They say that first impressions matter—and they do. But when it comes to poor onboarding in the workplace, the impact goes beyond just an employee’s initial impression.

Employee onboarding is closely tied to key performance metrics, including engagement, performance, and retention. When employees have a successful  onboarding process, they’re 2.6x more likely to be extremely satisfied at work and can shave up to two months off of their time-to-productivity.

Most organizations (58%) focus on paper processes rather than people during onboarding, missing out on the critical benefits of a holistically engaging experience. While compliance and paperwork are essential, what's often missing is a deliberate effort to socially integrate employees into the organization. A well-designed onboarding process helps employees connect with the company, improves productivity, and directly contributes to business performance. 

‍Only 52% of employees feel satisfied with their onboarding experience, leaving them feeling unprepared, unproductive, and ultimately more likely to underperform or leave the company.

So, what are all the common employee onboarding challenges? And how can you avoid the pitfalls of poor onboarding? Let’s talk about it.

Consequences of a poor onboarding process

When companies are unable to mitigate the challenges that come with onboarding, it has a ripple effect far beyond just the onboarding experience. 

Let’s explore some of the consequences of a poor onboarding experience. 

1. New hire isolation

Employee belonging has been linked to a 56% increase in job performance, a 50% drop in turnover risk, and a 75% reduction in sick days. When employees feel like they belong, the benefits could save a 10,000-person company over $52M a year.

Alternatively, when employee onboarding focuses too much on technical knowledge rather than overall culture integration, it builds up silos that leave employees feeling isolated. This lack of belonging can quickly dampen performance, retention, and even job satisfaction. 

Onboarding should provide opportunities that help new hires integrate with existing teams. When organizations fail to provide employees with the right connections, it limits collaboration, communication, and knowledge-sharing benefits that come with working as a team. 

While many new hires are comfortable proactively introducing themselves and building new relationships, many aren’t. This leaves relationship building up to chance and creates silos that will ultimately be more difficult to break down in the future. 

2. Decreased time-to-productivity

A period of decreased productivity is normal with new hires, or those transitioning into new roles. Finding the right candidate and ramping them up takes time and resources. But the right onboarding initiatives should minimize the impact of productivity loss.

 According to a Glassdoor study, strong onboarding can boost productivity by over 70%. And that’s before factoring in the impact on the productivity and morale of the rest of the team when a new hire isn’t reaching their full potential. 

3. Low new hire engagement

While employee disengagement isn’t at an all-time low anymore,  it’s still not doing great either—with only 33% of employees engaged and 16% actively disengaged. Disengaged employees can cost you  as much as 18% of their salary, according to Gallup.

Onboarding is one of the most impactful times to set employee engagement up for success. When employees aren’t engaged off the bat, it can be really difficult to bounce back from.

4. High new hire turnover

The risk of turnover is elevated early in an employee’s time with your company. 

When onboarding is an employee’s first impression, it can make or break an employee’s tenure with your company. As much as 80% of new hires who experience poor onboarding plan to quit their roles. 

On the other hand, new employees who went through a structured onboarding program were 58 percent more likely to be with the organization after three years.

‍READ MORE: How 10KC accelerates and scales employee onboarding 

6 root causes of poor onboarding 

Even with the best of intentions, onboarding isn’t always smooth sailing. Companies often contend with a wide range of roadblocks that prevent them from reaching their talent development and onboarding goals.

Here’s a look at the key onboarding challenges organizations often face—and some of the reasons they exist in the first place.

1. Leaning too heavily on traditional learning 

Beyond compliance and paperwork, we often think of employee onboarding as a checklist of training videos and self-directed learning modules. While important, this approach can feel overwhelming and isolating. It's like trying to learn a new language by only reading textbooks—you're missing out on the crucial conversations and interactions that truly bring the language to life. 

It’s not that traditional training methods don’t have a place in onboarding, rather it’s that organizations often fail to factor in other forms of learning to complement them. ​What most onboarding processes are missing is structured social learning—where employees get embedded into your culture, deepen their networks, and develop knowledge through interactions with peers. 

The 70-20-10 learning model reminds us that only 10% of workplace development actually comes from formal learning. The remaining 90% comes from on-the-job (70%) and social learning (20%) experiences. It stands to reason that a holistic—and effective—onboarding process should reflect this model and also include experiential and social learning opportunities. This holistic approach accelerates integration into the team and paves the way for long-term success.

