The Complete Guide to Employee Onboarding

Roughly 30% of new employees quit within their first 90 days.

I found this out the hard way at my first startup. We brought on this incredibly talented developer. Let's call her Sarah. On paper, she was exactly what we needed. The whole team was excited to have her join.

Day one, Sarah arrived at 9 AM sharp. Her laptop hadn't shown up yet. Nobody had gotten around to setting up her email. I was stuck in back-to-back investor meetings all morning, so she basically just... sat there. By lunchtime, I could already see the spark in her eyes dimming.

Sarah lasted six weeks before taking another offer. The problem wasn't Sarah. It was our complete lack of an employee onboarding process.

I'm Yuval Karmi, founder of Glitter AI. I've been on both sides of employee onboarding. The confused new hire wandering around looking for someone to help me. The founder scrambling to bring people up to speed while juggling a hundred other things.

This guide covers everything I've learned about creating employee onboarding experiences that actually work. Whether you're onboarding your first hire or rebuilding your entire program from scratch, I'll walk you through how to turn nervous new hires into confident, productive team members.

Employee onboarding is not orientation. That distinction matters more than most people realize.

Orientation is day one. Maybe the first week. It's paperwork, the office tour, someone pointing out the bathroom. Important? Sure. But orientation isn't the same as employee onboarding.

Real employee onboarding is a structured, multi-phase process that takes someone from "that new person who doesn't know where anything is" to a productive, confident team member who understands your culture, knows their role inside and out, and can actually contribute.

Research suggests that effective onboarding extends anywhere from 90 days to 12 months. Not one day. Not one week. Months.

The Four Phases of Effective Onboarding

Phase 1: Pre-boarding (Before Day One)

This covers everything between "you're hired" and their first day walking through the door. The best employee onboarding starts here.

You're sending welcome emails with clear information about what to expect. You're shipping equipment so it arrives before day one. You're creating accounts and setting up their workspace. You're introducing them to the team virtually so they're not facing a room full of strangers.

Companies that kick off employee onboarding before day one typically see new hires reach productivity about 34% faster than those who wait.

Phase 2: Orientation (First Day/Week)

This is where most companies stop, and that's a mistake.

Orientation covers the essentials: company culture, policies, tools, workspace setup, team introductions. It's about making someone feel welcome and giving them the foundational knowledge they need before they can start learning their actual job.

Done well, orientation answers one question: "Did I make the right choice joining this company?"

Phase 3: Training (First 90 Days)

This is where new hires actually learn to do their job. Role-specific training documentation, shadowing experienced team members, taking on progressively more complex assignments, getting regular feedback.

The goal isn't to teach them everything at once. It's to build confidence and competence in the core responsibilities of their role.

Phase 4: Integration (Ongoing)

This phase is about culture fit, relationship building, and long-term development. New hires move from just completing tasks to understanding the broader context of their work and how they fit into the team.

By the end of this phase, they don't feel like "the new person" anymore. They feel like they belong.

What Makes Onboarding "Effective"

I've observed a lot of employee onboarding programs over the years. The ones that work tend to share three characteristics:

Structured but flexible. There's a clear plan with defined milestones, but it bends to individual needs. A senior hire probably doesn't need the same level of hand-holding as someone fresh out of college.

Documentation-driven. Everything is written down or recorded. New hires can reference materials on their own time instead of constantly interrupting teammates with the same questions.

Feedback-heavy. Regular check-ins catch problems early. Weekly one-on-ones in month one, bi-weekly in month two, monthly after that. Both sides share what's working and what isn't.

Only about 12% of employees strongly agree their organization does a great job with employee onboarding. Be in that 12%. You'll see the difference in your retention numbers.

Key Takeaways

• Effective employee onboarding extends 90-120 days minimum, not just the first week
• The four phases are pre-boarding, orientation, training, and integration
• Great onboarding is structured, documentation-driven, and feedback-heavy
• Companies with strong onboarding see around 34% faster time-to-productivity

Let me walk you through the actual cost of bad employee onboarding.

At my first startup, we had an engineering position that churned through four people in a single year. Four. Every time someone left, we started the whole recruiting cycle over. Job posting, interviews, offers, background checks.

Recruiting costs alone ran about $15,000 per hire. That's $60,000 just to fill the same position four times. But that's not even the real cost.

The real cost was lost productivity. The knowledge that walked out the door with each person. The demoralized team members who had to keep training new people. The projects that got delayed because we couldn't keep anyone in that role.

Total estimated damage? Over $200,000 for that one position in one year. All because we didn't bother investing in proper employee onboarding.

The ROI of Structured Onboarding

Here's what the research actually shows about companies with strong employee onboarding:

82% higher retention rates. When new hires go through structured onboarding, they're far more likely to still be around a year later. Given that replacing an employee costs somewhere between 50-200% of their annual salary, this alone probably justifies the investment.

