How to Measure a New Employee's Performance

A new employee's performance isn't a sprint for results - it's a measure of how effectively the organization can guide them through the onboarding process. The concept covers three key areas: the pace of gaining independence, the ability to absorb and apply knowledge in practice, and the way tasks get done in the first weeks of work.

As Peter Drucker put it: "what gets measured gets managed." In onboarding, this means one thing: to manage a new employee's experience, you have to monitor it properly. Not to hold them to results "like a veteran," but to check whether they're getting everything they need at a given stage.

Measuring onboarding effectiveness isn't about control - it's about support: it lets you catch knowledge gaps, respond appropriately to needs, and make sure the energy of the first days doesn't turn into frustration.

And a well-measured onboarding becomes not only a comfort for the new employee but also a source of data that helps optimize processes and build the experience on which the future loyalty and productivity of the whole team depend.

Performance and the onboarding process

How do you submit a vacation request? What are the organization's values? Where is the office kitchen? The first weeks, and even months, in a new job are a time when employees have to take in a huge amount of information. They also need to get to know new clients, tools, systems, and the team. In this situation, is there still room for additional surveys or tests that will measure performance within a set time? The answer isn't simple.

It all depends on how we define effectiveness during the onboarding process.

Our iron rule clearly states that effective onboarding is one that prepares an employee to be able to perform 80% of their duties independently.

Meanwhile, performance in the first period after hiring is often confused with pressure for results. Expecting a new employee to keep pace, in the number of correctly completed tasks, with people who have longer tenure in the organization is reckless and inadequate... Employee motivation in the face of such pressure doesn't increase at all. What's more, the stress of inflated expectations can discourage people from continuing the collaboration. And all of this before new crew members have properly settled into the company. And that's certainly not what we're after.

The goals of measuring onboarding are entirely different:

• We measure the effectiveness of the onboarding process in order to help the new employee become independent as quickly as possible. The point is to give them the best possible start in the organization and comfortable conditions for absorbing knowledge. As a result, once onboarding is complete, they'll be able to support the team on equal footing with the other employees - that is, reach readiness to work.
  
• Regular surveys, questionnaires, and tests aren't there to check the new person at every step. The priority of such efforts is to catch any knowledge gaps, questions there was no room for earlier, or needs the employee hadn't raised before. Responding to a newly hired person's needs in real time is crucial so that the initial enthusiasm doesn't turn into frustration and a sense of being lost.
  
• A well-measured onboarding is also a source of much valuable information related to optimizing onboarding processes globally.

What to measure in onboarding, and how?

Which performance indicators will tell us whether the onboarding process is heading in the right direction? To get reliable data that's genuinely useful, you need to examine three aspects:

• satisfaction level - we check how the first weeks/months at the company go from the employee's perspective (whether they're happy, whether something is missing, whether something is bothering them),
• knowledge retention - in the context of onboarding, this is about the effectiveness of absorbing information during onboarding (we measure the level of knowledge adoption from training, meetings, or courses on an e-learning platform),
• performance analysis - yes, measuring the new person's results is also one of the elements examined during onboarding (the key, however, is how you measure and calculate the effectiveness of the work done).

All of these checks should be spread over time and cover the entire onboarding process - from preboarding through to role-specific onboarding. You need to make sure to plan them properly and not overwhelm the new employee with the number of tests, quizzes, or extra tasks to complete. Measuring effectiveness should serve both sides and, in a broader perspective, support both the employer and the employee. We won't achieve this goal without using the right tools.

Performance and the employee's satisfaction level

How to measure satisfaction?

Pulse check surveys come to the rescue here - they measure the employee's satisfaction level and opinion. A pulse check is a short, regular reading of the organization's "pulse" - a quick measure of the employee's mood, needs, and experiences, done in a way that doesn't burden them with long forms.

In a pulse check survey, a simple 1-5 scale is enough. Thanks to a few simple questions, it lets you quickly catch signals that something in the onboarding process needs clarifying or improving. In the onboarding process we can plan several rounds of pulse checks and collect the newcomer's feedback after each onboarding stage. Let's start as early as the preboarding stage, right after the hiring decision, to get feedback on the recruitment process.

Where poor results can come from (and how to prevent them)

With pulse checks, regularity is what counts. A single survey at the end of the onboarding process is far too little to genuinely assess how the whole onboarding went. The employee may not remember many things from the first week or even month of work. So it may be hard for them to honestly reflect on, say, the preboarding process, handling formalities, or tasks in other areas. Besides, you can't keep a finger on the pulse by doing it sporadically and at random. Even if the new person hits some difficulties along the way (e.g., with picking up equipment, team communication, organizing work), regular surveys give a chance to react in time. Otherwise, even minor discomfort with one task at the start can build up into greater and greater tension and, as a result, turn into frustration.

