Onboarding may be commonly associated with piles of paperwork and long orientation days, but successful programs need to be more substantial, various studies and experts have said.
For starters, workers report receiving an overabundance of documents in their first days on the job, leading to many saying they simply don’t absorb the information provided.
But overall, employers need to focus on grounding new workers in the organization and preparing them appropriately for the work to come, a report from Talogy published earlier this year said. That’s especially key in industries with physically demanding jobs, the report said.
A poor onboarding experience can drive new recruits to second-guess their choice to join the company at all, a 2025 report from TalentLMS and BambooHR showed. But that’s in part because onboarding starts even before a candidate’s first interview, one HR leader recently told HR Dive.
Read on to see our collection of recent onboarding stories and how employers can ensure their newest workers get off on the right foot.