70% greater productivity. Employees with good onboarding experiences reach full productivity roughly 34% faster than those without. If you're paying someone $80,000 a year, that could mean $27,000 in productivity gained in year one.

2.6x higher job satisfaction. Employees who rate their onboarding experience as "exceptional" are nearly three times more satisfied with their jobs. Satisfied employees perform better and stick around longer.

31% faster time-to-productivity. Organizations that extend the employee onboarding process beyond 90 days see new hires reach full productivity almost a third faster than those with shorter programs.

The Cost of Poor Onboarding

On the flip side, here's what bad employee onboarding costs you:

Immediate turnover. About 30% of employees quit within the first 90 days. Most point to poor onboarding experiences as a major reason. If you're hiring at $80,000 average salary and losing three out of ten new hires in the first quarter, that's potentially $120,000-$480,000 in replacement costs each year.

Lost productivity. Without clear guidance, new hires spend weeks asking basic questions, making preventable mistakes, and operating at a fraction of their potential. They're collecting a paycheck but not contributing proportionally to their cost.

Team disruption. Every time someone quits, the existing team feels it. Morale dips. Projects get delayed. Other team members have to pick up slack or spend time training yet another new person.

Reputation damage. Employees talk. A reputation for chaotic employee onboarding makes it harder to attract top talent. Negative Glassdoor reviews mentioning disorganized first days directly hurt your ability to fill future roles.

Calculating Your Onboarding ROI

Here's a straightforward framework for figuring out the return on investing in better onboarding:

Current costs:

• Average salary of new hires: $X
• Annual turnover rate: Y%
• Cost to replace (typically 50-200% of salary): $X times 1.5 times Y%
• Number of new hires per year: Z

Investment in onboarding:

• Time to create onboarding documentation: 40-80 hours initially
• Ongoing maintenance: 5-10 hours per quarter
• Tools and technology: Varies (Glitter AI starts free)
• Manager/buddy time: Built into existing roles

Returns:

• Retention improvement: 82% better with structured onboarding
• Productivity gains: 34% faster time-to-productivity
• Reduced hiring costs: Fewer replacement hires needed
• Improved performance: Better trained employees produce better results

For most companies, the math works out to roughly 5-10x ROI within the first year of implementing structured employee onboarding.

The Competitive Advantage

Here's something people don't talk about much: good employee onboarding is actually a competitive advantage when you're hiring.

When candidates are weighing multiple offers, the company that can show a clear, structured employee onboarding process signals organizational competence. It demonstrates that you care about employee success. That you've thought things through.

I've had candidates choose us over higher-paying offers specifically because we walked them through what their first 90 days would look like. That kind of clarity was worth more to them than an extra $5,000 in salary.

Key Takeaways

• Structured employee onboarding delivers 82% better retention and 70% higher productivity
• Poor onboarding costs 50-200% of salary when employees quit in the first 90 days
• The ROI of proper onboarding typically ranges from 5-10x in year one
• Strong onboarding provides a competitive advantage when recruiting top talent

The biggest mistake I see companies make with employee onboarding? Keeping everything in people's heads.

Someone asks, "How do we onboard new developers?" The answer is typically something like, "Oh, just shadow Mark for a couple days." Great. What happens when Mark is on vacation? Or quits? Or is buried in his own work?

Knowledge that lives only in people's heads is knowledge that walks out the door.

Creating onboarding documentation isn't about churning out a boring employee handbook nobody reads. It's about capturing the critical information new hires need to succeed and making it accessible when they actually need it.

What Onboarding Documentation Should Include

Company and Culture Materials

• Mission, vision, and values (what we're trying to accomplish and why)
• Company history and key milestones (context about where we've been)
• Organizational structure (who does what, who reports to whom)
• Communication norms (how we work, meeting culture, response expectations)
• Decision-making processes (who decides what, how to escalate)

These materials answer the question: "What kind of company is this and how do things actually work here?"

Role-Specific Process Documentation

• Step-by-step guides for core job responsibilities
• Standard operating procedures for recurring tasks
• System access instructions and login credentials
• Tool tutorials and onboarding best practices
• Templates and examples of good work

This is the "how to actually do your job" documentation. It needs to be specific, actionable, and visual wherever possible.

HR and Administrative Information

• Benefits overview and enrollment instructions
• PTO policies and how to request time off
• Expense reporting and reimbursement processes
• IT support and who to contact for what
• Workspace and equipment guidelines

The boring-but-necessary stuff that new hires need to look up occasionally.

Learning Resources

• Industry knowledge and background reading
• Product/service deep dives
• Customer personas and use cases
• Competitor landscape
• Internal knowledge base and where to find answers

This helps new hires build context beyond their immediate responsibilities.

