A strong onboarding experience can make or break whether employees stick around, and the numbers prove it. In fact, 69% of employees are more likely to stay with a company for three years if they experience great onboarding. That’s not a small statistic—it’s the difference between building a stable, committed team and constantly dealing with costly turnover.
Onboarding Isn’t Just Paperwork
Onboarding is not just paperwork and a Zoom call or two hour meeting. That kind of process might check the legal and administrative boxes, but it doesn’t prepare anyone to really thrive in their role. The first impression sets the tone for literally everything that follows. If you treat onboarding like an afterthought, employees will feel like an afterthought.
Connection Builds Commitment
When new hires feel supported, connected to their leaders, and have clarity about what they’re responsible for, they get traction much faster. They know how to do their job, they feel like part of the team, and most importantly, they start believing they made the right choice in joining your company.
On the flip side, when onboarding is confusing, rushed, or shallow, employees drift. Some disengage quietly. Others leave altogether. Getting ghosted by a new hire a few months in becomes less of a mystery and more of an inevitability.
Think Retention, Not Checklists
If you shift your mindset and view onboarding as your best retention play, everything changes. It stops being about the checklist—forms filled, accounts set up—and starts being about culture, clarity, and connection.
Think of onboarding as the launchpad where employees get their very first sense of what it means to work in your company. Done well, it’s how you turn a stranger into someone who’s loyal, motivated, and invested in your mission.
Your Next Step
If you’re struggling with turnover or frustrated by how quickly people check out, it’s time to look at your onboarding process. Ask yourself: does it set the tone, build confidence, and connect people to your team? Or does it just “get the forms signed”?
When you prioritize onboarding as part of leadership and organizational development, you create a foundation for longer-lasting, stronger teams.
Want help reimagining how your business welcomes and equips new hires? Let’s design an onboarding process that not only gets people started but actually makes them want to stay.
Stephanie German is a business coach for small businesses focused on strategy and impact who are ready to take action with scalable guidance without the non-sense. She directly works with owners, founders, and leaders through a specific framework to compress time, increase income, and boost productivity. Find out ways to work together here.