Why Do New Starters Leave in Their First 90 Days?
New starters usually leave in their first 90 days because of a mismatch between expectations and reality, feeling isolated from company culture, or experiencing a disorganized onboarding process.
When physical office culture isn’t there to do the heavy lifting in hybrid or remote setups, new joiners check out surprisingly fast. According to a recent survey by Enboarder, the top three reasons new starters resign within their first few months come down to:
- Role Misalignment (30.3%): The day to day reality of the job doesn’t match what was promised during the interview process.
- Culture Isolation (19.5%): Feeling like just another name on Slack or Teams rather than a valued member of the team.
- Disorganised Onboarding (17.4%): Delayed tech, a mountain of PDFs, or a lack of clear structure during week one.
The Commercial Cost of Getting Day One Wrong
When you can’t greet someone at the front desk with a warm welcome, day one needs to work twice as hard to build an immediate, personal connection. Getting this right isn’t just a nice gesture; it delivers measurable commercial value:
- Retention and Productivity: Research by Brandon Hall Group shows that organizations with strong onboarding processes improve new starter retention by 82% and overall productivity by over 70%.
- Long-Term Loyalty: Data cited by SHRM reveals that employees who experience great onboarding are 69% more likely to stay with a company for at least three years.
How to Fix Early Turnover Before It Starts
A massive 88% of employees feel their company fails at onboarding (Gallup).
The companies winning at remote and hybrid retention focus heavily on pre-boarding. They create intentional, high impact welcome moments that ensure new joiners feel seen, valued, and genuinely supported before they even open their laptop on Monday morning.
We help People and HR teams design high impact welcome moments that turn new starters into long term team members from day one.
Sources & Research
- Enboarder: The State of Onboarding & Workplace Connection Report (enboarder.com)
- Brandon Hall Group: The True Cost of a Bad Hire & Onboarding ROI Study (brandonhall.com)
- SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management): Onboarding Industry Benchmark & Retention Data (shrm.org)
- Gallup: State of the American Workplace Report / Onboarding Insights (gallup.com)