Global Enboarder Survey: 61% of HR Leaders Say Early Turnover Is Rising; 82% Aim to Improve Onboarding Process in 2025

1,000 HR leaders cite retention and productivity challenges stemming from their current onboarding program, and are looking for ways to drive more cross-functional collaboration and ownership in the process.

Enboarder today released new research on the growing disconnect between HR leaders’ aspirations for employee onboarding and the reality of the new hire experience, based on a survey of 1,000 HR leaders in the U.S., U.K., and Australia. The data reveals high attrition is the top onboarding challenge, with 20.5% of HR leaders claiming up to 50% of their new hires leave within their first 90 days.

The report, titled “2025 HR Leader Survey: Winning the First 90 Days,” highlights the mounting pressure HR teams face to improve new hire retention, productivity, and engagement.

Key findings from the report include:

• 29% of HR leaders say their top onboarding challenge is high attrition in the first 90 days
• 60.8% report that early attrition has increased in the past 12 months
• 82.5% are considering switching or upgrading their onboarding technology in the next year
• Nearly 80% are already using AI to streamline HR processes – but most say onboarding tech hasn’t caught up

“Too many companies are still treating onboarding as a checklist,” said Dan Finnigan, CEO of Enboarder. “Onboarding needs to be redefined as a high-impact moment that is directly tied to employee lifetime value. Winning the first 90 days has an outsized impact on how long an employee stays and how productive they are long-term.”

Successful onboarding requires cross-functional collaboration and tools to engage higher managers in the process. Yet the report reveals most companies are experiencing a breakdown in ownership and execution:

• Only 36% of HR leaders describe their onboarding handoff between recruiting, HR, and hiring managers as “seamless”
• 28.8% have seen hiring managers fail to provide any training or guidance to new hires
• 55.6% of respondents believe the main purpose of onboarding is to help a new hire understand their roles and responsibilities and ramp to productivity quickly

As AI adoption accelerates, HR leaders are looking for tools to ease the administrative burden of onboarding while elevating the new hire experience. Enboarder is addressing this challenge head on with its new Intelligent Journey Platform, a market-first GenAI solution that allows HR teams to automatically create best-in-class, hyper-personalized employee journeys in minutes.

“Onboarding is one of several key moments in the employee experience where HR has a narrow opportunity to provide employees with exactly what they need to accelerate success,” Finnigan added. “By leaning into AI and automation, HR can offload manual tasks and unlock a more productive and engaged workforce.”

The full report is available for download here.