Documentation Formats That Actually Work

Not all onboarding documentation needs to be a Word document. In fact, Word documents are often the worst format for onboarding materials. Here's what tends to work better:

Video walkthroughs for processes. Screen recordings where someone talks through how to complete a task are infinitely clearer than written instructions. Tools like Glitter AI make these almost trivially easy to create. Just record yourself doing the task while explaining it out loud.

Interactive checklists for multi-step procedures. A new employee onboarding checklist that new hires can actually check off creates a sense of progress and helps ensure nothing gets missed.

Knowledge base articles for reference information. Searchable, well-organized articles that employees can find when they need specific information. Think company wiki, not PDF buried in a shared drive.

Templated examples for deliverables. Instead of describing what a good sales proposal looks like, just show them one. Include annotations explaining why it works.

The Documentation Creation Process

Here's how to actually create onboarding documentation without it taking forever:

Step 1: Start with an audit. What documentation already exists? Where are the gaps? What questions do new hires keep asking?

Step 2: Prioritize by impact. What documentation would save the most time or prevent the most confusion? Start there. You don't need to document everything at once.

Step 3: Capture tribal knowledge. Find the person who knows how to do each critical task. Have them walk through it while you record. This creates your initial documentation in minutes instead of hours.

Step 4: Refine based on feedback. Have the next new hire use the documentation and tell you what was unclear or missing. Then iterate.

Step 5: Assign ownership. Every piece of onboarding documentation should have an owner responsible for keeping it updated. Otherwise, it goes stale.

I've put together complete onboarding documentation sets in under 20 hours using this approach. The trick is starting with screen recordings of actual processes rather than trying to write everything from scratch.

Making Documentation Discoverable

The best onboarding documentation in the world is useless if new hires can't find it.

Organize by when it's needed. Pre-boarding materials in one place, first day materials in another, role-specific resources in a third. Match the structure to the timeline.

Use a centralized platform. Whether it's Notion, Confluence, or your company intranet, have one place where onboarding documentation lives. Not scattered across shared drives, Slack messages, and people's desktops.

Build in searchability. New hires should be able to search for "how to submit expenses" and immediately find the right guide. Tag and categorize appropriately.

Include it in your onboarding checklist. Point people directly to relevant documentation as part of their onboarding tasks. "Complete day 1 orientation, then review the engineering workflow guide."

Keeping Documentation Current

Here's the thing: documentation decays. Processes change. Tools get updated. Screenshots become outdated.

Set up a quarterly review cycle where documentation owners check their materials and update anything that's changed. It takes maybe 30 minutes every three months and prevents the documentation rot that makes everything useless.

At Glitter AI, we make this easier by letting you re-record specific sections of guides when processes change rather than rewriting entire documents. But whatever tools you use, build maintenance into your process.

Key Takeaways

• Effective onboarding documentation covers company culture, role-specific processes, HR information, and learning resources
• Video walkthroughs and interactive checklists work better than traditional text documents
• Capture tribal knowledge by recording experienced employees demonstrating processes
• Centralize documentation in one searchable location and review quarterly

Here's a simple truth: if it's not on the checklist, it won't get done.

I learned this with my second hire ever. I thought I had the employee onboarding process figured out. I'd made all the mistakes with hire number one, so hire number two would be smooth sailing.

Day one went great. Week one was solid. Then week two rolled around and I realized I'd completely forgotten to set up their access to our customer database. They'd been working for two weeks without access to a tool they needed daily. They hadn't mentioned it because they didn't even know they were supposed to have it.

That's when I created my first new employee onboarding checklist. Nothing fancy. Just a Google Doc with checkboxes. But it changed everything.

The Pre-boarding Checklist (1-2 Weeks Before Start Date)

Pre-boarding covers everything between offer acceptance and day one. This phase sets expectations and shows you have your act together.

Administrative Setup:

• Send offer letter and collect signed copy
• Add to payroll and HRIS systems
• Order equipment (laptop, monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc.)
• Create email account
• Set up accounts for essential tools (Slack, project management, etc.)
• Prepare security badge or access credentials
• Arrange workspace or ship home office equipment

Communication:

• Send welcome email with start date, time, and location details
• Share first day agenda and what to expect
• Provide pre-reading materials (company handbook, team info)
• Introduce to the team via email or Slack
• Assign an onboarding buddy and make the introduction
• Send any required pre-employment paperwork

Manager Preparation:

• Block calendar for day one activities
• Prepare 30/60/90 day goals and expectations
• Review their background and prepare questions
• Plan first week activities and meetings
• Brief the team on the new hire's role and background

Day One Checklist

The first day sets the tone for everything that follows. Your goal is simple: make the new hire feel welcome and set them up for success.

