The Real Employee Onboarding Problem

Most companies think they're good at onboarding. They have a process, maybe even a fancy system. But they're usually solving the wrong problem.

I've talked to a lot of HR leaders and new hires over the last few months. Here's what I've learned: the real challenge of onboarding isn't information transfer. It's connection building.

Consider two common onboarding approaches:

Company A has a slick tool. New hires spend their first week watching training videos, reading policy documents, and taking quizzes. By Friday, they can recite the company values and navigate the expense reporting system.

Company B takes a more "sink or swim" approach. New hires are assigned a buddy, given login credentials, and told to ask questions as they come up. By Friday, they've figured out where the good coffee is and which Slack channels to avoid.

Both companies think they're doing a good job. Company A is thorough. Company B is efficient. But both are missing the point.

The best onboarding I've seen looks more like this:

Company C groups new hires across departments. They tackle challenges that require collaboration, outreach, and deep dives into products or services. By Friday, they've built relationships, understand team interactions, and see how their role fits the bigger picture.

This approach isn't as neat as A or hands-off as B. But it's more effective at what matters: helping new hires build connections and context.

The key insight here is that onboarding isn't primarily about learning information. It's about building a mental model of how the company works. Who knows what? Who influences whom? How do decisions really get made? 

These aren't things you can learn from a handbook or pick up by osmosis. They require active exploration and interaction.

Of course, this approach has challenges. It's harder to standardise. It requires more effort from existing employees. And it can feel messy or inefficient in the short term.

But the payoff is worth it. New hires who onboard this way ramp up faster, build stronger networks, and are more likely to stick around long-term.

 So why don't more companies do this? Three reasons:

- It's harder to measure. You can easily track completion rates for training modules. It's tougher to quantify the strength of someone's internal network.

- It feels risky. Letting new hires loose to ask questions and poke around can surface uncomfortable truths about your company.

- It requires ongoing effort. This isn't a one-and-done process you can automate and forget about.

But these aren't actually downsides. They're features.

Measurement challenges force you to think more deeply about what really matters in onboarding. The "risk" of new hires asking tough questions is actually an opportunity to address issues and reinforce culture. 

The irony is that companies who get onboarding right often don't think of it as onboarding at all. It's just part of how they operate. They're constantly helping people understand how things work, build connections, and contribute effectively. This approach works for new hires because it works for everyone.

When you optimise for learning and connection-building, you solve multiple problems at once. New hires integrate faster and more deeply. Existing employees stay engaged and keep growing. The organisation as a whole becomes more adaptable.

Of course, this is harder than just creating a standard onboarding checklist. It requires ongoing effort and doesn't fit neatly into an HR system. But that's precisely why it's valuable. The difficulty is the moat.

In the long run, companies that take this approach don't just end up with better onboarding. 

They end up with better companies. Because the same principles that make for good onboarding - prioritising understanding, connections, and real-world problem solving - also make for good work.

So perhaps the goal shouldn't be to improve onboarding, but to make it disappear - to build a company where the lines between onboarding, working, and growing are so blurred that you can't tell where one ends and the others begin.