Onboarding New Hires

Onboarding new hires is heavily weighted toward systems, access and paperwork. The part that predicts retention is the one usually left to chance, which is whether the person becomes part of a team.

A new starter who knows the systems and knows nobody will still be looking. One who has a few people to ask things of usually stays long enough to become useful.

The cheapest intervention is a named buddy who is not the manager, ideally someone six to twelve months in who still remembers being new. Their job is the small questions, where to sit, how things really work, and lunch in the first fortnight.

For remote or distributed teams this needs deliberate scheduling, because the incidental contact that does it in an office does not happen by itself.

The Fair Work Ombudsman covers employment obligations. This is general information rather than legal advice, and obligations vary by state and territory.

See Sentrient’s onboarding management system and workplace compliance courses.