Team,

Three weeks into onboarding her new teammate, one of our managers in the company came to me: "I need to fire this woman."

I was shocked. I'd interviewed this person myself. She was perfect - skill match, culture match, everything we needed.

"Show me how you onboarded her," I said.

The answer? One call. Some shadowing. Some reading.

Basically nothing :D

Here's the truth: If you've vetted someone properly and they're failing, it's almost always an onboarding problem, not a people problem.

So we re-onboarded her (properly this time).

That was four years ago. She's still with us, absolutely crushing it. (you know who you are LOL)

Most companies lose teammates because they confuse orientation with onboarding.

Orientation is paperwork and passwords. Onboarding is setting someone up to actually succeed.

Here's the framework I use now (The 5 C's):

1. Compliance: Get the boring stuff done. NDAs, handbooks, logins. But don't confuse this with onboarding. This is just the price of entry.

2. Clarity: Give them a 30-60-90 day plan. I tell every new hire: "I'm not hiring you to do work. I'm hiring you to solve problems. Here are your problems to solve in 30, 60, and 90 days."

3. Culture: They need to understand how we think, not just what we do. Old email threads, recorded meetings, books we've read. Immerse them in who we are.

4. Connection: Assign them a buddy who isn't their boss. Set up cross-department shadowing. They need to see how their work affects everyone else.

5. Check-back: Here's what nobody does: I talk to new hires twice a day for the first two weeks. Morning check-in, afternoon check-out. 30 minutes each.

People think onboarding starts on Day 1.

But it actually starts the moment they accept the offer. Send them expectations, timelines, swag. Make them feel like they're already part of the team.

The cost of bad onboarding:

Losing someone before their first year costs 100-300% of their salary.

But that's not even the worst part.

The worst part is that every poorly onboarded teammate tells your team that you don't invest in people. That success here is sink or swim. That you don't actually care.

You can either take the time now, or pay the price later.

Onboard right or do it twice :P (yes I know its cheese, cheese works)

Have a great week 🙏🏼

-Leila