Before They Arrive:

• Confirm workspace is ready with working equipment
• Test all login credentials
• Prepare welcome materials or company swag
• Notify reception/security about arrival
• Brief team about arrival time

Morning:

• Personal greeting from manager (don't leave them waiting)
• Workspace tour and introduction to immediate team
• Equipment setup and login verification
• Review day one agenda
• Complete any remaining paperwork

Afternoon:

• One-on-one with manager (30-60 minutes)
• Introduction to onboarding buddy
• Overview of key tools and systems
• First assignment or training module
• Day one wrap-up: answer questions, preview tomorrow

Week One Timeline

Week one balances orientation activities with initial role-specific learning.

Daily:

• Morning check-in with manager or buddy (15 minutes)
• Mix of scheduled activities and independent learning time
• End-of-day questions and tomorrow preview

Week One Activities:

• Company culture and values overview
• Department and team structure explanation
• Product/service training
• Core tools and systems training
• Review of key process documentation
• Shadowing sessions with team members
• Team lunch or social activity
• End-of-week check-in with manager (30+ minutes)

First Month Checklist (Weeks 2-4)

The first month is about building competence and confidence in core job responsibilities.

Training and Development:

• Complete role-specific new hire training modules
• Shadow experienced team members
• Begin taking on actual work with supervision
• Receive feedback on early assignments
• Access ongoing learning resources

Integration:

• Weekly one-on-ones with manager
• Regular buddy check-ins
• Participation in team meetings
• Begin building relationships beyond immediate team
• Start contributing to projects

30-Day Milestone:

• Formal 30-day review with manager
• Assess progress toward 30-day goals
• Gather feedback both ways
• Adjust 60/90-day goals if needed
• Complete 30-day survey

60-Day Checkpoint

By 60 days, new hires should be operating with increasing independence.

Review Points:

• Progress toward 60-day goals
• Skill development and competency levels
• Understanding of role and expectations
• Cultural fit and team integration
• Identify any remaining gaps or concerns
• Plan for achieving 90-day milestones

90-Day Review

This marks the end of formal employee onboarding for most roles.

Final Assessment:

• Comprehensive performance review
• Evaluation of 90-day goals achievement
• Identification of strengths and development areas
• Transition to regular performance management
• Gather feedback on the employee onboarding process
• Celebrate completion of the onboarding program

Customizing the Timeline

This timeline is a starting point. Adjust it based on:

Role complexity: Senior roles or highly technical positions may need extended timelines. Junior roles might reach independence faster.

Industry requirements: Regulated industries often have mandatory training periods. Healthcare onboarding might stretch 6-12 months.

Remote vs. in-person: Remote employee onboarding needs more explicit communication touchpoints and virtual relationship-building activities.

Company size: Startups can be more flexible and informal. Larger organizations generally benefit from more structure and standardization.

The key is having a plan. You can always adjust. You can't fix having no plan at all.

Key Takeaways

• Pre-boarding activities before day one accelerate time-to-productivity by about 34%
• Day one should focus on welcome and basic setup, not overwhelming information dumps
• Structure the first 90 days with clear milestones at 30, 60, and 90 days
• Customize timelines based on role complexity, industry requirements, and company size

I'm going to say something a bit controversial: nobody really reads text-based instructions anymore.

Okay, maybe that's too strong. But here's what I've observed across two startups and dozens of onboarding experiences: when you hand someone a 15-page PDF explaining how to use your CRM system, they don't actually read it. They skim, get confused, and then interrupt someone to ask questions.

When you give them a 3-minute video walking through the exact same process, they watch it, understand it, and can actually do the task on their own.

The difference? Visual documentation shows. It doesn't just tell.

Why Visual Documentation Works for Onboarding

Our brains process visual information significantly faster than text. That's well-established neuroscience.

When you're onboarding someone, you're already asking them to absorb an overwhelming amount of information. Company culture, team dynamics, role expectations, tools, processes, policies. It's a lot.

Visual documentation cuts through that overwhelm by making complex processes immediately clear.

It reduces cognitive load. New hires don't have to translate written instructions into mental images of what to do. They can see exactly what to do.

It eliminates ambiguity. "Click the blue button in the upper right corner" can get confusing if there are multiple blue buttons or if the interface has changed since the document was written. A screenshot or video makes it obvious.

It works for different learning styles. Some people learn best by reading. Plenty learn better by watching. Visual documentation serves both.

It's faster to consume. A 2-minute video can convey what takes 10 minutes to read and 20 minutes to actually understand from text alone.

Types of Visual Onboarding Documentation

Not all visual documentation is equally useful. Here's what tends to work:

Screen Recordings with Voiceover

This is the gold standard for teaching software processes or digital workflows. You record your screen while talking through what you're doing and why.

