Onboarding Your New Employees with Care and Intention in 2025 

Retaining great employees starts with the onboarding process. We’ve been helping companies find talent and get them productive for more than 23 years and know from experience how essential it is that new employees feel welcomed and set up for success.  

Studies show employees typically decide their future with your company within their first 90 days. And not taking care of your new hires in this pivotal period in the hiring process could lead to a cycle of attrition and high turnover. A great onboarding experience can increase retention by 50%! 

Let’s dig a little deeper to discover how you can create the best onboarding experience for your new employees and why it matters. 

The Three Lenses of Onboarding

At Insight Global, we believe the heart of effective onboarding exists through three essential lenses: cultural, administrative, and technical. We look at it this way not to reinvent the wheel of this process but to ensure our new hires are thoroughly taken care of every step of the way of this transition. 

 Let’s take a look through each one! 

The Cultural Lens 

Your company’s culture vividly reflects its values, beliefs, and behaviors, offering a clear roadmap for how to care for your people (new or tenured).

We work to embed our culture throughout every aspect of our onboarding process. This helps us ensure our people feel welcomed, valued, and aligned with our mission from day one—no surprises. 

When you’re onboarding your employees, get them connected and engaged as soon as possible! Remember, the interview process determines a candidate’s willingness to be developed, but how well they integrate into your culture determines how long they will stick around. 

Best Practices: 

• Connection: Include new employees on informal meetings like team dinners or coffee between the offer and their start date. These interactions can help them get acquainted with their mentor, close peers, and leaders, fostering a sense of belonging sooner rather than later. 
• Orientation Programs: Comprehensive orientations like a “Welcome Week” initiative introduce new employees to the company’s history, values, and mission, setting the stage for their journey and their purpose in their role.
• Mentorship: Assigning mentors or buddies establishes continuous support and guidance, helping them navigate their new environment. 

The Administrative Lens 

Simply put, the administrative lens focuses on all logistical and procedural elements of the onboarding process. This typically spans from Form I-9s to benefits.   

Best Practices: 

• Paperwork Completion: Ensure all employment forms, tax documents, and contracts are signed and submitted. 
• System Access: Provide new hires with access to necessary systems, email accounts, and software tools. 
• Policy Familiarization: Educate new hires about company policies, procedures, and benefits. 

The Technical Lens 

The technical lens focuses on equipping new hires with the tools and training they need to excel. This includes providing necessary equipment and training on specific tools and systems. 

Best Practices: 

• Workspace Setup: Ensure the new hire’s workspace is ready, including their desk, computer, and any other necessary equipment. 
• Technical Training: Provide training on any software, tools, or systems they will use in their role. 
• Resource Availability: Make sure new hires know where to find resources and support for process assistance or technical issues. 

Implementing An Onboarding Process 

Onboarding should be a seamless experience that introduces new hires to your company culture, their daily responsibilities, and the skills they’ll need to thrive. By setting clear expectations and providing the necessary support, it’s easy to ensure a positive start.  

At Insight Global, one of our onboarding tactics is bring our new hires to our offices toward the end of their interview process and grant access to paperwork packaged prior to their first day. 

“We find having them come on-site helps,” Courtney Palmer, Executive Director of Human Resources at Insight Global says. “It helps us be transparent, and it allows candidates to see the culture, meet a lot of the people they’ll be working with, and experience our pace.” We understand this isn’t always possible, especially with the rise of remote employees. But having employees meeting fellow co-workers face-to-face is a great tactic to help the candidate—and eventual employee—know what they’re walking into on their first day. 

Orientations and trainings are also essential, too, but they’re also just the tip of the iceberg. Having a well-developed process is always mutually beneficial. It has the power to: 

• Lower attrition rates 
• Improve retention rates 
• Boost employee morale 
• Increase employee engagement 
• Decrease the likelihood of quiet quitting 
• Save money on recruiting and hiring costs 

Companies can also create a multi-phase onboarding process. Here are some examples of some of those phases: 

1. Pre-boarding begins once a new hire signs their paperwork. 
2. Orientation can last up to a week to help new hires become accustomed to the organization. 
3. Role-specific training helps new workers learn their roles, responsibilities, and how to do their jobs and will often be led by their direct leaders or peers. 
4. Fully transitioning into their role, where they are working more independently, applying feedback from training, and starting to own their responsibilities with ease. 
5. Ongoing development helps employees continue to grow in their role over time, contributes to strong employee loyalty, and can be seen as part of the long-term aspect of the onboarding process. 

