Time to productivity

Why ramp time is a real cost

A new hire at half output for four months costs roughly two months of fully loaded salary in unproductive spend, per hire, before counting the colleague and manager time consumed by supporting them. Multiply by annual hires and ramp time quietly outweighs the recruitment budget it sits next to. It is also the multiplier that makes turnover expensive: every avoidable departure buys the full ramp cost again.

How to measure it without pretending

Define "productive" per role family before the person starts: a sales ramp is quota attainment, an engineer's might be independent delivery, a service role might be handling volume at target quality. Then record when each hire crosses it. The definition being imperfect matters less than it being consistent, because the value is in comparing cohorts, managers and onboarding changes over time.

What shortens it

Structured onboarding beats osmosis by weeks. The biggest levers are a real role scorecard from day one, early access to the systems and people the role depends on, a manager who holds weekly check-ins through the ramp, and hiring for fit with how the team actually works, because misfit is the slowest ramp of all and the one onboarding cannot fix.