2. Overlooking company culture and connection building

As we’ve discussed, orienting new hires to tools and company policies is only one aspect of onboarding. 

Every organization has their own unique culture, processes, and unspoken rules. Without guidance, new employees can struggle to find their footing, identify complex institutional knowledge, and understand who to turn to for help. 

Companies should prioritize integrating  new hires into business context, culture, and community. This helps them better navigate the internal landscape—especially in hybrid and remote settings where culture integration can be a bit more challenging.

Along with integrating into the culture, building a professional network within your organization is crucial for employee success. Prioritizing intentional relationship-building helps employees establish vital connections from the start.

Conversely, when employees aren’t properly onboarded to the culture of the company or connected with their peers, they’re often left guessing. At best, this is frustrating for employees as they attempt to piece together the company norms and develop collaborative relationships. At worst, they miss the mark altogether—creating misunderstandings, lowering productivity, or even  driving the employee out the door. 

3. Not implementing structured onboarding experiences

Onboarding is naturally  overwhelming for new hires even in the best of situations. When employees join a new team, they’re expected to absorb an avalanche of new information while navigating an entirely new environment. 

New hires don’t have a good sense of organizational goals at the onset, nor should they be expected to. Instead of leaving them to figure things out on their own, structured onboarding pathways provide guidance and a sense of productivity. This is crucial even with informal onboarding elements like peer-to-peer learning.

Without a structure, it’s difficult to set clear expectations.s. New hires are left wondering who to meet, what information to gather, and which goals to prioritize. This lack of clarity can lead to confusion and missed opportunities.

A structured onboarding process ensures that essential information is covered and aligns with the company's priorities. It helps new hires understand what they'll learn, when they'll learn it, and when they're expected to apply that knowledge.

4. Relying on generic onboarding pathways

On the other hand, organizations can also fall into the trap of too much structure in the onboarding process. 

No two roles—or employees—at any organization are the same, which means if you’re using the exact same onboarding process for every employee, you’re likely setting them up for failure.

Generic onboarding also fails to factor in the flexibility needed to be able to meet the unique learning styles of every new hire, making it even more challenging for employees to thrive in their new working environment.

5. Limiting the onboarding time frame

We often severely underestimate the time needed to effectively onboard employees. 

Onboarding shouldn’t last a day or even just one week. Most experts would agree that it takes at least three to six months to fully onboard a new hire. Yet, a study found that less than 43% of employees have an onboarding experience that lasts longer than a day.

Rather than looking at onboarding as a one-off task, it’s better to look at it as a form of talent development that prioritizes integrating a new hire into your organization.

Once that employee is fully integrated and can move past the onboarding stage, you can then provide more relevant learning experiences. This means you can better support employees in their roles and future career goals so they can continue to thrive and deliver value to the company.

6. Failing to collect the right feedback and data

Onboarding is just like any other strategic initiative in the workplace. It should be measured and optimized to meet the needs of your organization and your employees. 

The impact of these social elements within onboarding can be challenging to measure. It’s likely why companies tend to lean on completion-based onboarding tactics, like checklists and modules—where the results are immediately visible. 

While these metrics give some insight into onboarding effectiveness, they often don’t measure the long-term impact of onboarding on key business objectives. When you look at onboarding from the lens of business impact such as employee retention, engagement, and belonging, you can better optimize and maximize the value of your new hire and onboarding investment.

To truly understand onboarding's effectiveness, it's essential to track specialized data points aligned with business goals:

‍Feedback through surveys: Gather qualitative and quantitative feedback from new hires, their managers, and onboarding buddies. Are the right skills and knowledge being transferred? Do new hires feel supported and connected?

‍Time to productivity: Measure how quickly new hires contribute to projects. This metric directly connects onboarding effectiveness to your company’s bottom line.

‍Employee tenure and retention rates: Track how long hires within specific onboarding cohorts stay with your company. High turnover rates early on can indicate onboarding issues.

Tracking these metrics allows you to evaluate your onboarding program's effectiveness, make data-driven improvements, and showcase its positive impact on new hires and your organization as a whole.

The role of social integration in the onboarding process

The workplace is inherently a social environment. This means onboarding shouldn’t be isolated to processes or policies. It should also aim to integrate employees socially, so they feel connected and supported by their peers. 

