Most organizations know that onboarding matters.
They invest in welcome packs, induction schedules, laptops, logins, policies, training sessions and carefully planned first days. HR works hard to make sure everything is ready for a new employee's arrival. And yet onboarding can still go wrong.
In fact, Gallup found that only 29% of new hires say they feel fully prepared and supported to excel in their role after their onboarding experience.
Picture the scene. The laptop has arrived. The induction is completed. The mandatory training gets ticked off. Everyone has done everything they were supposed to do. But three months later, the employee still doesn't quite feel part of the team. Just why is onboarding so difficult to get right?
Perhaps it's because we spend a lot of time preparing everything a new employee needs, but not always enough time preparing the relationships they are going to need to succeed.
There's usually plenty of attention on a new employee's first day. But the real onboarding experience happens over the weeks and months that follow. And those early experiences matter.
BambooHR's research of more than 1,500 full-time US employees found that 70% of new hires decide whether a job is the right fit for them within their first month, with 29% reaching that conclusion within their first week. The same research found that 44% had experienced regrets or second thoughts about accepting a new job within their first week.
This is also the point at which responsibility for onboarding can become blurred. The recruitment team may have spent weeks getting to know the candidate. HR understands why they were hired, what attracted them to the organization and, where behavioral assessments have formed part of the recruitment process, potentially a great deal about how that person prefers to work.
Then they start, and responsibility shifts towards the line manager. But what exactly is being handed over? Too often, it is little more than a CV, a job description, a start date and perhaps an onboarding checklist. The manager is then expected to work out the rest.
How does this person like to communicate? How much direction will they need? How do they make decisions? What motivates them? How will they respond to the existing team? Where might they need to adapt to meet the requirements of the role?
Those are much harder questions to answer. And they are the questions that will determine whether somebody simply joins an organization or genuinely becomes part of it.
Register for the webinar: Fix the Onboarding Accountability Gap
One of the challenges is that onboarding sits across several areas of the business. HR might own the process and overall employee experience. IT makes sure the practical tools are ready. Leadership introduces the organization, its purpose and its culture. Colleagues and buddies help the new starter understand how things work day-to-day. And the line manager takes responsibility for helping the individual succeed in the role.
Everyone has a part to play. But the role of the manager is particularly important.
Gallup found that when managers take an active role in onboarding, employees are 3.4 times more likely to feel that their onboarding process was successful. Microsoft's own research produced a remarkably similar result: new employees whose managers played an active role in onboarding were 3.5 times more likely to report being satisfied with their onboarding experience and 1.2 times more likely to feel they were contributing to their team's success.
So, while HR may design the onboarding process, the line manager has an enormous influence over how the new hire experiences that process. The danger comes when everyone is involved but nobody is completely clear about where one person's responsibility ends and another begins. A good onboarding process needs a deliberate handover between recruitment, HR and the line manager. And that handover shouldn't just be administrative. It should be behavioral too.
Read more: Why One-Size-Fits-All Onboarding Doesn’t Work Anymore
The practical elements of onboarding are easy to see and measure. Does the employee have their laptop? Can they access the systems? Have they met the team? Have they completed their training? Do they know where to find everything?
All of these things matter. But the new employee is trying to answer another set of questions at the same time.
Those aren't questions that can be answered with an onboarding checklist. They're behavioral.
Most organizations talk about culture during onboarding. There may be a presentation on company values, a welcome from the CEO or information about the organization's mission and purpose. But culture isn't something somebody learns from a PowerPoint presentation. They experience it through the people around them.
Gallup's onboarding research illustrates just how important this understanding can be. Employees who strongly agreed that they understood "how we do things at this organization" were 4.7 times more likely to strongly agree that their onboarding experience was exceptional. That's a powerful distinction.
A new employee may understand your company values within their first week. Understanding what those values look like in everyday behavior is something quite different. That's why behavioral onboarding matters.
If you've used behavioral assessment during recruitment, you already know something valuable about the person you've just hired. So why stop using that information once they've accepted the job? The insight should travel with the person.
McQuaig's TeamSync helps organizations carry behavioral understanding from recruitment into onboarding, team integration and ongoing development. Instead of behavioral data answering only: Is this person suited to this role? It can start answering: Now they're here, how do we help them succeed? That is a very different conversation.
Imagine a line manager receiving a new employee and already having some understanding of how that person naturally prefers to operate.
There is evidence for putting this kind of self-understanding into onboarding. Gallup found that employees who strongly agreed they could apply their strengths every day at work were 3.5 times more likely to describe their onboarding as exceptional.
Rather than spending the first few months trying to work the person out, behavioral insight can help managers ask better questions from day one. It doesn't replace the relationship. It helps start it.
