Reducing Ramp-Up Time: A Guide to Faster New Hire Success

Posted in Talent & Onboarding

When you bring a new hire into your organization, there can be a lot of anticipation and pressure about how long it will take them to get up to speed – especially if it’s a hard-to-fill role. Say you hire John to be your next director of product management. In the days leading up to his first day, you might hear things like “When John gets here, we can add that feature to the roadmap,” or “John will take care of that next month.” There might be an assumption that John will start on day one and start producing, with little to no ramp-up time.

But we know that’s a recipe for disaster. Crafting an effective onboarding program that connects new hires to the people, tools, and resources they need to be successful is the secret sauce to shortening ramp-up time.

In this blog we’ll explore what ramp-up time is, the challenges faced during the ramp-up period, and steps to an effective ramp-up plan.

What Is Ramp-Up Time?

Simply out, ramp-up time is the period it takes for a new employee to reach full productivity. While the term is frequently used in the context of ramping up sales reps, it applies across various roles and industries. 

Here’s how ramp-up time can be applied to different roles:

  • Sales: The time it takes for a sales rep to generate revenue, achieve quotes, and build a pipeline.
  • Customer service: The time it takes to understand tools and processes and handle customer inquiries independently.
  • Software development: The time it takes to understand tools and workflows and contribute to projects effectively.
  • Management: The time it takes to set strategic goals and drive impact across an organization.

Because ramp-up time is linked to specific metrics determined by the new hire’s job function, it’s an extremely effective and simple measure of the success of your functional onboarding process.

Challenges During the Ramp-Up Period

If your new hire is having trouble ramping up to productivity, one of two things have happened. One: You hired the wrong person. This can happen, but it’s less likely if you have a well thought out recruiting strategy that involves multiple stakeholders in your organization. 

The more likely reason your new hire is having trouble ramping is because your onboarding process is not setting them up for success. In our recent onboarding survey, we found 35% of new hires with a negative onboarding experience found it difficult to perform their jobs successfully. Another 33% immediately started looking for a new job.

Challenges during the ramp-up period can look like:

  • Information overload: You’re throwing your new hire into the deep end and encouraging them to “drink from the firehose.”
  • Lack of job clarity: You’re assuming your new hire knows what their job entails and what success looks like in the first 30, 60, and 90 days. Our survey found only 29% of new hires are very clear on what their role entails.
  • Poor cultural integration: You haven’t shown them the ins and outs of what it’s like to work at your company. Only 31% of new hires in our survey said their company culture was demonstrated very well during their onboarding.
  • Lack of colleague support: You leave your new hire to fend for themselves when it comes to team introductions.
  • Lack of feedback loops: You’re assuming your new hire has everything they need, but you’re not actually asking them directly.

3 Steps to an Effective Ramp-Up Plan

Before you design an effective ramp-up plan, make sure you’re using the time between offer acceptance and day one to preboard your new hire:

  • Send them personalized welcome messages
  • Prepare their hiring manager
  • Get IT provisioned
  • Make sure all paperwork is processed in a timely manner

Now you’re ready to ramp them starting on day one.

Orientation & Training

Instead of the firehouse approach, consider drip feeding their learning and development content over time. This way they can process the information and apply it in their day to day. Your ramp-up plan should also include regular 1:1s between the new hire and their manager so there’s time for questions around role clarity and expectations along the way. 

Team Integration

You can’t just hope your new hire bumps into the right people over Slack or at the coffee machine. Your ramp-up plan should include pre-scheduled check-in meetings with HR, their onboarding buddy, their mentor (if applicable), and other key stakeholders across the company.

Pulse Checks & Feedback

Here’s where you set up a regular feedback loop between the new hire, hiring manager, and HR. Set up regular pulse checks at one week, two weeks, one month, and six months so you can gather eNPS scores and escalate low scores where needed. You’ll also want to gather feedback from the hiring manager and their new hire on progress around their 30-, 60-, and 90-day plan.

How to Reduce Ramp-Up Time For New Hires

Follow the three steps above, you’ll be well on your way to building an effective ramp-up plan. If you want to take it to the next level and shave off weeks and even months in ramp-up time, try these tips:

Automate onboarding processes

Using a platform like Enboarder, you can automate the entire onboarding process, including your ramp-up plan. One of our customers, Dermalogica, built an automated onboarding journey that’s personalized for new hires starting in different departments – boosting new hire engagement and completion rates. Here’s direct feedback from one of Dermalogica’s new hires: “The onboarding process was fantastic, incredibly informative, which left me set up and ready to start.”

Personalize trainings based on roles and skill levels

Of course there will be compliance and training every new hire is required to complete. But the key to a speedy ramp-up plan is building in specific training based on your new hire’s specific role. For example, one of our customers built a 90-day ramp journey for their sales team. It included topics around pipeline and funnel, QBR preparations, customer revenue, and business plans.

Incorporate interactive learning activities

Sooner rather than later, you’ll need to get your new hire out of documentation and presentations and into hand-on learning. Interactive learning accelerates knowledge retention and helps your new hire apply skills faster. You can try scenario-based simulations (where your new hire practices handling tasks), gamified learning (think quizzes and leaderboards), or even sandbox environments (a risk-free platform where they can experiment with processes).

Metrics to Measure Ramp-Up Time Success

Because ramp-up time is defined by the amount of time it takes your new hire to reach full productivity, measuring ramp-up time is entirely dependent on their specific role. If you’re onboarding a customer service rep, you might go by time to first customer interaction. If you’re onboarding a new sales rep, you might measure ramp-up time by time to first sale. 

Optimize Your Ramp-Up Plan With Enboarder

Building an effective ramp-up plan for your new hire is critical to long-term employee engagement and productive work. In fact, we’ve found that by connecting new hires with the right people, tools, and training during those first few days and weeks in a new role, you can significantly increase time to productivity.


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