Be Organized and Intentional in Onboarding New Employees

Hope is Not a Strategy!

The story begins.

It all began when the new employee arrived at the business.

The boss made a point of personally introducing them with great fanfare, behaving (and several people noted this) in a way the other employees had never seen before.

“He could hardly control his excitement,” was heard through the corridors.

You see, the boss believed the organization (or, more to the point, that he) had landed someone who was not only going to turn the company around but who would also raise the performance of every other employee who would have the privilege of working alongside this new person.

The boss then shared his belief with every human who would listen to him.

Day One With the Team

The new employee decided to start relationship building with their new team from their elevated dais, as announced moments earlier by the boss.  Can you sense trouble brewing?

If you think that this story is a work of fiction, you’d be wrong. 

In fact, there may be parts of this brief story that may sound familiar to you.

The consequences of this ‘onboarding’ experience were catastrophic.

The new employee, highly touted by the boss, begins their career with an instant loss of trust among their new team members. Emotions run high, and there is an urgent need to rebuild bridges.

And this is on day one!

None of this would have been necessary if people had considered how the onboarding process, which is essentially the introduction of a new team member, should have been handled in the first place.

The Cost of Burning Bridges

The consequences of burned bridges in a workplace setting include:

  • decreased productivity, 
  • morale issues, and 
  • potential career stagnation for the involved employee.

These are high prices to pay and were completely avoidable.

The human resources manager contacted me after assessing the damage. She observed the predictable outcomes in terms of retention, attendance, and productivity. “What do we do now,” she asked.

Understanding the Situation

In our leadership and supervisory skills workshops, we demonstrate how to get onboarding right by asking participants to engage in an exercise we call ‘My Perfect Onboarding.’

We ask participants in their table groups to discuss and list what they collectively believe are the first 10 critical steps that should be taken before, during, and after day one for any new employee.

The goal is to ensure that we set the new person and the existing team members up for success.

Each table group then reports out with the results of their group discussion.

Without fail, every time we conduct this exercise, the table groups base their Perfect Onboarding experience on what was missed or completely botched during an onboarding experience they have had themselves.

There is an excellent quote used by many but originally attributed to George Santayana, a Spanish-American philosopher and writer:

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Words From The Wise about Onboarding

I offer 20 assorted ideas from some of our past workshop participants. You can utilize their knowledge to help you get it right the first time or to mitigate the risk of disasters occurring. 

After all, they do say you only get one chance to make a first impression. 

Take from this list what you think may work for your organizational situation and put aside the rest. The point is to ensure that we at least give some thought to it.

Foundational Steps Before Day One

  1. Communicate the new person’s arrival to the team with a brief biography, start date, and role, to set the tone of welcome and inclusion from the outset.
  2. Assign a mentor – someone who can help the new hire navigate culture, unwritten norms, and day-to-day questions. (We recently built a mentoring program for a client – there is a risk when you ‘wing it’)
  3. Prepare their workspace and tools – ensure all hardware, software, email accounts, and access permissions are set up and ready to use.
  4. Send a personalized welcome message from the leader or team, using a friendly tone and clearly outlining the next steps. (Think of the welcome video from the CEO in the John Deere case studies)
  5. Create a Day 1 itinerary that includes a mix of orientation, welcome conversations, and low-pressure time to help participants settle in.

First Week – Integration & Relationship Building

  1. Host a team welcome huddle (in-person or virtual) – let everyone introduce themselves and share one personal and one professional fact.
  2. Schedule 1-on-1 meetings with key teammates and cross-functional partners to build relationships early.
  3. Encourage the team to extend one-on-one invitations and ensure that the new employee feels included through informal conversations and lunch invitations.
  4. Include the new person in existing team rituals (e.g., weekly stand-ups, coffee chats, etc.).
  5. Share an internal “user manual” document if you use one, and invite the new hire to create their own, building on what already exists with any updates that the person experiences as necessary.
  6. Set clear expectations for their role and how success will be measured in the first 7/30/60/90 days.
  7. Share your team’s norms and values explicitly, including how you communicate, provide feedback, and run meetings, among other practices. (We offer a workshop designed to develop a Team Social Contract, which aims to establish and maintain team norms – contact us if you are interested.)

Ongoing Trust Building & Momentum

  1. Celebrate their early wins -publicly recognize even small contributions to build confidence and team buy-in.
  2. Invite the new hire to contribute ideas early – give them a voice in team discussions or small initiatives.
  3. Host a “get to know you” session – a casual Q&A or “Ask Me Anything” with the new hire, where you can ask fun personal/professional questions.
  4. Provide a feedback loop – check in regularly and invite open conversations about how things are going.
  5. Model psychological safety – leaders and teammates should be open, curious, and encouraging of questions.
  6. Include them in decision-making, even minor ones, so they feel valued and trusted from the start.
  7. Offer growth opportunities – signal from the beginning that their development is a priority.
  8. Be intentional about inclusion – actively ensure their inclusion in side conversations, social events, or team planning.

You can likely see that the conversations around those table groups generated some powerful insights to focus on when considering how a new person joins an existing team.

My initial story was not a work of fiction – it was a client’s lived experience. And not from some bygone era. It was from early 2025.

Coaching is Collective Thinking and Observation

When we put our collective heads together, it is as if we are in coaching mode – we brainstorm one idea after another, building on someone’s initial suggestions before arriving at something truly applicable.

My Perfect Onboarding is essentially a visualization exercise – a technique used in many coaching practices. Here is how to do it.

  • Step 1: Identify a Goal (to have the new employee successfully join your organization)
  • Step 2: Go to  the End (imagine what success completion of the goal looks and feels like)
  • Step 3: Visualize the Ideal (picture the new person, the team, the organization in detail, after successfully completing the onboarding process)
  • Step 4:  Work Backward (reverse engineer things to develop a solution that meets the solution you seek – see the list of 20 suggestions)

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Final Suggestions

John Deere, long touted for getting it right for new employees, provides additional suggestions in case studies involving the company.

My suggestion is to create as many coaching moments as you can, taking a proactive approach to resolving issues before they arise.

When you have found something that works and know it works because you have established a feedback loop, make sure to document and systematize it. 

But never assume that because you got it right once, you’ll get it right every time. 

Coaching helps in assessing situations objectively, identifying underlying causes, and developing improvement plans, just as the table groups were doing in the My Perfect Onboarding exercise.