Read more: How to Stop Your Onboarding Going Off-Track
One of the most important relationships in any onboarding process is the one between the employee and their manager. Within TeamSync, the Working Together analysis and report can help both people understand how their behavioral styles compare. It can highlight areas where they may naturally work well together as well as differences that could require greater awareness.
Perhaps one person likes to make decisions quickly while the other needs more time and information. Perhaps one naturally communicates frequently while the other is more reserved. One may prefer considerable autonomy while the other expects regular updates. Neither approach is right or wrong.
But without understanding those differences, behavior can easily be misinterpreted.
Very quickly, differences in working style can start being interpreted as problems with the person. The Working Together report provides a framework for having those conversations earlier. Instead of waiting for frustration to develop, manager and employee can ask: We naturally approach this differently. How are we going to make it work?
That's a much stronger foundation for a working relationship.
Of course, an employee isn't only joining a manager. They're joining a team.
Every team has its own behavioral dynamics. Some people want the headline; others want the detail. Some think aloud; others want time to process. Some challenge readily; others prefer consensus. Usually, a new employee learns all of this through trial and error.
Yet relationships clearly matter to new starters. In BambooHR's research, 87% of new hires said they hoped to make a friend at work and 93% wanted opportunities to shadow a colleague. TeamSync help accelerate that process of understanding by giving people greater visibility of different behavioral styles within the team. It isn't about putting people into boxes or suggesting everyone should work in the same way.
Quite the opposite. It's recognising that people don't work in the same way and giving them a shared language for navigating those differences. That can be particularly valuable for somebody trying to find their place in an established team.
There's another valuable conversation that can sometimes get lost after recruitment. If you created a behavioral benchmark for the role, revisit it. Where does the individual's natural behavioral style align closely with what the role requires? Where might the role require more conscious adaptation?
A difference doesn't automatically mean the person isn't suited to the job. Instead, it can highlight an area where greater awareness, coaching or management support may be valuable. Onboarding is the ideal time to begin that conversation. Rather than waiting until something isn't working, manager and employee can identify potential challenges early and discuss what support might help.
Onboarding also shouldn't be one big conversation in week one. Behavioral insight can provide a useful thread through 30, 60 and 90-day conversations.
After 30 days, you might ask: Now you've experienced the role, what feels natural and what requires more effort?
At 60 days: How are you finding working with the team? Are there any relationships or differences in working style we should explore?
And at 90 days: What have we learned about how you work best, and where should we focus your development next?
These are very different conversations from simply asking: How's everything going?
And they're far more likely to produce useful answers.
Perhaps one of the biggest problems with onboarding is the idea that at some point it finishes.
But people don't stop learning about themselves, their manager or their team because they've reached the end of an onboarding plan. Relationships evolve. Responsibilities change. People get promoted. Teams change. New colleagues arrive. Different pressures emerge. And development priorities shift.
SHRM highlights the importance of continuing onboarding beyond the initial induction period, with experts recommending further check-ins between three and six months before ultimately transitioning the employee towards continuous development.
The behavioral conversations started during onboarding can therefore become part of ongoing coaching and development. This is where TeamSync helps provide continuity. The Working Together analysis that helped establish a manager-employee relationship at the beginning remains a useful reference point as that relationship develops. Team insight continues to support collaboration as people and responsibilities change. Behavioral understanding doesn't have to be a one-off intervention. It becomes part of how people work together.
Ultimately, perhaps we need to stop thinking about recruitment, onboarding and development as completely separate HR activities. They're different stages of the same employee journey. The person you assessed during recruitment is the same person their manager needs to understand during onboarding and the same person you ultimately want to develop, engage and retain. Insight should travel with them.
Recruitment → JobFit → Onboarding → TeamSync → Working Together → Ongoing Development
That creates continuity. HR provides the framework and behavioral handover, managers turn that insight into meaningful conversations, employees better understand themselves and the people around them. Those conversations should continue as part of development rather than disappearing when onboarding officially ends.
Learn more: TeamSync transforms individual behavioral data into powerful team insight.
Getting onboarding right isn't necessarily about adding more induction sessions, paperwork, meetings, things for HR to manage.
It may simply mean focusing more attention on the human side of joining an organization. Yes, make sure the laptop is ready. Make sure the logins work. Make sure the employee understands the policies, processes and practicalities of their role.
But also make sure they understand their manager. Help their manager understand them. Help them understand the team they're joining. Give them a language for discussing differences. And keep those conversations going.
Because successful onboarding isn't simply about getting somebody ready for their first day. It's about creating the relationships, understanding and self-awareness that will help them succeed long after it.
Strong onboarding takes more than a good process. It needs clear ownership and the right support at every stage. Join our webinar, Fix the Onboarding Accountability Gap, to explore how HR and managers can work together to create a more consistent, people-centered onboarding experience that helps new hires build confidence, connection, and momentum from day one.