Summary and key findings
As featured in The Hill report from Washington DC, this survey highlights a “skill masking crisis” – just one of the challenges, perceptions, and improvement strategies surrounding employee onboarding and learning and development (L&D) programs across a diverse workforce. It explores how generational and employment status differences influence experiences with onboarding, confidence, and skill development. The study also examines how organizations measure onboarding success, the adoption of technology and data analytics, and employee openness to innovative solutions like AI-powered training. By capturing both structural gaps and emotional realities, such as skill anxiety and resistance to feedback aiming to inform more effective, inclusive, and data-driven onboarding practices. This uncovers key patterns in:
- Onboarding is universally challenging, but the nature of the challenge differs by generation and employment type.
- Confidence, engagement, and psychological safety are more predictive of onboarding success than turnover metrics.
- Organizations risk missing opportunities by treating measurement as a compliance exercise rather than a strategic lever.
Full Data: Attensi commissioned an independent survey of 2,000 employees in the US and the UK.
Significant Onboarding Challenges
Q1_PR1-5: What are the most significant challenges you face during the onboarding process? [Very Significant (1), Significant (2)]
This survey tested five challenges related to the experience of the onboarding process. All challenges were found either very significant or significant by nearly half of respondents. This tight grouping suggests no singular dominant experiential challenge, complicating the work of improving onboarding.
Q1_PR1-5: What are the most significant challenges you face during the onboarding process? [Very Significant (1), Significant (2)] – by Age Groups: Younger Generations (18-44) and Older Generations (45 and older)
Respondents from Younger Generations are more likely to report challenges in the onboarding process, and significantly more likely to report lack of resources, poor quality training, and lack of engagement.
Nearly half of respondents in older and younger generations agree that an overwhelming amount of information is a significant challenge for the onboarding process. This suggests that a solution aimed at making information more manageable would have the greatest potential total impact, as it benefits respondents across age cohorts.
Men are slightly more likely to report challenges during the onboarding process than women.
Q1_PR1-5: What are the most significant challenges you face during the onboarding process? [Very Significant (1), Significant (2)] – by Employment Status
Full-time employees are significantly more likely to report challenges than part-time employees. However, full-time and part-time employees are nearly equally likely to see poor communication as a significant challenge.
Impact of Poor Onboarding
Q2_P. What impact does a poor onboarding experience have?
Lack of confidence is the number one negative impact of a poor onboarding experience, cited by over half of respondents. This is followed by lack of job satisfaction, low productivity, and poor job performance.
Less than a third of respondents (31%) see poor onboarding as responsible for high churn rates or a lack of brand loyalty (33%). Interestingly, brand loyalty and churn are often cited in go-to-market campaigns as headline ROI for implementing onboarding solutions.
Note that 6% of respondents do not believe poor onboarding creates any of the negative impacts tested. We can refer to this minority cohort as “Onboarding Skeptics.”
Q2_P. What impact does a poor onboarding experience have? – by Age Groups: Younger Generations (18-44) and Older Generations (45 and older)
The data reveals some significant differences in generational perspectives. Respondents in younger generations are far more likely to attribute a lack of confidence and lack of brand loyalty to a bad onboarding experience, whereas older respondents are more likely to see poor onboarding as a contributing factor to poor job performance. 11% of respondents from older generations are Onboarding Skeptics, compared to only 4% of respondents from younger generations.
Q2_P. What impact does a poor onboarding experience have? – by Employment Status
Full-time employees and Part-time employees are fairly aligned on the impact of poor onboarding, with part-time employees consistently viewing poor onboarding as less impactful compared to their full-time counterparts. Part-time respondents are significantly less likely to see poor onboarding as contributing to long time to competence, costly recruitment, and lack of brand loyalty, but slightly more likely to see poor onboarding as a contributor to high churn rates. 15% of part-time respondents are Onboarding Skeptics, compared to only 6% of full-time employees.1
Overall, Full-time employees and Younger Generation respondents are the most sensitive to the impact of onboarding on employment experience.
Perspectives on Onboarding Effectiveness
Q4_P-Q9_P represent a series of perceptions on the quality and effectiveness of an organization’s onboarding program from the perspective of the employees implementing the program. This includes information retention (Q4), consistency across regions (Q5), adequate time to create content (Q6), executive buy-in (Q7 and Q8), and engagement potential (Q9).
Q4_P-Q9_P – Affirmative answers
75% of respondents would agree that onboarding success is negatively impacted by problems with retention of information. 55% of respondents find it challenging to deliver consistent onboarding across regions.
On the other hand, 78% of respondents feel they have enough time and resources to create high-quality training and onboarding content. (Although only 30% would say “yes, consistently.”) Leadership buy-in is relatively high, with 60% of respondents finding that executives understand the value of onboarding and a similar percentage seeing L&D as a revenue driving department.
64% of respondents see their onboarding programs as effective in engaging new hires.