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INFOGRAPHIC: Employee Retention: How Do Culture & Connection Play a Role?

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The Importance of a New Hire’s First Six Months 

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) underscores the critical importance of a strong onboarding experience. A staggering number of new hires make decisions about their long-term commitment to a company within the first six months of employment. In fact: 

• 56% of respondents in the BambooHR study said that having a buddy or mentor at work was very important when getting started 
• Only 15% of companies continue onboarding after six months 
• One in six leaves within the first three months. 

Key reasons for early resigning include: 

• Lack of clear guidelines and responsibilities (23%) 
• Ineffective training (21%) 
• Poor rapport with coworkers (17%) 
• Insufficient guidance from managers and coworkers (9%) 

Conversely, a structured onboarding process can make all the difference with 58% of new hires who experienced a structured onboarding process remain with the company after three years. Courtney aptly states, “The first 30 days are crucial. People make decisions about their trajectory with the company that quickly, and it can make or break long-term employee engagement.”

SHRM emphasized that a well-designed onboarding program is more than just a checklist. It’s a strategic investment in your employees’ long-term success and your company’s future.  

How Hiring Managers Can Make Positive Impact 

“When a new hire leaves within the first 90 days, we credit that to some type of miss in the hiring process; something that could have been avoided during the interview stages” Palmer says. “It may have been transparency regarding the job or culture, or transparency about the state of the team they’re joining. People need to know what they’re signing up for.” 

Let’s look at some common challenges in the onboarding process and how to solve them. 

More Transparency 

Ensuring transparency during the recruiting and hiring process will help streamline the transition into a successful pre-boarding phase, laying the foundations for smooth and efficient onboarding. Maintaining this transparency can foster an increase in employee satisfaction: a vast majority of employees with transparent employers reported satisfaction with their employment. 

Additional Planning 

Being proactive rather than reactive with your onboarding and training processes is vital. 

“Don’t wait for someone to show up on the first day to think about training and acclimating them to their environment,” Palmer suggests. “Whether there’s a formalized process or something you’re putting together on your own as their leader, map out what their first week and first thirty days will look like before their first day.” 

Courtney says that switching to strategic start dates versus randomized ones helped Insight Global solve planning issues. When there were random start dates, we struggled to ensure that people had their workspaces set up with the correct equipment and program accesses. “It looked like we weren’t prioritizing our new hires,” she explains. “Onboarding doesn’t go well when we have people rush into starting work without allowing them the time to adjust and get familiar with the environment. Don’t rush someone in the door to be productive,” Palmer adds. 

Encourage a Sense of Belonging 

Courtney stresses the importance of double checking the correct spelling of names and creating a welcoming environment to help new hires feel safe and wanted. “It’s important for new hires to see that there’s a place for them and that they belong,” she says. Creating a sense of belonging can be an overlooked aspect of onboarding. High belonging has been linked to a 56% increase in job performance, cuts turnover risks in half, and even a sharp reduction in the use of sick days.  

Maintain Constant Communication

“Retention is tied to a thoughtful onboarding experience,” Palmer says. She suggests having a day one conversation with new hires. “Be clear with them about your investment in their success at the company. Show you’re super excited to have them. Be diligent about their ongoing development. Set clear expectations for both parties.” We suggesting urging newer employees to spend meetings learning rather than trying to produce. Giving them the time and space to learn the team, business, and priorities results can grant clarity, highlight direction, and increase productivity.  

As an employer, the onboarding process can feel overwhelming to improve when you’re also running your day-to-day operations. But, as you make incremental, intentional tweaks, you may see significant benefits quickly.