Onboarding
After the thrill of being offered the job, new employees are often dropped into their roles with immediate deliverables and pressure to produce. This plunge can be a thrilling challenge and dopamine rush for some, but many find it stressful. In fact, the anxiety can drive 17% of new hires to leave their jobs within 3 months of their start date, citing non-existent or insufficient onboarding as the top reason. The fiscal impact of such early attrition is significant; between100% and 300% of the employee’s salary which is quite a poor return on investment.
The human cost of poor onboarding is also significant. Low confidence, and a lack of belonging are common consequences, resulting in decreased productivity, creativity, and commitment.
A Better Beginning
A well-planned onboarding experience brings out the best in new hires, reinforces an organization’s purpose and values, and enacts important cultural practices and rituals. A win, win, win!
Research shows that thoughtful onboarding programs have a proven ROI:
- New employees who go through a structured onboarding program are 58% more likely to be with the organization after three years.
- Organizations with a standard onboarding process experience 50% greater new hire retention.
- Organizations with a standard onboarding process experience 50% greater new hire productivity and employees whose companies have longer onboarding programs gain full proficiency 34% faster than those in the shortest programs.
- Manager satisfaction increases by 20% when their direct reports have formal onboarding Training.
What to do
Remember, there is only one first day.
A colleague once shared a story of a Vice President courted and eventually lured from a competitor. It was a clear win for this organization. However, when she showed up on her first day she was taken to her new office where she sat for several hours. Her manager was traveling, and her new colleagues were not even aware of her arrival. It was a bad beginning and did not get much better. She left after only three months on the job. After winning her, the organization quickly lost her, and this could have easily been avoided.
There is only one first day, first week, and first month for a new employee. The experience of these moments sets the tone of your relationship. Make them matter.
Try this. Be an exceptional host and make the first day a positively memorable one. Within the first few weeks, ask new employees how the expectations they had match up against their lived experience in the organization. Where there is mis-alignment leverage that as an opportunity to rethink your onboarding strategy.
Emphasize people and performance over paperwork.
Every onboarding process requires some paperwork. However, during a recent onboarding experience, I was buried in so many demands and documents that my enthusiasm fell under the weight of it all. The process was soul sucking — burdensome, unnecessarily urgent, full of legalese, and communicated in a cold manner.
Ironically, this is a mistake even some of the top executive search firms in India caution their clients against. When organizations invest heavily in hiring senior talent but neglect the onboarding experience, they risk diminishing excitement before the role even begins.
New hire paperwork doesn’t have to induce such horror! There is latent beauty and elegance in the way documents are formatted, presented, and experienced.
Try this. Redesign onboarding paperwork from the perspective of the new hire. Design to delight rather than defaulting to impersonal and administrative boxes to check. Brand the process, make it intuitive and easy to navigate, and even fun to complete.
Tailor onboarding to the individual.
Onboarding should not be “one-size-fits-all.” New employee’s needs will vary based on the level and type of new role.
Individuals also vary in how they learn, how they manage transitions, and how they enter into new environments. What works for one person might be totally ineffective for another. A common misalignment here is between introverted and extraverted employees. An extraverted manager might blindly craft an onboarding experience that they would prefer, which will completely overwhelm a more introverted colleague.
Try this. Before a new hire begins ask them how they prefer to learn and what support they need to successfully transition into their new role and your organization. Then customize their schedule to support those needs and amplify their success.
Focus more on the employee, than the organization.
The default assumption for most onboarding programs is that they must orient new hires to the organization’s identity, its mission and values, history, structure and strategy, and more. Leaders and department heads are marched in and new hires presented to, sometimes for hours on end. While these presentations can be beautifully crafted, they are often a one-way Communication.
Research conducted in India with an organization turns this assumption on its head. The study showed that when a new hire’s identity is emphasized over the organization’s, employee engagement and retention increased by 250%.
Leverage connection; build belonging.
Set your new hires up for success by meaningfully connecting them to their manager, their new team, an assigned buddy or mentor, and others they will work with throughout the organization.
These connections should be made immediately, particularly with the new employee’s manager. If the manager cannot be on-site, delay the start date! This relationship is so crucial that you should not proceed without this important connection.
