The best articles we’ve read on employee onboarding

This comes up a lot in our conversations with people teams and hiring managers - what does good employee onboarding look like? And how can we improve ours? Below are the best articles we’ve read on the topic, no listicles I promise.

1. Onboarding and the cost of team debt - https://kateheddleston.com/blog/onboarding-and-the-cost-of-team-debt

Kate Heddleston has written a lot about the idea of team debt and how to avoid accruing it. She writes about how the energy that went into hiring some brilliant engineers was not reflected in training and integrating them into the team. It meant the company “reached a point where each new engineer they added to the team decreased overall productivity”.

2. Onboarding at start-ups is broken and here’s how to fix it - http://firstround.com/review/Employee-Onboarding-at-Startups-Is-Broken-Heres-How-to-Fix-It/

Talks about how it’s often that people are so burnt out with the effort from hiring someone they drop ball when the person arrives. Highlights the importance of showing the new employee they made the right decision to join.

3. How much does employee turnover really cost - https://lattice.com/blog/how-much-does-employee-turnover-really-cost/

Ok so this one isn’t totally about onboarding but it gives some useful frameworks about how to measure the cost of retention. Their thesis is if companies really know how much losing someone costs them they would put a lot more time into bringing even a slight improvement in the way they handle their employees.

4. Successful employee onboarding should focus on culture - https://blog.intercom.com/onboarding-focus-culture/

Key quote: "Neglecting to onboard a new hire into your company culture poses a huge risk of misalignment." Written by Intercom this posts talks about all the risks of leaving onboarding to chance.

5. Stripe Atlas: Guide to scaling engineering organisations - https://stripe.com/atlas/guides/scaling-eng#training-and-onboarding

In-depth and clearly written this is recommended reading for anyone involved in hiring and onboarding new employees. Key quote: "Joining a high-growth startup can be an intimidating experience, and without guidance, new hires have to work twice as hard to learn what they need to be productive."