waited at least two to three weeks to start their new job, and 29% waited more than a month.

companies had new hires who didn’t show up on their first day.

of new IRS employees in a federal audit sample got their laptop more than five workdays after starting.

At Microsoft, new hires whose manager played an active role were 3.5 times more likely to be satisfied with onboarding.

of new hires who met their onboarding buddy at least once in 90 days said it helped them get productive quickly; 97% for more than eight meetings.

of employees say they appreciate having an onboarding buddy.

of remote new hires feel undertrained after onboarding, and 60% feel disoriented.

of employees who had hybrid onboarding were satisfied with it, the highest of the formats surveyed.

of companies use technology to support onboarding, but 42% have no dedicated onboarding solution.

of companies measure the return on their onboarding investment.

of new hires onboarded digitally say they were satisfied with the experience.

of HR professionals using AI for onboarding report shorter onboarding time.