When social integration is prioritized within the onboarding process, it helps facilitate strategic connections with the right individuals who can contribute to employee success. And through knowledge transfer and social learning, new hires are better oriented to critical business context and culture that allows them to succeed in their roles.

Here are a few ways social integration can elevate the onboarding process.  

1. Match new hires with seasoned onboarding buddies 

When employees are matched with an onboarding buddy, it’s been shown to improve new hire satisfaction by 36%.

Even employees who are socially inclined can find it challenging to insert themselves into a pre-existing team. This means they often sit on the sidelines until the right moment comes up, delaying their ability to effectively contribute to the team. 

Rather than waiting for serendipitous water cooler moments, pairing new hires with seasoned buddies allows them to get to know and feel comfortable with their colleagues faster. 

Onboarding buddy and mentorship programs give new hires a safe space to develop relationships, expand networks, ask questions, and get the guidance they need to thrive in the workplace. When they have someone to show them the ropes, it encourages the transfer of institutional knowledge and gets them ramped up faster.

Here are some pro tips to get you started: 

Onboarding buddy matching: Consider using a questionnaire or survey to gather information about new hires' interests, skills, and personality to ensure a good match with their buddy. For best results, connect new hires with a more experienced peer in a similar role or department who has a positive attitude and is willing to share their knowledge.

Time-frame: A typical onboarding buddy program can last anywhere from 2 to 4 months. You can also extend the program or transition it into longer-term mentorship.

‍Team integration: Ensure new hires have a regular cadence of coffee chats/introductions with members of their team and other departments they will interact with.

‍Culture: Enlist company leaders to host a session on company values, mission, etc. Bonus points if you have a session for each functional group to discuss their specific culture and work style.

‍Additional Tips:

• Provide clear guidelines and expectations for both onboarding buddies and new hires.
• Offer training or resources to help buddies be effective mentors.
• Regularly check in with both parties to ensure the program is going well and address any concerns.
• Celebrate successes and recognize the contributions of onboarding buddies.

2. Facilitate team integration

Teamwork is critical to a more innovative, productive, and collaborative workplace. 

When you prioritize social integration, it ensures new hires are connected with key stakeholders—helping break down silos and accelerating time-to-performance. This creates open paths of communication that help employees gain valuable insights, best practices, and lessons learned from those who came before them.

3. Teach company culture, values, and norms

We’ve said it once and we’ll say it again: onboarding goes beyond just technical skills and processes. 

Companies with strong organizational culture can experience as much as an 85% net profit increase over five years. But getting a new hire integrated into that culture starts from day one.

When you connect employees socially with internal knowledge champions and culture carriers, it not only ensures that they have the role-specific skills they need, but helps get them up-to-speed on the processes, culture, and politics of your organization.

4. Build strategic cross-company relationships

Relationships are always being built within the workplace. But there’s no guarantee that they ladder up to employee and organizational goals. Especially in larger, dispersed organizations, new hires may never cross paths with the people they should be building relationships with.

When employees are strategically connected with the right people, it gives them the foundation to build long-term relationships that help them succeed in their careers. These relationships help new hires unlock access to expertise and knowledge faster—so they can solve problems, make informed decisions, and drive innovation.

5. Transfer and retain institutional knowledge 

Similarly, it’s not always possible to ensure that the right conversations are being had and the right information is being shared—even if the connections are being made. 

While institutional knowledge often gets shared organically over time, relying solely on chance can hinder performance and productivity. New hires can't be expected to intuitively know who holds the information they need or the necessary context to perform their best.

Investing time in connecting new hires with their peers and clarifying their responsibilities accelerates their ramp-up time. It costs a lot of resources to source, screen, and hire a new employee—as much as 3-4x their salary. And when employees are left to figure things out on their own, it can lead to performance delays that require costly course correction later.

Proactively facilitating these conversations during onboarding empowers employees with valuable insights and best practices, preventing them from having to reinvent the wheel. By making social integration part of your onboarding strategy, you can use curriculums and guided conversations to ensure that discussions are focused, actionable, and aligned with strategic objectives.

‍READ MORE: How 10KC Accelerates and Scales Employee Onboarding 

Set your onboarding program up for success with 10KC

10CK’s social learning platform helps you deliver strategic onboarding programs that drive performance from day one. With curated onboarding pathways and learning experiences, you can facilitate connections that help new hires build key relationships, encourage knowledge transfer, and support effective skill development.