"Okay, I'm going to show you how to create a new customer record in our CRM. First, I'm logging in with your company email and password. Now I'm clicking on Contacts in the left sidebar. See this New Contact button? I'm clicking that now..."

These recordings capture not just the clicks, but the context and reasoning. They're how you transfer tribal knowledge at scale.

Annotated Screenshots

For processes that don't require showing every single click, annotated screenshots work well. Arrows pointing to key UI elements, numbered steps overlaid on the image, callout boxes highlighting important information.

These fit nicely in knowledge base articles where someone needs quick reference rather than step-by-step guidance.

Process Flowcharts and Diagrams

For understanding workflows, decision trees, or organizational structures, visual diagrams beat paragraphs of explanation every time.

"When a customer requests a refund, first check if it's within 30 days (diamond decision point). If yes, follow this path. If no, follow this other path."

Video Introductions from Team Members

Pre-recorded 30-second intros from each team member create connection before day one even happens. "Hi, I'm Sarah, I work on product design. Looking forward to working with you on..."

Way more effective than a directory with headshots and job titles.

Creating Visual Onboarding Materials Without It Taking Forever

The reason most companies don't create visual documentation is they assume it's too time-consuming. It doesn't have to be.

For screen recordings: Use tools like Glitter AI where you just click record, do the task while talking, and the tool automatically generates a guide with screenshots and your narration transcribed. What used to take hours now takes minutes.

For screenshots: Use built-in screenshot tools on Mac (Shift+Command+4) or Windows (Windows+Shift+S), then annotate quickly in Preview or Paint. Don't overthink it. Quick and clear beats perfectly designed.

For flowcharts: Tools like Lucidchart, Miro, or even Google Slides make simple process diagrams fast. You don't need fancy design skills.

For video intros: Loom or Zoom recordings work fine. Thirty seconds. No editing needed. Just hit record and introduce yourself.

I've put together comprehensive visual onboarding libraries in under 10 hours total using this approach. The key is embracing "good enough" instead of chasing "perfect."

Organizing Visual Documentation for Easy Discovery

Creating visual materials is only half the battle. Making them discoverable is the other half.

Embed visuals directly in your onboarding checklist. Don't just say "Learn the CRM system." Say "Watch this 3-minute CRM walkthrough video: [link]."

Create a video library organized by category. Company culture videos in one section, tool tutorials in another, process guides in a third. Use descriptive titles like "How to Submit an Expense Report" not "Video_042."

Use timestamps in longer videos. If you have a 15-minute onboarding video covering multiple topics, include timestamps in the description so people can jump to the section they need.

Make them searchable. Tag videos and visuals with relevant keywords. Someone searching "time off request" should find the right video immediately.

Keeping Visual Documentation Current

Visual documentation has the same problem as text documentation: it goes stale. The UI changes, the process evolves, and suddenly your video shows clicking buttons that don't exist anymore.

Build a quarterly review process. Assign each visual asset an owner. Have them check if it's still accurate. If not, re-record just the sections that changed.

With modern tools, updating a screen recording takes maybe 5 minutes. Much easier than rewriting documentation from scratch.

The Impact of Visual Onboarding

Companies that incorporate visual documentation into their employee onboarding process see measurable differences:

• New hires ask roughly 40% fewer questions during onboarding
• Time-to-productivity improves by 25-30%
• Onboarding satisfaction scores go up noticeably
• Knowledge retention improves because people can re-watch rather than trying to remember verbal explanations

I saw this firsthand when we switched from text-heavy onboarding to primarily visual. Support tickets from new hires dropped by half in the first month.

Key Takeaways

• Visual documentation reduces cognitive load and eliminates ambiguity in instructions
• Screen recordings with voiceover are the most effective format for teaching digital processes
• Creating visual materials doesn't have to be time-consuming with modern tools
• Organize visuals for easy discovery and review quarterly to keep content current

Let me tell you about the worst employee onboarding experience I ever witnessed.

A friend joined a Series B startup as their head of marketing. Exciting role. Good salary. High expectations all around.

Day one: nobody knew she was starting. Her manager was traveling. HR sent her home with paperwork and told her to come back tomorrow when someone would be available.

Day two: still no manager. Someone from engineering showed her to a desk and handed her a laptop that hadn't been configured. She spent the day trying to get IT to set up her accounts.

Week one: she finally met her manager via Zoom. He was "too busy" to meet in person. No discussion of goals, strategy, or expectations. Just "get yourself up to speed and we'll talk later."

She quit after three weeks.

Don't be that company. Here are the most common onboarding mistakes I see and how to avoid them.

