Decentralized onboarding programs, where new sales hires are trained individually by their sales managers in the workplace, can benefit salesforces more than centralized programs. Decentralized onboarding encourages salespeople to take a more innovative and adaptive approach to their job. It allows them to incorporate insights from past experiences and adapt to local customer differences. Decentralized onboarding is more effective when sales managers have fewer reports and can coach salespeople, and when new hires have prior work experience to apply.

1. Onboarding Salespeople:
Socialization Approaches
Wiseman, Ahearne, Hall, and Tirunillai (2021)

2. What is Onboarding and Why Does it
Matter for the Sales Force?
• Onboarding Programs are a type of training designed to:
• Help new hires understand the values and norms of the firm.
• Provide new hires with a base of knowledge and skills that will enable them
to perform key tasks at a suitable level.
• Onboarding is particularly important to the sales force:
• Reduce the time required for salespeople to “ramp up” to a suitable level of
performance so sales opportunities are not lost.
• Increase the degree to which the potential of a salesperson is realized by
providing them with the knowledge and skills to succeed.
Wiseman, Ahearne, Hall, and Tirunillai (2021)

3. Salesperson Onboarding:
Centralized and Decentralized Programs
• Salespeople are commonly onboarded through either centralized or decentralized
programs (though firms may sometimes take a hybrid approach).
• These programs tend to differ in terms of the following features:
Wiseman, Ahearne, Hall, and Tirunillai (2021)
Centralized
• Cohort-based
experience
• In a training center
• Centralized trainers
Decentralized
• Individual experience
• In the workplace
• Sales manager

4. Why Decentralized Onboarding Benefits
the Sales Force
• Like centralized programs, Decentralized programs
provide a degree of structure that new hires appreciate.
• Decentralized programs also encourage new hires to take
a more innovative and adaptive approach to aspects of
their job.
- Through features (e.g., those listed in the prior slide) that
put less pressure on a new hire to follow the firm’s way of
doing things, allowing them to adapt how they approach the
job to fit their strengths.
Wiseman, Ahearne, Hall, and Tirunillai (2021)

5. Why Decentralized Onboarding Benefits
the Sales Force
• Why encouraging a more innovative and adaptive approach to
some aspects of a job can be especially beneficial in sales.
• General sales strategies prescribed by a firm to their salespeople may
be effective on average but miss out on nuances in how customers
prefer to be engaged, process information, etc.
• Incorporating insights from a new hire’s past work experiences can
lead to positive adaptations in their new sales role.
• Local differences in geographic areas may require changes in how a
salesperson engages with different customers.
Wiseman, Ahearne, Hall, and Tirunillai (2021)

6. Main Takeaways
• Decentralized onboarding can lead to higher performing
salespeople (compared to centralized onboarding).
Particularly when:
• Sales managers have the bandwidth (e.g., fewer salespeople
reporting to them) to develop and coach their salespeople.
• May enable sales managers to direct a salesperson’s efforts at
taking a more innovative approach to aspects of their job
towards those efforts that are likely to be beneficial.
• New hires have prior work experience (e.g., are coming from
another job as opposed to coming from school).
• Decentralized onboarding may encourage newly hired
salespeople to seek ways to positively incorporate knowledge
and skills from their old job into their new job.
Wiseman, Ahearne, Hall, and Tirunillai (2021)