When is the last time you’ve been through a company onboarding? Or seen your company onboarding process up close? As we roll (or limp) into 2022 my question to you, with hiring plans chock full of new headcount, is who actually does your onboarding?

Precious, bright eyed souls who have entrusted their livelihoods, time, and career growth are about to flow into your organization over the next 52 weeks and 12 months. So the question I pose to you – what are your mechanics for onboarding new employees?

Obviously the answer is going to be culturally, organizationally, and functionally specific to your business and team. Let’s assume there’s a combination of teams or maybe even a little bit of everybody involved for the scrappier earlier stage startups. Inevitably, at some point of growth or scale, I might venture to guess that you’ll lose touch with how the onboarding process actually works. I did.

I’m going through a little onboarding myself right now. With the same company and all but transferring internally. Here’s how the week 1 process (I think) was supposed to play out:

• Training Schedule is finalized
• Training Schedule is sent out
• Tools & Systems are onboarded Monday @ 9am
• Training begins

Your company might be similar in overarching structure with some specific individualized flair added in. Seems pretty reasonable. Here’s how the process actually played out:

• The invites for my training calendar went out on Sunday evening before the Monday start
• Monday morning a few trainings were shuffled around to accommodate the trainers’ previously scheduled meetings
• The first fresh face I saw @ 9am on Monday morning was…the IT guy

Now this IT resource could not have been nicer. He was extremely helpful in getting me setup with the new tools. But I asked him “are you the first person that every new hire meets with?” He replied “Yes, and the importance is not lost on me.”

Inadvertently that humble IT resource who hadn’t been at the company nearly a year was playing St. Peter at the pearly gates of new hire onboarding. Does this functionally make sense? Of course. Still, perhaps let’s spare the IT guy from the burden of any initial questions and a critical first impression.

The question I pose to you, as we kick off 2022 and you undoubtedly prepare teams of people, is who actually does your onboarding? I wonder if you know. I definitely didn’t. And at the very least, in our now 3rd year of pandemic driven remote work, perhaps greet your own new hires first as they start their new careers under your guidance. First impressions do last!