Might be Time to Change Onboarding Practices

John Krautzel
Posted by in Career Advice


When new hires don't work out, you may be quick to assume the employee wasn't a good fit for your company. However, new hires are also evaluating your culture, and a poorly planned onboarding process can prevent them from feeling welcomed and valued by the team. If your company makes these common mistakes, consider overhauling your practices to improve employee turnover.

1. Failing to Explain Responsibilities

Despite having experience in a similar position, new hires don't walk in knowing exactly what your company expects from them. Communicating the company's vision and current goals can help employees solve problems and prioritize their work, instead of struggling to decide what to do next. Explaining their responsibilities and how these tasks improve daily operations gives new hires a sense of how they fit into the team.

2. Being Unprepared

If you want employees to stick around, show them they're worth taking the time to set up a comfortable workspace. Starting a new job is nerve-wracking enough without the added awkwardness of working in a storeroom, hunting around for supplies and bothering co-workers for pass codes. When choosing a start date, make sure HR has all the required information to set up accounts and grant access to essential materials. Provide a functional workstation equipped with typical supplies for the first few weeks on the job, but also inform new hires where to find anything else they need.

3. Disengaging Too Soon

In most cases, new hires are surrounded by strangers, and they may find it difficult to break into the social landscape without help. Formally introduce new hires to their direct co-workers and department leaders, and invite them to lunch to get to know everyone outside work. Spending weeks eating alone and overhearing cliques discussing their weekend plans can make new workers feel unwanted.

Avoid overwhelming employees by trying to introduce them to the whole company at once. Instead, write an interesting profile for each new hire, and share it with the entire company in a newsletter or email. At the same time, continue checking with new employees to make sure they don't have problems or concerns they're afraid to voice. When they fail to form strong connections, employees have little incentive to stick around if a better offer comes along.

4. Piling On the Rules

Training and company policies are essential to the onboarding process, but they don't have to be the first things new hires experience. Making employees suffer through hours of training when they're already nervous is a recipe for boredom, and your anxious, captive audience may not remember the majority of what they hear. Relieve new-job fears and immediately engage employees in the company culture by planning creative onboarding events. At the Grand Wailea Resort in Hawaii, new employees complete a property tour the first day and compete in a scavenger hunt the second day to test their memories of the layout.

New hires are in the stressful position of having to absorb vast amounts of information while appearing positive and in control at every moment. Make their transition easier by outlining how to succeed in your company and creating an environment where everyone feels important and included.


Photo courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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  • Delana G.
    Delana G.

    Great article for the employer...hopefully some are actually reading it

  • Nancy Anderson
    Nancy Anderson

    @Thomas thanks for your comment. Maybe in the past doing a temp gig would have looked bad but not today. With an unsteady job market, more and more companies are using temporary hires - not because they pay less but because they don't have to offer benefits. And many temp positions do turn into fulltime positions. My son is temping right now and was just offered fulltime employment so I know that it can work. It certainly is true that some agencies will reel you in with offers of pie in the sky fulltime employment but, for the most part, agencies are telling it like it is. You want to work - earn a paycheck - even if only temporary - then jump onboard. So true that temping is not for everyone. As a higher level employee - guessing in management or higher - it does make is tougher. But, temping - whether line level or C level - is a way to earn a paycheck and keep yourself afloat. Most of do not have the luxury of improving our personal chops - such as going to school - as we have to earn money to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table.

  • Thomas H.
    Thomas H.

    Temping is fine for line level staff. Temping is dangerous and potentially bad for one's professional career. Temp agencies will take advantage of you with vague references to future full time employment. Their customers will use you and never hire you because they have no opening or don't want to pay the temp-to-hire fees. Potential employers along the way and into the future will look at you as possibly defective because you were temping and in their eyes, must be less than a desirable employee. Certainly not a professional employee committed to a career. Instead of wasting time temping, for low pay, dedicate your efforts to improving your professional chops and finding a full time gig. In the long run, you'll be much better off.

  • Nancy Anderson
    Nancy Anderson

    @Denise and @Miguel thanks for your comments. It is truly unfortunate that you had bad experience temping. Not all companies are like that. @Denise sounds like maybe it was a good thing that it didn't work out. The main purpose to taking a temp position is to work it into a permanent one. So, if the temp position is not for you; not what you were led to believe in the interview; not what you were told by senior managers - then it might be best to get away from it. But not all temp jobs will be bad. Keep trying. I am living proof that it can work. I was temping for an insurance company - working on an automated system for mortgages when I was asked to submit a resume for the third party whose software we were using. I did that and ended up with two offers - one for permanent from the temp company and one from the vendor. So I know that it works. I actually got two very great jobs through temping first. It's a good way to get to know the company and know if you really want to stay. Best of luck.

  • Miguel Espina
    Miguel Espina

    Same here Denise. I even went as far as telling the interview team "this is what I understand my job will be.....if I am wrong ....please do not hire me...". In retrospective, I should have followed my intuition. But when Senior Managers of the company I am going to work for tell me: "...yes... that's the job" .....I used to believe​ it.

  • Denise Brindamour
    Denise Brindamour

    Good article. I just resigned a temporary position because it was making me ill. The desk was messy and the supervisor's office the same way and they were way behind on the use of technology. The supervisor said to ask questions but then seemed like she did not want to be bothered with any questions; she also did not come in on the third day and no one was notified that she wasn't coming in.

  • Nancy Anderson
    Nancy Anderson

    @Denise thanks for your comment. It is truly unfortunate when that happens. You go into a new position with all of these great expectations and thoughts as to how things are going to run only to smack into reality. So the question is - did you ask questions during the interview? Did you ask to see where you would be working so that you could get a "feel" for the day to day? Did you ask why the position was open? If it's not a new position, did you ask why the previous employee left? Yes you can ask these questions. Granted you won't always get the answers that you might want or might be hoping for but it will help to give you a better picture of the job. We wish all the best in finding a new position.

  • Denise D.
    Denise D.

    I quit a job after the first day because the location was so poorly run. During the interview process expectations were created that did not match reality.

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