Q4_P-Q9_P – Affirmative answers – by Age Groups: Younger Generations (18-44) and Older Generations (45 and older)
Perspectives vary considerably by age cohort. Overall, Younger Generation respondents are far more likely to see the onboarding process as negatively impacted by information retention problems and regional consistency, but also far more likely to feel they have enough time and resources, to be confident in leadership buy-in, and more likely to see their programs as engaging.
Questions Q10_P through Q13_P continue exploring internal perceptions on onboarding.
Q10_P-Q-13_P – Affirmative answers
82% of respondents feel their current onboarding program needs to improve, with 94% finding specific aspects challenging and 88% believing their onboarding program lacks sufficient components in at least one area.
Q11_P. New hires often find the following aspects of the onboarding process challenging.
Learning job specific tasks is the most common challenge during the onboarding process, following by navigating company systems and tools and managing workload expectations. Given that these are the core competencies of a job, this makes sense.
Q13_P. The current onboarding program lacks sufficient:
The most common gaps in onboarding programs are interactive activities, peer mentorship, and support from managers. Note that while 88% cite at least one area, none of the options exceed 42%, suggesting that insufficiencies vary by program, rather than onboarding as a practice experiencing a systemic flaw.
51% of respondents ‘always’ or ‘often’ receive meaningful feedback from new hires about their onboarding experience, with an additional 33% receiving meaningful feedback ‘sometimes.’ Only 6% ‘never’ receive meaningful feedback, but it is unclear from the survey whether this is because they collect feedback and the feedback they receive is not meaningful, or whether they do not collect feedback in the first place.
Q10_P-Q-13_P – Affirmative answers – by Age Groups: Younger Generations (18-44) and Older Generations (45 and older)
Age cohorts are relatively aligned on the need to improve onboarding programs. However, Older Generations are significantly less likely to note challenges or insufficiencies in the onboarding process. Older Generations are also less likely to endorse receiving meaningful feedback from new hires about the onboarding experience.
These trends suggest a through-line of close-mindedness, whereas respondents who are less likely to see issues in their programs are also less likely to find the feedback on those programs meaningful.
Attempts to Improve Onboarding
Q1_B through Q5_B explore efforts undertaken to improve onboarding experience and effectiveness.
Q1_B through Q5_B – Affirmative
88% of respondents have improved their onboarding process with at least one of the strategies tested. Use of technology and tools and structured training programs are the most common, both endorsed by 45% of respondents, while a similar percentage use regular feedback from new hires and mentorship systems. Only 26% of respondents have used gamification techniques. Of those who have used gamification techniques (Q5_B), only 57% have found the techniques effective. Compare this to mentorship and buddy systems, which 72% of respondents have found effective.
92% measure the success of their onboarding program using at least one of the tested metrics, with feedback surveys, employee retention rates, time to productivity, new hire performance metrics, and engagement levels all being used by at least 40% of the respondent audience. Note that this suggests that none of these metrics are particularly widespread, with feedback surveys – the most common metric – being used by only 49% of respondents. In other words, measurement is common, but unsystematic across industries.
Q1_B-Q-5_B – Affirmative answers – by Age Groups: Younger Generations (18-44) and Older Generations (45 and older)
Respondents from Older Generations are significantly more pessimistic than their younger counterparts. Only 72% of respondents have improved their programs through the measured results, and only 82% measure their program success with one of the tested metrics.
Older Generations are less likely to incorporate new hire feedback, less likely to see the value of mentorship or buddy systems, and significantly less likely to see gamification techniques as effective. Indeed, an average of 37% of Older Generation respondents do not use gamification at all, compared to only 9% of Younger Generation respondents.
This trend is echoed by an earlier question in the survey that asks if implementing “Learning-by-doing” using Realistic AI game-based conversation simulations would improve the onboarding process:
Q3_P. If you could implement “Learning-by-doing” using Realistic AI game-based conversation simulations, do you feel this would improve your onboarding process? – by Age Groups: Younger Generations (18-44) and Older Generations (45 and older)
Overall, while both Generational Cohorts generally agree that onboarding can and should be improved, Younger Generation respondents are far more open to implementing innovative technology to accomplish this.
Learning and Development
Q1_L through Q5_L explore the value of learning and development in an organization and its connection to onboarding.
Q1_L. Investment in Learning and Development (L&D) is often undervalued in organizations because:
90% of respondents see L&D as undervalued, with budget constraints (48%) being the most common reason. Lack of awareness of L&D’s benefit to an organization (43%) and competing priorities (42%) are second and third respectively.
Interestingly, only 31% of respondents cite lack of immediate ROI. This despite showing ROI being a driving concern of many L&D practitioners, at least if go-to-market strategies and keynote conference presentations are to be believed.
Q2_L + Q3_L
While not explicitly connected to L&D, respondents across the board agree that better onboarding practices can reduce employee churn, and that onboarding has a positive impact on long-term employee performance and retention.
Q4_L. We justify the cost of investing in L&D to senior management by:
90% of respondents report attempting to justify the cost of investing in L&D to senior management, with showing increased employee productivity (55%) being the most common strategy.
Respondents from older generations are significantly less likely to attempt to justify the cost of L&D, with 23% of respondents reporting to have not attempted any of the tested strategies.
