As a manager or Head of People, you're probably not getting accurate feedback on your onboarding process. New hires aren’t incentivized to share their true thoughts on their experiences while they try to establish themselves at their new workplace.

So we asked the hard questions for you. We spoke to seven new hires to learn about the challenges they faced in their first few weeks.

Here's who we talked to:

• Startup Experience Coordinator @ Eco-tech incubator
• Community & Partner Analyst @ Project management tech startup
• Software Engineer @ HR tech startup
• Marketing Manager @ Innovation & community-building non-profit
• Data Engineer @ Health tech startup
• Client Experience Strategist @ Project management tech startup
• Sales & Operations Coordinator @ Renewable energy startup

Despite the wide variety of roles and industries they represented, a few clear patterns of pain points emerged.

Here are the five biggest issues they faced.

1. Not having a Day 1 and Week 1 schedule

Navigating a brand new environment and meeting tons of fresh faces will produce anxiety for anyone. But it's even worse when you don't know what to expect.

Many new hires showed up to their first day without knowing what it would look like or who they would meet. This lack of communication left them underprepared and created an unnecessary extra set of unknowns.

“I just felt like I wasn’t sure what to expect, and would have to roll with whatever happened on day one.”

What to do about it

• Share an onboarding schedule a week or two in advance of your new hire’s start date. Even if you have to insert placeholders or meetings move around after sending, an onboarding schedule can remove a lot of the unknown that causes first day apprehension.
• Send a warm, welcoming message the day before they start to ease nerves and communicate day one expectations.

2. Not knowing when to ask sensitive questions

After their onboarding, new hires struggle to know when it’s appropriate to ask sensitive HR policy-related questions. For many, it felt like there was no opportunity to inquire further about payroll, benefits, and remote work/vacation policies.

New hires often hesitate to bring up these questions out of fear of the (unwarranted) perception that it might mean that their mind is in the wrong place.

“I’m still trying to figure out my health insurance, and I think it’s the Operations Manager who deals with the retirement benefits, but I’m not really sure.”

What to do about it

• Anticipate that new hires will have questions after their initial HR/company onboarding, and give them a concrete plan for who to ask once they arise.
• Proactively set up time around the two-week mark to discuss any outstanding HR/company policy-related questions.

3. Not knowing how to contribute quickly

New hires are eager to prove their worth on Week 1 but struggle to figure out how and where they can make an impact. It's hard to separate the projects where they can weigh in immediately from those where a few weeks of more context might be necessary.

Several new hires reported that independent work assigned during onboarding was helpful but rarely felt meaningful to the rest of the company.

“I just started to glaze over the onboarding videos, and I think it’d be more efficient if I could just jump in and show them that I could put what I was learning to use.”

What to do about it

• Give new hires an opportunity to make an impact as early as possible by assigning them a low-stakes project with a due date at the end of their first week.
• Have new hires present the project to their manager and/or team. This is a great way to get new hires early praise and feedback and also make them feel like they’re immediately contributing to the team.

4. Needing more authentic connections with the team

Company swag and a fancy welcome lunch are great, but new hires — especially those who onboard remotely — reported needing more genuine connection points with their teammates.

Luckily, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel to accomplish this. It can be as simple as initiating a one-on-one get-to-know you conversation.

“I got a bunch of free company gear, but what really stuck with me — because I had just moved and didn’t have a car yet, I got a ride into my first day of work from my boss. It was a great way to actually get to know him in a way that wasn’t entirely focused on work.”

What to do about it

• Be nice! Going out of your way to be friendly and accomodating on a new hire’s first day often goes further than a fancy new company t-shirt.
• In addition to your company’s go-to welcome gifts/rituals, try adding a personally meaningful touch (like a favorite snack at their desk, or an e-gift card to their favorite coffee shop at the top of their inbox on Day 1) — while this may feel a bit unscalable, it makes a powerful first impression on a new hire.  

5. Not seeing the real-world impact

With all the hard work of building out a new hire’s onboarding process, it’s easy to forget to zoom out and convey the real-world influence your team is having. 

Making time to share out your team’s successful work and how it’s impacted your customers/users will ground new hires in a sense of purpose from Day 1.  

“There was a session where we went through patient feedback emails and the overall impact of the company. It made me realize this is more than just like a business -- we’re really changing lives.”

What to do about it

• Include a company vision/impact session in your new hire’s first day of onboarding, highlighting customer testimonials and successful case studies of your team’s work.
• Encourage leaders to share why company values are personally meaningful to them, creating a shared alignment around your team’s philosophy from the start. 
  

Looking to kick your onboarding program into high gear? Explore our how-tos on Building a Fully Distributed Onboarding Program and Building a New Hire Cohort Onboarding Day, or integrate your onboarding program directly into Slack using Gather.