Most companies onboard wrong — here's how to get it right

It's more than paperwork and hellos. If new hires are made to feel valued and supported, they are more likely to stay in the job.

- Winnie Jiang

Whether you are a fresh grad starting your new job, or someone making a mid-career change or moving to another employer, there's the worry: What training will I get during the first weeks on the job - "onboarding"?

Will you be made welcome, and given an up-to-date guide of how things work and someone to show you the ropes?

Or will it be an experience like that of Nadia, a marketing professional in her late 20s, who joined a mid-sized firm in Singapore last year. "My first day, they just pointed me to a desk and e-mailed me an 87-page PDF to read. No introductions, no overview, no idea who was who - in fact, my manager was out of town," she recalls.

"It felt like I had walked into someone else's party and wasn't sure if I was even invited." She stuck it out for six months before moving on.

Compare that with Jun Hao, a software engineer who joined a regional tech company. "They paired me with a buddy, scheduled check-ins with my manager, and gave me a fun onboarding challenge where I had to interview colleagues from different teams," he says.

"It helped me learn fast, feel seen and understand how things worked."

Despite decades of HR research affirming its importance, onboarding remains one of the most overlooked - and undervalued - phases of being an employee. This gap is real in Singapore, too. A 2024 survey by InCorp Global found that 22 per cent of companies here do not have formal onboarding procedures.

The problem isn't limited to any one sector: While some multinational corporations rely on templated global programmes that feel generic and disconnected, many small and medium-sized enterprises still adopt a sink-or-swim approach. New hires - especially in leaner firms - are often expected to hit the ground running without adequate support.