Mistake 1: Starting Onboarding on Day One

The biggest mistake is thinking employee onboarding begins when someone walks through the door.

It doesn't. It begins the moment they accept your offer.

Why it's a problem: That gap between acceptance and day one is when excitement can turn to anxiety. Candidates start wondering if they made the right choice. They're nervous. They want reassurance.

The fix: Implement pre-boarding. Send a welcome email within 24 hours of offer acceptance. Share what to expect. Introduce them to the team virtually. Ship equipment early. Set clear expectations for day one. Stay in touch.

Companies that start employee onboarding before day one see about 34% faster time-to-productivity. Pre-boarding works.

Mistake 2: Information Overload on Day One

The classic blunder: cramming everything into day one. Company history, culture, values, policies, benefits, tools, systems, processes, team introductions, all in eight hours.

Why it's a problem: Humans can only retain so much information at once. After a certain point, everything becomes noise. New hires leave day one exhausted and overwhelmed, remembering almost nothing.

The fix: Spread information across the first week. Day one should focus on welcome, basic setup, and making someone feel comfortable. Save the deep dives for days 2-5. Give people time to absorb.

Think of day one as "you made the right choice and we're happy you're here," not "here's everything you need to know about working here."

Mistake 3: No Clear Point Person

New hires have questions. Lots of them. If they don't know who to ask, they either interrupt random people or suffer in silence.

Why it's a problem: Constant interruptions frustrate busy team members. Suffering in silence means confusion persists and mistakes happen. Either way, the new hire feels like a burden.

The fix: Assign an onboarding buddy. Someone who's explicitly responsible for answering questions, checking in regularly, and helping navigate the culture. Not the manager (they're busy). A peer who remembers what being new feels like.

This simple step makes new hires feel 18x more committed to their employer.

Mistake 4: Inconsistent Onboarding Experiences

Every new hire gets a different experience based on which manager they report to, how busy that manager is, and whether someone remembered to do pre-boarding.

Why it's a problem: Inconsistency signals disorganization. It creates inequity where some new hires succeed because they lucked into good informal onboarding while others struggle. And you can't improve what isn't standardized.

The fix: Document your employee onboarding process. Create a standard operating procedure for bringing on new hires. Use checklists to ensure consistency. Everyone gets the same baseline experience, with customization for role-specific needs.

Mistake 5: Forgetting About the Manager

HR handles employee onboarding, right? Sure, for the administrative stuff. But the manager is the most important person in a new hire's onboarding experience.

Why it's a problem: When managers don't prioritize onboarding, new hires flounder. They don't understand expectations. They don't get feedback. They don't build the relationship with their manager that's critical for success.

The fix: Make manager participation non-negotiable. Block manager calendars for key onboarding activities. Provide managers with onboarding toolkits that make their role easy. Check that managers are actually doing their one-on-ones.

Mistake 6: No Feedback Loop

Employee onboarding happens, then... nothing. No one asks what worked or what didn't. Same process gets repeated for the next hire with the same problems.

Why it's a problem: You're missing your best opportunity to improve. New hires have fresh eyes. They see what's confusing, what's missing, what's outdated. If you don't ask, you don't learn.

The fix: Run onboarding surveys at 30, 60, and 90 days. Ask specific questions: What was most helpful? What was confusing? What did you wish you'd known sooner? What should we change? Actually use the feedback to iterate.

Mistake 7: Treating Onboarding as a One-Week Event

Orientation week happens, then the new hire is "done" with employee onboarding and on their own.

Why it's a problem: One week isn't enough. New hires are still figuring out the culture, building relationships, and developing competence for months. Dropping support after week one is when people start feeling lost and considering other options.

The fix: Extend the employee onboarding process to 90 days minimum. Structure it with clear phases and milestones. Regular check-ins throughout. Formal reviews at 30, 60, and 90 days. Organizations that extend onboarding beyond 90 days see about 31% better outcomes.

Mistake 8: All Documentation, No Relationships

Some companies swing too far toward self-service onboarding. "Here's the knowledge base. Read everything and you'll be fine."

Why it's a problem: Relationships matter. New hires need to feel connected to their team. They need mentors and colleagues they can turn to. Documentation is necessary but not sufficient on its own.

The fix: Balance documentation with human connection. Use documentation to answer predictable questions so people aren't constantly interrupted. Use the saved time for meaningful one-on-ones, team activities, and relationship building.

Mistake 9: Skipping the "Why"

New hires get shown how to do tasks, but not why those tasks matter or how they fit into the bigger picture.

Why it's a problem: Without context, work feels meaningless. People do tasks mechanically without understanding their importance. They can't make good decisions because they don't understand the underlying principles.

The fix: Always explain the "why" behind processes. "We track customer feedback this way because it helps product prioritization." "We have this approval workflow because of compliance requirements." Context creates ownership.