Q5_L. The most compelling arguments for increasing investment in L&D, particularly in the context of onboarding, are:
This pessimism continues, with 11% of respondents from Older Generations finding none of the tested arguments compelling. That said, Older Generations did find some strategies more compelling than others, namely improved job performance and reduced employee turnover. Younger Generations were more likely to find employee engagement and alignment compelling.
Measurement and Analytics
Q1_A through Q10_A explore trends in collecting, analyzing, and implementing data on onboarding practices.
Q1_A-Q6_A
On average, just under two-thirds of respondents actively collect and leverage onboarding data. Younger Generation respondents are nearly twice as likely to capture benchmark scoring for onboarding, to have access to and make use of quality insights tools, to set clear KPIs for onboarding, and to have the analytics and data necessary to prove the ROI of onboarding. Only a third of Older Generation respondents capture benchmark scoring for onboarding.
Q7_A-Q8_A
Generational differences also manifest in confidence and skepticism about the value of analytics. While 72% of Younger Generation respondents believe their analytics tools are capable of identifying knowledge gaps, only 46% of Older Generation respondents feel the same. 75% of Younger Generation respondents believe that better data on the impact of training would help them secure more funding for L&D, compared to only 56% of Older Generation respondents.
Q9_A: The following methods are used to measure the impact of training in our organization:
Generational cohorts also differ in the methods used to measure the impact of training. While half of all respondents use observation and evaluation by managers, Younger Generation employees are more likely to employ employee feedback surveys, performance metrics, assessments, and long-term retention and application of skills. Overall, Younger Generation respondents employ more total measures (20% more on average). 17% of Older Generation respondents do not use any of the measures we tested.
Q10_A: How critical is successful onboarding in the first 90 days to an employee’s long-term value to the company?
While opinions on the value of data analytics and the methods of measurement vary, respondents across cohorts share conviction in the importance of onboarding in ensuring the long-term success of employees.
Skill Gaps, Skill Masking, and Other Anxieties
Finally, the survey asked a series of questions regarding respondents’ personal feelings relative to their job readiness.
Q1. How often do you worry you lack some of the skills needed to succeed in your current role?
As a baseline, over half of respondents (51%) worry that they lack some of the skills needed to succeed in their current role at least occasionally.’ 18% experience this worry ‘frequently’ or more often. This anxiety is more pronounced among Younger Generation respondents – or at least is more vocalized among them – with 53% experiencing it at least ‘occasionally’ compared to only 44% of Older Generation respondents.
Note that 10% of the total respondents (and 21% of Older Generation respondents) opted to not answer any of the 13 skill gap questions. This suggests both a lingering uncomfortableness with expressing vulnerability, even in an anonymous survey, and a greater willingness among Younger Generation employees to confront that stigma; only 6% of Younger Generation respondents opted out of these questions.
Q3, Q4, Q4, Q12, Q13
Digging deeper into the nature of these anxieties, the survey asked a series of questions about specific instances and experiences of career-readiness. 40% of respondents have avoided asking for help because they didn’t want to appear unqualified. 58% of respondents have experienced “skill masking,” although only 15% would say that this describes their work behavior completely or often (an additional 31% would say ‘sometimes’). 46% of respondents admit that they sometimes pretend to understand things at work that they don’t. However, only 29% of respondents would say that ‘skill-set anxiety’ describes their experience largely or completely. (Another 34% admit ‘somewhat.’)
Following the established trend, these experiences are far more prevalent among Younger Generation respondents.
Q5. In the past 6 months, which of the following have you done when you felt unsure about a task?
Nearly half of respondents have dealt with their career readiness by self-teaching skills. The same number have asked their manager. Slightly fewer (44%) have asked peers for help. 39% of respondents have tried quietly on their own; the survey does not indicate if these attempts were successful or not. 12% of respondents have delayed or avoided a task, and another 8% have stayed silent during a meeting.
Again, these behaviors are more pronounced in Younger Generation respondents, for better and for worse.
Despite these anxieties, more than half of respondents (58%) feel comfortable admitting a skill gap to a manager. 58% of respondents feel they can admit these skill gaps without negative consequences. 65% of respondents say that their manager creates an environment where it is safe to ask for support. Interestingly, Younger Generation and Older Generation respondents are relatively similar, with over or nearly half of Older Generation respondents positively endorsing these questions.
(An interesting follow-on question might be what these managers do to create safe environments.)
Q9. My company provides training that keeps up with what my role demands.
Nearly two-thirds of organizations (63%) provide training to help employees keep up with skill demands. Younger Generation respondents are more likely to endorse this.
Q10. If a confidential, AI-powered tool let you privately practice and improve your job-critical skills, how likely would you be to use it?
Interest in training extends to innovative tools like AI. When asked if they would be interested in using an AI-powered tool to confidentially improve job-critical skills, two-thirds of respondents (67%) said they would be ‘likely’ or ‘very likely’ to use it. Only 7% of respondents said they would be unlikely to use it. Younger Generation respondents are more open to using this tool than Older Generation respondents, but nearly half (47%) of Older Generation respondents are likely to use the tool.
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