Try this. Introduce new hires to colleagues who might share similar hobbies or backgrounds, people that might become new friends. Doing this welcomes the whole person to your organization and supports engagement and belonging.
Catalyze individual and organizational learning.
Transitions between jobs are big deals, and these moments are huge opportunities for dynamic learning. At the start of a new career chapter, we’re often most open for reflection and learning. Capitalize on this by creating space in onboarding to help new hires articulate what they bring to the organization and what they hope to learn. Incorporate this into development planning and manager support.
New hires bring a beginner’s mind to your existing procedures, practices, systems, and culture. Mine their early observations to improve organization learning and effectiveness.
Try this. Check-in with new hires at the end of 30 days. Ask what they are learning and what would support their continued learning? Ask for their feedback on the organization culture and the systems and process they’ve encountered. Organize and feed these reflections to management for process improvement.
View onboarding as an organization ritual.
Onboarding is a living artifact that you can positively influence. Infusing onboarding with thoughtful and creative rituals will elevate it from a check-list to a deeply meaningful experience that reverberates throughout your organization; amplifying and strengthening your values and culture.
Try this. Ask yourself what experience you want employees to carry with them into your organization that would positively steward your culture. Create routines that will deliver this Experience.
Make them part of the team
Some managers believe that newcomers will automatically be integrated into the team: “They’re all adults, they’ll figure it out!” But the problem is, they don’t always figure it out. An existing team can take on clique-ish behaviour around an “outsider”, while confusion around the new employee’s role could cause bad blood and power plays. Things like these could prevent the newcomer from doing their job properly, and they often end up leaving.
As a manager, you must make formal introductions, explaining why the person has been hired and what their precise role will be. Create an environment of support by making it clear that you expect the entire team to get the new member up to speed. Helping forge strong relationships with colleagues is integral to effective integration.
Teach language and culture
In the Harvard Business Review article, To Retain New Hires, Spend More Time Onboarding Them, Ron Carucci explains that organisational induction needs to go deeper than functional aspects like ID cards and office layout:
It’s also important to teach them your workplace “language.” There’s almost always a litany of cryptic acronyms that company’s use for key processes or roles – decoding them can be one of the most distressing challenges for new hires. The more a new hire has to awkwardly ask, “Sorry, I’m new…what does SSRP stand for?” the more they feel like an outsider. Simple tools, like glossaries of terms, go a long way.
Carucci also recommends scheduling conversations at key intervals (3 months, 6 months, and so on) in which you communicate the company’s journey, values and culture. Plus, you could create opportunities for the newcomer to interact with people who are known for their values-driven behaviour – this helps to bring alive the company culture, beyond jargon and buzzwords
Set clear expectations
Even if the job was discussed at the recruitment stage, you must provide clear guidance once the new hire actually joins the team. What are their goals, and what strategies should they use to achieve them? How will success be measured? How is their work connected to the overall vision of the company? What are their decision-making rights and boundaries? Once you’ve defined what “good” looks like, weekly check-ins can help to keep things on track and address any obstacles that pop up.
Set up quick wins
It may surprise you to know that 60 percent of companies fail to set short-term goals for new hires. This is a big mistake, given that a lack of early success can damage confidence and leave the newcomer floundering. It also increases defensive behaviours such as constantly talking about old accomplishments (“In my last job, I…”), which can be very off-putting for the rest of the team.
So, sit down and identify some quick wins they can score to make an impact and start building credibility. Set tasks at 3, 6 and 9 month intervals – the first year of employment is the most vulnerable period. This process will also give you a clearer sense of the individual’s capabilities and skill gaps.
Your onboarding practice is a microcosm of your organization’s culture. How you treat those entering your organization signals what is important. Are you sending the signals you want? Pay attention to your beginnings and they will pay back in spades.
Final Thoughts
Onboarding is far more than an administrative process, it is the foundation of trust, performance, and long-term commitment. The first few days and months shape how new employees perceive their value, their belonging, and their future within the organization.
When onboarding is rushed, impersonal, or overly procedural, the message unintentionally sent is that people are secondary to processes. The consequences show up quickly in disengagement, low productivity, and early attrition.