Mistake 10: Neglecting Remote Onboarding Differences

Companies try to run the same employee onboarding for remote employees as in-person employees with minimal adaptation.

Why it's a problem: Remote onboarding needs different approaches. You can't rely on casual hallway conversations for culture transmission. You can't just walk someone over to meet the team. Isolation is a real risk.

The fix: Be intentional about remote employee onboarding. Schedule virtual coffee chats. Over-communicate. Use video for introductions. Ship welcome packages. Create more structure around relationship-building since it won't happen organically.

Key Takeaways

• Start employee onboarding before day one with pre-boarding activities and communication
• Avoid information overload by spreading orientation across the first week
• Assign onboarding buddies to give new hires a clear point person for questions
• Standardize onboarding with checklists to ensure consistency across all new hires
• Extend onboarding to 90 days minimum with regular check-ins and feedback loops

I'll be honest: I built Glitter AI because I was terrible at creating onboarding documentation.

At my first startup, I knew we needed to document our processes. I knew new hires needed training materials. I understood all of it intellectually. But sitting down to actually write documentation? I would rather have done almost anything else.

So I didn't. And we paid for it in confused new hires, repeated questions, and people learning our processes incorrectly because they were copying whoever trained them, who might have been doing it wrong themselves.

The problem wasn't that I didn't want good onboarding materials. The problem was that the traditional way of creating them, writing everything out step-by-step, taking screenshots, formatting documents, was slow and painful.

That's why we built Glitter AI differently.

How Glitter AI Works for Onboarding

Instead of writing onboarding documentation, you just show what you're doing while talking about it.

Here's how it works:

Step 1: Hit record. Open Glitter AI and click record. That's it. You don't need to prep anything. Just start recording your screen.

Step 2: Do the task while explaining it. Walk through whatever process you're documenting. Talk out loud as you go, explaining what you're doing and why.

"Okay, I'm going to show you how to create a new customer record in our CRM. First, I'm logging in with your company email and password. Now I'm clicking on Contacts in the left sidebar. See this green New Contact button in the upper right? I'm clicking that now..."

Step 3: Stop recording. When you're done walking through the process, stop the recording. Glitter AI's AI automatically generates a complete guide with screenshots from your recording and your narration transcribed.

Step 4: Share with new hires. The guide is immediately shareable. Add it to your new employee onboarding checklist, knowledge base, or wherever new hires access new hire training materials.

Total time: however long it takes to do the task once. Usually 2-5 minutes. Compare that to an hour of writing, screenshotting, and formatting traditional documentation.

What Makes Glitter AI Different for Onboarding

It captures tribal knowledge instantly. That senior employee who knows all the quirks of your legacy system? Have them record themselves doing common tasks. Their knowledge is now documented forever, not locked in their head.

It shows, not tells. New hires see exactly what to click, where to find things, what the expected outcome looks like. No ambiguity. No confusion.

It's fast to create. You can document an entire onboarding workflow in the time it used to take to write one SOP. I've created 20 process guides in a single afternoon.

It's easy to update. When a process changes or a UI updates, just re-record that section. Takes minutes. Your onboarding documentation stays current instead of going stale.

It works for remote onboarding. Remote new hires get the same visual, step-by-step guidance as in-person employees. Maybe better, since they can pause, rewind, and rewatch at their own pace.

Real Onboarding Use Cases

Here's how companies actually use Glitter AI for employee onboarding:

Tool and System Training

Record walkthroughs of every tool new hires need to use. CRM, project management, communication platforms, internal systems. Give new hires a library of 2-3 minute videos showing exactly how to use each one.

Instead of scheduled onboarding training sessions that take hours, new hires can watch relevant videos when they need them and refer back anytime.

Process Documentation

Document your core business processes visually. How to handle customer inquiries. How to process orders. How to escalate bugs. How to submit timesheets.

New hires can watch these guides during the employee onboarding process and reference them later when actually doing the work. Reduces questions by about 40% in our experience.

Role-Specific Workflows

Create guides specific to each role. Sales onboarding looks different from engineering onboarding looks different from customer success onboarding.

Record the workflows that matter for each role. Sales can watch how to log calls and update deal stages. Engineers can see the code review process and deployment workflow. Everyone gets relevant new hire training.

Company Culture and Values

Have leadership record short videos explaining company values, mission, and culture. More engaging than reading a handbook. More scalable than live sessions with every new hire.

The ROI of Using Glitter AI for Onboarding

Here's what we typically see in companies that use Glitter AI for employee onboarding:

80% reduction in time spent creating onboarding materials. What used to take a full week of someone's time now takes hours.

40-50% fewer questions from new hires. When new hires can watch a clear video showing exactly what to do, they don't need to interrupt teammates.

