The IMPACT of Working from Home on Effectiveness of Onboarding of New Employees

Abstract: Since start of pandemic of Covid-19 in March 2020 (in Europe) employees are facing challenges seeing their workplaces and home being merged, resulting in limitation of social contacts and face-to-face interaction with colleagues. Newcomers most probably don’t get introduced to and work with their colleagues face-to-face at start of their work. This may affect their performance, which in turn may result in leaving the organization. A quantitative descriptive study of the effects of working from home (WFH) on the process and effectiveness of onboarding of new employees by organizations is presented in this research.The purpose of this study is to explore the relation between the newcomers’ onboarding success and their intention in leaving or staying at the organization through factors such as job satisfaction and the relation between the newcomers and their colleagues considering the WFH effect. In this study a quantitative approach for collecting data and data analysis is conducted using a SEM model. The model consists of questions from cross sectional survey. The survey’s questions are based on five-point Likert scale structure and it is conducted online. The survey’s populations are consisting of 152 samples from different job positions and with different field of technologies. The survey’s results have been analyzed in quantitative method using IMB SPSS software for statistical analysis, considering only online onboarding samples.All the eight defined hypotheses of the model are supported. Onboarding activities (orientation, training, and support) shows relatively the same level of correlation with the onboarding success while workplace relationship quality and job satisfaction are having the strongest relation with the onboarding success. The findings conclude that the newcomers’ workplace relationship quality and job satisfaction mediate the relation between onboarding success and turnover intention. The result shows the importance of workplace relationship quality and job satisfaction in the process of onboarding and its effect on leaving or staying in the organization. Although these two long-term factors have got the highest score, authors believe that it is also necessary that the organizations give an extra care on the onboarding activities as they have the short-term effect on whether the new hire stay or leave the firm.As a result of this study, some implications for organizations and suggestions for further work have been discussed. Keywords: Online On boarding, Working from Home, Onboarding activities, Organizational fit, Survey.