Let's react in real time and improve the newcomer's work right from their first days at the workplace. An employee motivated this way won't lose their enthusiasm as the onboarding days go by.

Performance and knowledge retention

How to measure knowledge retention?

Health and safety training, introductory training, or strictly product training - each of them is important and requires absorbing specific information. To examine the level of knowledge adoption, you can use tests or quizzes, ideally in an online form available to the employee at any time. Because the form of the assessment is exactly what's key. A test that's too long, graphically dull, barely interactive, or poorly accessible doesn't bode well for high completion rates.

Where poor results can come from (and how to prevent them?)

Too-large doses of information delivered all at once make it harder to absorb knowledge and, as a result, can translate into poor outcomes. It's much easier to learn by taking in knowledge in small portions, e.g., in the form of microlearning or engaging training series. Short video tutorials, mini online training sessions ending with a brief test or quiz - these are just examples of solutions that make it easier for people being onboarded to absorb information, and easier for the employer to measure knowledge retention.

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Another issue that can affect results is a lack of regularity and too-large gaps between the training and the assessment. Let's plan knowledge-check activities in advance and automate the whole process, embedding it, for example, in an onboarding app the employee uses regularly. A single tool where training and tests are both available significantly cuts the number of clicks the new person has to make. And if we want to engage employees in the learning process even more, let's introduce an element of reward for a successfully completed sequence of quizzes or a positive test result. These could be, for example, points the employee collects to later exchange for a specific bonus.

Performance in the strict sense - performance analysis

How to measure an employee's performance?

Let's start by preparing an operational plan with concrete goals and tasks set within timeframes (e.g., this week call 10 clients, next week 15, and by the end of the month have made 50 calls). Let's not pile all the tasks on the employee at once, without indicating a deadline. A clear action plan covering the entire role-specific onboarding stage is a good moment for the first challenges related strictly to new duties.

A ready plan will serve to define performance indicators. On its basis, the manager can specify what results they expect and decide how best to measure them (e.g., the number of client calls held, a production plan, preparing and sending out a press release about the latest marketing campaign).

To measure performance, it's worth using an onboarding app in which both the manager and the newly hired person have access to a dashboard with the operational plan. Additionally, it can be connected to a CRM, ERP, or another tool that will provide the data needed for performance analysis. This way, the newcomer and their manager will be able to track the completion of the main tasks carried out during onboarding in real time.

Where poor results can come from (and how to prevent them)?

• Inform. According to our "Onboarding in Poland 2025" report, 20% of employees didn't know the purpose of the probation period in their current job - no one had given them that information. How do you meet an employer's expectations when you don't know them? Even if the new person gives their all but doesn't know which areas of their work are a priority for the manager at a given moment, they have a smaller chance of success and of reaching productivity at the right level.
• Be specific. "Prove yourself," "show us what sales techniques you know," "contact as many potential candidates as possible in the shortest possible time" - messages like these aren't enough either... Let's ensure a clear and precise message. Only specifically defined tasks, discussed with the employee, can translate into work performance.
• Don't delay. Let's not wait until the end of the probation period to do an evaluation. Let's track progress in real time and take care to plan the next steps, because otherwise we'll simply waste three months. Let's define our expectations earlier - without this, employee performance is largely beyond our control.

How else can you check onboarding progress?

The three main elements mentioned above are something like mandatory tasks, without which we won't reliably measure how effective onboarding is. For those who want to go further, there are "starred tasks" that allow an even more comprehensive check of how the person being onboarded is doing.

• Regular one-on-ones with the manager and buddy - you can never talk too much! Every meeting of this kind is a great opportunity to clarify or explain matters that slipped by earlier or that can't be reduced to a quantitative productivity indicator. Meetings with the direct manager should concern matters related to onboarding, not the effectiveness of activities in general. Let's create space to focus strictly on the onboarding process and the challenges connected with it. Such conversations are a great start to building mutual trust and valuable communication over the following months of collaboration.
• Also up our sleeve are focus groups with newly hired people, which are often a source of much valuable feedback. New employees look at the organization with a fresh eye, and their perspective on the onboarding process can include many aspects we didn't initially take into account.
• Last but not least - an NPS at the end of the probation period, to check right at the finish line how the whole onboarding marathon went, and to use the results to improve future onboardings.

A newcomer's performance in the context of HR analytics

Onboarding, as one of the HR processes, is also subject to the trend toward analytics in this area. Its metrics can likewise be linked to business data. How?

The data gathered during the onboarding process is very helpful in building the best possible experience for new employees. The organization gains new talent that won't get discouraged during the first weeks of work and will stay with the employer for longer. This, in turn, translates into concrete business goals and the company's finances.