Faster time-to-productivity. New hires can self-serve learning at their own pace, watching and rewatching until they get it. No waiting for the next training session.

Better knowledge retention. Visual learning plus the ability to reference materials later means new hires actually remember what they learned.

Easier maintenance. When processes change, updating visual guides takes minutes instead of hours of rewriting.

Getting Started with Glitter AI for Onboarding

The easiest way to start is to identify your three most common training documentation pain points.

What do new hires keep asking about? What processes do they struggle to learn? What tribal knowledge walks out the door when people leave?

Start there. Record guides for those three things. See the impact. Then expand.

Your first 10 guides are free. No credit card required. Just sign up, hit record, and start documenting.

Within an afternoon, you can create a library of onboarding materials that would have taken weeks the traditional way.

Key Takeaways

• Glitter AI lets you create visual onboarding guides by recording your screen and talking
• The process takes minutes instead of hours compared to traditional documentation
• Visual guides reduce new hire questions by about 40% and accelerate time-to-productivity
• Easy to update when processes change, keeping onboarding materials current
• Start by documenting your three most common onboarding pain points

Conclusion

Employee onboarding isn't just an HR process. It's your first real chance to show new hires they made the right decision joining your company.

Get it right, and you'll see around 82% better retention, 70% higher productivity, and team members who are 2.6 times more satisfied with their jobs.

Get it wrong, and roughly 30% of your new hires will quit within 90 days, costing you 50-200% of their salary to replace them.

The difference between good and bad employee onboarding isn't about budget or company size. It's about intentionality.

Start the employee onboarding process before day one with pre-boarding. Create clear timelines and checklists covering 90 days minimum. Document your processes visually so new hires can self-serve learning. Assign onboarding buddies. Gather feedback and iterate.

Most importantly: make creating onboarding materials easy. If documenting processes is painful, you won't do it. If it's as simple as recording your screen while talking, you actually will.

That's what we built Glitter AI to do. Try it free and see how fast you can create onboarding documentation that actually helps new hires succeed.

Your next hire deserves better than the onboarding Sarah got. Now you know how to give it to them.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long should employee onboarding take?

Effective employee onboarding typically extends 90 days to 12 months, not just the first week. The most critical period is the first 90 days, with formal milestones at 30, 60, and 90 days. Companies that extend onboarding beyond 90 days see about 31% faster time-to-productivity and notably higher retention rates.

What should be included in employee onboarding?

Comprehensive employee onboarding includes four key phases: pre-boarding (before day one), orientation (first week), training (first 90 days), and integration (ongoing). Content should cover company culture and values, role-specific processes and tools, HR policies and benefits, team introductions, clear performance expectations, and ongoing feedback and support.

What is the ROI of employee onboarding?

Structured employee onboarding delivers roughly 82% higher retention rates, 70% greater productivity, and 2.6x higher job satisfaction. Companies typically see 5-10x ROI within the first year through reduced turnover costs, faster time-to-productivity (around 34% improvement), and better employee performance. Poor onboarding can cost 50-200% of salary when employees quit in the first 90 days.

Why do employees quit during onboarding?

About 30% of employees quit within their first 90 days, often citing poor onboarding experiences. Common issues include unclear expectations, lack of support, feeling unwelcome, inadequate training, missing equipment or access, or discovering a mismatch between the job description and actual role. Most of these problems are preventable with structured employee onboarding.

How do you create onboarding documentation quickly?

The fastest way to create onboarding documentation is using screen recording tools like Glitter AI where you record yourself performing tasks while explaining them out loud. This captures tribal knowledge in minutes instead of hours of writing. Organize recordings by phase (pre-boarding, week one, month one) and make them searchable in a centralized knowledge base.

What is the difference between onboarding and orientation?

Orientation is typically the first day or week covering basic company information, policies, and workspace setup. Employee onboarding is the comprehensive 90-day+ process of integrating new hires into company culture, building job competencies, establishing relationships, and achieving full productivity. Orientation is a subset of onboarding, not a replacement for it.

How do you measure onboarding effectiveness?

Measure employee onboarding effectiveness through retention rates (comparing 90-day turnover to industry benchmarks), time-to-productivity metrics, new hire satisfaction surveys at 30/60/90 days, manager assessments of new hire performance, and feedback on specific onboarding components. Track which questions new hires ask repeatedly to identify documentation gaps.

What are common onboarding mistakes to avoid?

Common employee onboarding mistakes include starting onboarding on day one instead of pre-boarding, information overload on the first day, no assigned onboarding buddy, inconsistent experiences across new hires, lack of manager involvement, ending onboarding after one week, no feedback loop for improvement, and treating remote onboarding the same as in-person without adaptation.