Introducing the Building Blocks of Great Onboarding

Follow this series for a practical guide to designing onboarding that connects people, culture, and performance.

All Articles

• Intro: What this series is about (& why onboarding is important)

• Part 1: Where to Start (Purpose & Ownership)

Intro - Designing an Effective Onboarding Program

With onboarding, a few small, intentional shifts can create big impact. Not just for new hires, but for culture, retention, and performance across the company.

The goal is to design onboarding that helps people feel:

• Clear on what’s expected

• Connected to their team

• Confident in their abilities

• Grounded in the bigger picture of your mission

We get it. Most People teams are already juggling a lot, and onboarding is one of many responsibilities. Who has time to rethink onboarding? But the truth is, small, intentional shifts can turn an onboarding experience from transactional to transformational.

What You’ll Get from This Series

✅ Define your onboarding program with clarity and structure
✅ Identify the owners for each part of onboarding
✅ Build an experience that balances information, skill development and human connection
✅ Measure, iterate, and improve your program based on your company needs
✅ Apply simple L&D principles to up level your sessions

Move from checklists to connection, so you can build an onboarding program that strengthens culture and helps people thrive long-term.

Rethinking Onboarding

Most onboarding programs still feel like a checklist and a one-way lecture from the company to the new hire. But onboarding isn’t just about information, it’s also about integration.

Too often it’s a rush of forms and meetings that says “you’ve started,” but never “you belong.”

That’s a missed opportunity. The best programs take advantage of this unique moment in the employee journey to launch their new hires while re-enforcing their company culture.

Why Onboarding Matters

The moment a new hire walks in, everything the company promised suddenly becomes real. Their first impressions shape how they see the culture, their team, and their place in it.

When onboarding is done well, it:

• Shortens time to contribution

• Builds collaboration

• Sets the foundation for long-term growth

When it’s not done well, even the strongest hires can lose clarity and connection before they’ve begun. Onboarding is more than setup, it’s where culture and performance begin.

Small Changes for Big Impact, then Iterate

Many teams avoid improving onboarding because it feels like a huge project. But it doesn’t have to be.

Big overhauls often fizzle because they’re trying to do too much. Instead, focus on micro-betterments and do small, intentional tweaks that drive visible results.

✳️ Try this:

Step 1: Get quick feedback - choose one of these

• Schedule 30 minutes with three recent hires to ask what worked and what didn’t

• Send a quick four-question survey:

  1. How was onboarding?

  2. What was most impactful?

  3. What would you change?

  4. Did you feel your manager was involved?

Step 2: Bias towards action - Choose 2 small changes you want to make, immediately, and implement them

Don’t overthink it. Be intentional. Start small. Measure the impact. And iterate!

Over time, you get to see how improvement compounds!

Why Listen To Us?

1. We have partnered with countless People teams and understand what makes onboarding effective

2. Our founding team has designed and led onboarding programs at companies including Instacart, Reddit, and Twilio

3. We are building Camino with a Customer Advisory Board, a group of experienced People and People Ops leaders

This series pulls together lessons learned into a practical guide for building onboarding that’s structured, human, and scalable.

One of our advisors is Ross Greiner, M.Ed, M.B.A. has personally onboarded thousands of new hires, and shared a few of his go-to insights for creating onboarding experiences:

1. New hires are people, not just numbers on the spreadsheet. This is huge. The fact that these people are going through transition in their personal & professional lives, often jumping onto a rapidly moving team, and having to learn entirely new systems at the same time... and receiving little support is shocking. There need to be human touchpoints and support from managers (1:1s, 30/60/90s) is critical.

2. One-size fits all is good for general onboarding, but role- or team-specific enablement is a highly challenging task for general onboarding. There needs to be a clear understanding between HR, L&D, and the hiring manager about where general onboarding ends and role onboarding begins. They aren't the same thing, and need to be addressed differently.

3. We ask our new hires to drink from the fire hose, and expect them to be happy about it. Whether it is the endless task lists (fill out this form, setup this system, etc) or slogging through 30 hours of elearning content or completing the compliance training, each task adds up. There needs to be logic and reason behind the sequence and schedule in which we put onboarding tasks. Is it essential for Day 1, or nice to have by Week 2?

Wrapping Up

Great onboarding doesn’t happen all at once. Start small, learn from it, and improve. That’s how great onboarding (and great cultures) are built.

As you move through this series, we’ll share small, practical changes that make a big difference.

Questions? Reach us anytime at hello@joincamino.com - we’re happy to help!