Case study: How to onboard employees to boost connection and productivity

Onboarding hundreds of new employees per year is a large undertaking for organizations and one with large business implications. 

According to SHRM, 69% of employees are more likely to stay with a company for three years if they experienced great onboarding, but only 12% of employees agree their organization does a great job at it (Gallup). 

I recently partnered with a global tech company to redesign their onboarding experience. Many of their company practices pivoted with their move to remote work but onboarding wasn’t yet one of them.

A sharp increase in expected headcount combined with increasing attrition (specifically at or before 1 year of tenure) signaled it was time to revisit this key employee journey moment. Here’s how:

Step 1: Define the ideal state

Employee feedback, survey data, and stakeholder interviews centered on 3 main goals for a revised onboarding program:

1. Increase connection: 

• New employees found it difficult to get a feel for the company as remote hires.

• Since there is limited time on how often new hires can be together over Zoom it was important to optimize for that synchronous time

2. Boost productivity and confidence: 

• Help new hires find and retain helpful information so they can contribute from Day 1

3. Create a scaleable experience: 

• Ensure a streamlined and consistent approach that will scale as the company does across regions, departments, and roles. 

Step 2: Diagnose the current state: 

The Gathering Effect reviewed and took part in the onboarding process as a mock new hire to inform our diagnosis. Across the 3 goals we observed:

Increase connection: 

1. The focus of the new hire experience was on information; not connection.

2. New hires briefly learn the company values, but do not experience them or their impact on the business

Boost productivity and confidence: 

1. No single source of truth exists for new hire documentation. 

2. Information is spread amongst several slide decks, tools, and slack channels which new hires experience as overwhelming and hard to sort through

Create a scalable experience: 

1. Lack of consistency between regions, departments, and managers means there is significant variance in one’s new hire experience. 

2. There is a large burden on program administrators to run bi-weekly onboarding with the current workflow.

Step 3: Adjust the employee experience

These enhancements led to a faster delivery time and helped employees retain and leverage the material shared.

Increase connection: 

• Focus on integration > information

• People can easily consume information on their own time. Therefore, what’s worth coming together for isn’t information, it’s to integrate that information via the sharing of perspectives, reflection, and peer learning. 

• We employed a strategy of Pull together, and push apart. 

• Sessions focused on compliance (ex: timesheets and payroll) and informing (ex: benefits) were pushed to new hires via email or slack for them to consume on their own time. Synchronous sessions were saved for outcomes focused on engagement (ex: values and culture, DEIB, etc).

Boost productivity and confidence: 

• Separate learn vs. do 

• People in transitional moments, such as joining a company or going through change, take comfort in knowing exactly what to do and what is expected of them. 

• Important information and action items were getting lost due to the sheer volume of information and the lack of clarity as to what employees were meant to do with the information they received. We revised all asynchronous communication to clarify and distinguish between what required action and what was FYI and need to know only

• Give employees a head start

• “Where can I find X?”...We created a one-stop shop/landing page for all pertinent and relevant new hire information, documentation, company info, and materials. No longer did employees need to sift through multiple documents and folders to find what they needed to get up to speed quickly. 

Create a scalable experience: 

• Match the message to the moment of need

• What do employees need to learn on day 1? It’s likely not how to file an expense report. Instead of cramming all learning into one day or week, we spaced out sessions to the moment of need. Because of this, many classes were held less frequently to lessen the burden on both employees, presenters, and admins. 

• Strategic filtering

• Learning sticks with us when it’s timely and when it connects to something real happening to us now. We leveraged the below strategic filtering system to introduce a process that’s purposeful instead of personal

Specific onboarding enhancements

We segmented the new hire experience into four sections to highlight specific areas of focus. Here is what we added or modified within each of the four focus areas: 

1. Preboarding: What happens before Day 1

2. Synchronous: What is shared and done when new hires are together over Zoom

3. Asynchronous: What is shared and done when new hires are apart (over email, slack, etc) 

4. Connection and community: how new hires learn from and with each other 

Preboarding: Give employees a head start 

• Added a welcome video and email from company leadership 

• Provided managers with a welcome email template to increase consistency

• Provided an FAQ, glossary of terms, list of software tools and their purpose

• Created an action-oriented pre-boarding welcome email sequence for new hires to complete key tasks and increase clarity on what to expect

• Created an onboarding checklist to guide new hires through onboarding tasks and give them a sense of accomplishment

Synchronous: Match the message to the moment of need

• Introduced an opening and closing session focused on employee connection and integration of information 

• Shifted training classes from being department focused to goal or objective-focused, ex) the “Intro to Finance” team became “Business 101”

• Shifted Workplace Experience session to include an opportunity for new hires to share a brief tour of their home office, and for the workplace experience team to highlight key cultural elements (ex: “this is the conference room where X big idea was formed”) and artifacts on display at company headquarters

• Asked speakers to share personal stories to get to know the human behind the presenter

• Shifted cadence of all but two synchronous sessions to monthly (instead of weekly) to match the timing to the moment of need and reduce information overload 

• Recorded synchronous sessions to be available for self-serve

Asynchronous: Created a one-stop shop for support

• Introduced and consolidated a one-stop shop + single source of truth for all new hire documentation, class material, and company information.

• Shared most recent All-Hands meetings for new hires to get up speed on company communication and culture

• Modified all communication to focus on key action steps, takeaways, and calls to action.  

• Created a hub specifically for new hires managers with resources and templates to improve consistency in how managers onboard new employees 

Community and connection: Introduced a tour guide

• New employees heard more career journeys, lessons, and stories from current employees and leaders

• Created a new hire “graduation” for new hires to teach content back and increase a sense of accomplishment to boost confidence

• Introduced a 30-minute coffee chat for each month’s new hires to integrate information and enhance the personal connection to the organization

• Created a new slack channel for each month’s cohort to build connections

• Creating a mechanism to introduce new hires to the organization over Slack

In addition to faster delivery time for program admins, these program enhancements led to higher survey scores on connection to the organization, clarity on culture and values, and confidence in where to find information to be successful.

Onboarding is more than a training program. It’s a time when new hires are evaluating whether or not they made the right choice to join your organization. Strategic and intentional employee experience design helps your new hires know they indeed made the right one.

Lindsey Caplan is a screenwriter turned organizational psychologist who helps HR & business leaders create experiences that boost motivation, engagement, and performance

Say hello@gatheringeffect.com