Avoiding the Restart Button: Examining the Critical Factors of the Onboarding Process that Encourage Team Cohesion
Abstract
The process of onboarding new employees critically impacts a firm’s
overall success. Previous studies have looked at the relationship between
onboarding and outcomes such as employee satisfaction, turnover intention, and
performance. One area understudied is the correlation between onboarding
processes and team cohesion. The topic is relevant to the business sector because
there is an increase in firms that are organizing employees into teams.
Using a sample population of resident assistants and reserve officers’
training corps cadets from six different teams, this quantitative study implemented
a survey to explore if there was a positive correlation between new team member
onboarding experiences and team cohesion. Discovering what organizational
efforts support team cohesion allows organizations to design and modify their
onboarding processes to encourage team cohesion. Bauer and Erdogan’s (2011)
proposed onboarding model is the theoretical model to guide the research. Their model accounted for specific employee characteristics and behaviors but there is
also a section of the model that relied on the firm’s efforts in the onboarding process called organizational efforts. The organizational effort section of the model
was the focus of this study because it is the section of the model organizations have
the most influence over. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship
between organizational efforts in the onboarding process and team cohesion. It
seeks to distinguish what steps organizations can take during the onboarding
process to increase the chances that a team will be more cohesive.
First, the results provided evidence that there is a medium, positive
correlation between new team member onboarding experiences and team cohesion.
A second finding from the study was that an employee’s relationship with his/her
peers explained the most variance in team cohesion. Further, the researcher found
this relationship was partially mediated by self-efficacy. The implications of this
study are reviewed and suggestions for future research are recommended.