Although companies today recognise that onboarding is a critical element of the new-hire experience , it is not adequately prioritised in organisational or organised from an employee-centric perspective.
Often, onboarding is limited to basic processes such as getting set up with a workspace, laptop, email account, etc…which is only a small part of the ideal requirements.
Unfortunately, a common, fatal flaw organisations tend to make is to treat onboarding as a "new employee orientation class" or "the first 30 days," rather than a 90 days or year-long process that helps employees get up to speed in their job and integrate into their new team and organisation. This ramp-up time is when employees learn their roles with the intention of being fully capable of performing all critical functions at a high level.
The workplace transformation accelerated by hybrid work models has fundamentally changed how organizations approach employee onboarding. With 20% of employees leaving within their first 40 days and well-onboarded employees being 50% more likely to go "above and beyond" in their roles, the stakes for effective onboarding have never been higher.
When and what is onboarding?
Employees are being onboarded the moment they visit the career page of your company website or talk to a recruiter or hiring manager. At least, they should start being included- in a respectful and non-invasive way - with general information and processes before they actually start.
It can be the first 30, 90, 150 or even up to and beyond the first year of employment.
There may be a need to onboard employees as they make critical transitions within the organisation to new roles, be that a change of location or function. (see gallup, 1 below)
Four key considerations for effective employee onboarding:
With 20% of new hires leaving within 40 days, the need for immediate connection is critical. New employees must see how their specific role contributes to the larger mission. Human mentors are fundamentals in that process but they are often already busy with their own work. An AI coach, can start answering questions before the new employee even starts, and can bridge this gap by contextualizing daily tasks and consistently reinforcing how individual contributions drive the company's purpose, as well as supporting each individual 24/7. Connect new hires to the company's purpose by weaving its core principles into the fabric of their onboarding, linking daily tasks directly to the larger mission. Beyond a static handbook or glossy website, an AI mentor trained on your company’s unique DNA can consistently reinforce these values in context, explaining how a specific policy or task reflects the organizational purpose. An AI coach, trained on your organization's unique DNA, can be the always available “explainer”.
2 Deliver the right information, the right way.
Sometimes the training within an onboarding program tends to provide too much information and too many materials in a short time frame. More importantly, we know that the man failure of e-learning is the lack of explainability. Because it is delivered on-demand, often without anyone to explain, the information is not really understood, internationalised and made relevant to the actual missions or even needs of employees. Smart AI integration, at the point of learning, solves this. Going further the capacity to generate courses from a simple document needs to be decentralised, so managers can effortlessly generate the relevant micro-learning for their teams in real time.
Prevent information overload by tailoring the onboarding journey to the individual's role, pace, and learning style, which, as research from HBR emphasizes, accelerates their path to productivity. While human mentors are vital - managers of course but also mentors - platforms like CognentAI's MyCoach augment this by offering personalized, 24/7 guidance, making all company knowledge interactive and accessible on demand.
True psychological safety requires a confidential, two-way communication channel where new hires can ask foundational questions without fear of judgment and provide candid feedback. A private AI assistant acts as a non-judgmental intermediary, ensuring employees can both seek clarity and share honest perspectives with complete confidentiality, accelerating their learning while providing you with invaluable, real-time insights . At organisation level, critical information not being reported or misunderstood is a major cause of loss. In the US only That’s costing U.S. organizations $2 trillion per year in time and productivity (source AxiosHQ see below). Tools like MyCoach’s communication space solve this issue in a novel way.
For HR leaders and business owners, success lies in balancing technological capabilities with human connection, creating onboarding experiences that are both efficient and engaging. The future belongs to organizations that can transform onboarding from a compliance exercise into a powerful driver of employee success and business growth.
The two top-of-mind questions:
-Do new employees know exactly how their job helps fulfil your company's mission?
Companies need to connect each employee to the organisation's mission or purpose and demonstrate how that employee personally impacts the product, brand or customer experience. Only four in 10 employees strongly agree that the mission or purpose of their company makes them feel their job is important.
Feeling like your job matters is an underrated aspect of performance. It not only influences brand advocacy, it also reduces absenteeism and improves safety and quality of work.
-Do new employees experience your brand, mission, and values during onboarding?
Undoubtedly, some facets of onboarding will vary from company to company, regardless of a new hire's role or team, three elements should be central: the company's purpose, brand, and culture.
Companies can provide more memorable, brand-bolstering employee experiences by assigning professionals or hiring outside consultants in this area to optimise new workers' touch points with the company. In partnership with HR, this role strategically crafts communications and action items to manage employees' experiences -- often developing experience maps to better organise and execute their plans.
1 https://www.gallup.com/workplace/242252/employee-experience.aspx
2 https://www.axioshq.com/research/2023-state-of-workplace-communications
