Onboarding is more than just orientation and involves welcoming, acclimating, guiding, and developing new employees over three to twelve months. Effective onboarding can save money by reducing costs and improving productivity, boost revenue by helping employees become productive faster, drive engagement and reduce turnover by quickly acclimating employees to the culture and values, and reinforce the culture and employer brand by ensuring employees feel a connection. A good onboarding program helps employees feel connected to the organization by articulating the mission and vision, acclimates them to the business and industry, guides them by outlining their role and performance expectations, and develops them by providing training to build needed competencies.

1. Employee Onboarding

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Onboarding

3. Do not confuse onboarding with
orientation
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4. ◉Onboarding is more than just orientation.
◉Orientation is typically a few days of completing paperwork, reading manuals, and
learning about the company’s history, strategic goals, and culture.
◉By contrast, onboarding is three to twelve months dedicated to welcoming, acclimating,
guiding, and developing new employees – with the ideal duration reflecting the time-to-
productivity for the role.
◉A traditional orientation approach provides insufficient focus on the organizational
identification, socialization, and job clarity that a new hire requires.
◉This is a missed opportunity to build engagement, drive productivity, and increase
organizational commitment. This can result in early disengagement and premature
departure.
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5. Benefit of Effective On-Boarding
• Save money and frustration
o Shorten processing time, reduce administrative costs, and improve compliance.
• Boost revenue
o Help new employees become productive faster – also reduce the strain on existing employees
who would normally be overseeing them or covering a performance shortfall.
• Drive engagement and reduce turnover
o Quickly acclimate new hires to your organization’s environment, culture, and values.
• Reinforce culture and employer brand
o Ensure that new hires feel a connection to the organization’s culture.
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6. Designing an Onboarding
Program
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7. 7
Help new hires feel connected to the organization
by clearly articulating the mission, vision, values,
and what the company does. Help them understand
the business model, the industry, and who their
competitors are. Help them feel connected to their
new team members by providing opportunities for
socialization and a support network.
Acclimate
Guide
Develop
Help put new hires on the path to high performance
by clearly outlining their role in the organization
and how their performance will be evaluated.
Help new hires receive the experience and training
they require to become high performers by helping
them build needed competencies.

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Our primary and secondary research identified the following as the most commonly stated reasons why
employees leave organizations prematurely. These issues will be addressed throughout this blueprint.
• Onboarding experience is
misaligned from the
employer’s brand.
• Socialization and/or
integration into the
existing culture is left to
the employee.
• Key role expectations or
role usefulness is not
clearly communicated.
• Company strategy is
unclear.
• Opportunities for
advancement are unclear.
• Coaching, counseling,
and/or support from
co-workers and/or
management is lacking.
• The organization fails to
demonstrate that it cares
about the new employee’s
needs.
Acclimate Develop
Guide

9. Thank You
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