No One Wants to Own Employee Onboarding. Here’s Why Talent Acquisition Should.
Getting onboarding right is crucial for any company; it serves as the foundation for an employee's long-term success and sense of engagement with an organization. Effective onboarding sets a positive tone, providing employees with the tools, knowledge, and cultural understanding they need to succeed. And the well-documented benefits include improved retention, reduced turnover, increased productivity, and engagement (not to mention greater morale).
So why are some companies (maybe even yours) so bad at it?
Who should cover employee onboarding has been a topic that has been popping up on my radar more frequently the past few months. But the emergence of this topic shouldn't come as a surprise: employee engagement is top of mind for executives and their organizations.
In i4cp’s latest report, The Future-Ready Culture, we share proven traits of agile, engaged, and prepared workforces. Those from organizations with very healthy cultures mentioned "employee-focused" as a descriptive trait of their organizations 19 times more often than those who described their organizations as having toxic cultures.
Additionally, engagement is HR's leading priority for the fourth year running in a 2025 State of People Strategy Report from Lattice, and over half (55%) of surveyed HR professionals said their companies believe in the value of engagement but don’t always dedicate resources to support it.
This is where talent acquisition needs to step in, take hold of the reins, and run.
Bridge the deep valley between offer acceptance and Day One
As a TA professional, you've invested in an employer brand that speaks to your target talent pool and you've worked across your talent acquisition team to ensure a top-notch candidate experience. But why would you stop there?
Take the extra step to bridge the deep valley between the milestone moments of offer acceptance and Day One (and beyond). Onboarding is one of many moments that deeply matter in employee engagement and retention, so ensuring solid delivery of this promised candidate experience is key.
In a recent conversation with Danielle Monaghan, Senior Vice President of Global Talent Acquisition at Expedia Group and chair of i4cp’s Talent Acquisition Board, she lamented, "Onboarding has become such an afterthought instead of an investment, often yielding high ROI. It is a missed opportunity to connect early on to create a lasting impression for those joining your company." I couldn't agree more.
Getting it right also means a continuation of an exceptional candidate experience with the other key stakeholders in the employee journey. Partnering closely with key functions in HR such as business partners and talent management, as well as hiring leaders and their teams, will ensure employees are off to a good start and continue strong through their employment journey.
If your company is currently overlooking or even altogether avoiding onboarding initiatives, I encourage TA leaders to take the work as a continuation of talent acquisition activities. After all, you've worked so hard to deliver a stellar recruiting experience, why leave it in the hands of others?
Good for the business and good for the employees and managers, too
The business case for the adoption of initiating onboarding in talent acquisition not only creates a sense of engagement and belonging from the start, it also has big impact potential.
Mondelēz International, the snacking powerhouse with brands such as Oreo, Ritz, and Toblerone Chocolate, has experienced a competitive advantage with retention since talent acquisition took over the process. Andrea Kain, Global Head of Talent Acquisition at Mondelēz, shared changes in NPS scores over the course of three years for new hires (from +2 to +69) and hiring managers (from -34 to +44) since they implemented a new onboarding project across 44 countries—successfully engaging, informing, and welcoming over 6,600 new hires while equipping and supporting over 1,300 people managers.
If you're ready to tackle getting onboarding right, here are a few tips I've collected from those who have gone before you:
- Scope the project properly and don't try to do everything at once. Consider the various onboarding stages above and tackle the one that presents the most impactful case for change.
- Don't embark on the project without the proper resources and funding. Like most construction projects, plan for 2x the cost and time. Don't make this an added job because it will get left behind when things pick up. Depending on company size, seriously consider a dedicated onboarding team or individual resource.
- Know your stakeholders and define an inclusive, but productive DACI/RACI. Figure out who your key players are and form that agile team to deliver.
- Leverage design thinking to generate new, innovative ideas. Be open to surprises and experiment with solutions. Ask yourself, what could this program really look like? What does meaningful onboarding entail?
- Think globally, act locally. Remember that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to onboarding, and there might be systematic issues that need to be addressed globally, but with local nuances.
- Make it scalable. Use templates, checklists, personalization, and technology to help accelerate the work.
- Growth management. Change leadership will be key in any type of transformational initiative. Change can happen to people or through people. Keep it simple and don't forget to bring others along for the journey.
- Don’t overlook the power of networks. Getting new employees integrated with the people they need to know to get to full productivity quickly (both within their team and beyond) is incredibly important, yet most companies don’t take an intentional approach to this. Build this into your onboarding programs to take them to the next level.
If you're looking for an outline of hiring manager and candidate/new hire steps, refer to the i4cp Onboarding Toolkit for details.
Final note—
Onboarding is a top priority at companies with exceptional onboarding; the business case demonstrates increased productivity and reduced turnover, and engagement scores reflect the difference.
If these outcomes have not yet occurred in your company, now's the time for Talent Acquisition to step in, and dedicate enough resources to extend the candidate experience into and past Day One.