I have seen it so many times that I no longer get surprised. A company invests time, energy, and money into finding the right person. The process has been thorough. The decision feels right. And then, the day that person starts, more or less nothing happens.
A welcome email. Perhaps a tour of the office. A laptop that is not quite set up yet. And then everything is expected to just fall into place.
It rarely does, in my experience.
The first months shape more than you might think
What I have seen repeatedly – in assignments where I have followed the full journey from recruitment to someone actually settling into their role – is that the first months shape far more than how quickly someone learns their tasks. They shape how that person understands the culture, what is truly valued, how decisions are made, and where they actually belong in the organization.
A person who receives a structured, thoughtful welcome gets up to speed faster, contributes faster, and stays longer. That is my experience – not a guaranteed outcome, but a pattern I have seen enough times to take seriously.
A person thrown in without support starts to compensate. They fill the gaps with assumptions. Some of those assumptions are right. Many are not.
What onboarding is actually about
It is not about scheduling a series of meetings in the first week. It is about giving a new person the tools to understand three things: what is expected of them, how the company actually works – not how it looks on paper – and who they can turn to when they do not know.
That third one is underrated, in my view. Having a designated point of contact during the first months – not necessarily the manager, sometimes a colleague works better – can make a significant difference to how confident and productive a new person becomes.
The manager is the key – but is rarely prepared
In my experience, the most common problem is not a lack of goodwill. It is that the hiring manager, who has just spent months finding the right person, is fully occupied with everything that piled up during the recruitment period. Onboarding ends up in the lap of someone who does not really have the time – or falls through the cracks entirely.
That is a structural problem. And it cannot be solved with a welcome email.
A thoughtful onboarding does not need to be complicated. But it needs to be intentional. It needs to be planned before the person starts. And someone needs to own it.
The costly misunderstanding
What I find most frustrating is when a fundamentally good hire goes wrong for the wrong reasons. Not because the person was not a fit. But because the welcome they received did not give them a fair chance to show what they are actually capable of.
A bad hire is costly. A well-recruited person who never properly lands is in its own way even more unnecessary – because it could have looked very different.
If you have thoughts, questions, or simply want to talk something through – feel free to get in touch. I am happy to have an initial conversation with no agenda.
Magdalena Hagström Ståhl
By M Consulting
Right person. Right place. Everything changes.