Onboarding is absolutely critical to the success of new hires, but unfortunately, at many organizations, onboarding stops after orientation. After all the paperwork is signed, the parking pass issued, and the computer hooked up, that’s it. However, onboarding is a process that should go beyond the first days or even the first weeks. In fact, successful onboarding processes will look at least three to nine months down the road of an employee’s tenure. That length of time may sound absurd to some, but research conducted by the Aberdeen Group revealed that a typical employee’s mind isn’t made up about staying or leaving a new company until around their sixth month there. What’s more, it usually takes around a year for new hires to become as proficient in their day-to-day tasks as their more experienced colleagues. This is why a well-defined onboarding process of the appropriate length of time is so crucial. And few companies are getting this right. According to a BambooHR study conducted in 2014, more than 32 percent of new hires say they had barely any onboarding or none at all. This feeling of being cut adrift may cause new employees to jump ship—the report found that 21 percent of employees who left during the first six months of a new job did so because they didn’t receive the training that they needed to be successful.