10 Best Employee Onboarding Experiences

No matter the industry or size of a company, effective onboarding is one of the most crucial factors to long-term employee success. 

For perspective, research has found that a strong onboarding process can increase employee retention by 82% and productivity by more than 70%. 

To see what a positive onboarding experience looks like, we’ll turn to 10 of today’s top companies that are truly thriving in this area. 

What is Employee Onboarding?

Employee onboarding is the process of orienting and integrating new workers into your company. It’s designed to help a new team member understand your mission, their role, their core tasks and responsibilities, and provide guidance as they settle into their new role. 

The end goal of the onboarding process is to accelerate ramp time so they can reach maximum productivity as quickly as possible and be equipped for success.

Companies with the Best Onboarding Experience

1. Zapier

Given that Zapier is an automation-centric tech company that focuses heavily on AI workflows, it shouldn’t be surprising that they go all in on automation and AI in their employee onboarding process.

For example, Zapier uses adaptive onboarding that is fully customized to each new hire’s role and location. They use AI to automatically generate content for new hires to expedite onboarding and facilitate quicker team building and engagement. 

Zapier is also big on offering mentors, where a hiring manager matches each new person with a “Zap Pal,” who they can go to for questions and guidance. 

Here’s a visual breakdown of the specific strategies Zapier uses to create an amazing onboarding experience. 

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Source: LinkedIn

2. Buffer

One of Buffer’s main focal points is transparency, where they provide new hires with a detailed employee handbook of what to expect at work. 

Kirsti Lang, senior content writer at Buffer, offers her firsthand experience, saying she was given a lengthy document of over 4,100 words that offered insight into her position, an in-depth overview of Buffer’s systems, a checklist of tasks, and links to helpful resources.

Source: Buffer

Additionally, a Buffer manager provides new hires with a list of Slack channels so they can quickly get to know other team members and reach out with questions, as well as mentorship to maximize work performance. 

3. HubSpot

The keyword to describe HubSpot’s approach to onboarding new hires is immersion. They go beyond simply getting new employees up to speed with company practices and processes and strive to equip their people with the knowledge to fire on all cylinders. 

This is largely done by learning about the company’s mission, holding interactive sessions, and participating in HubSpot workshops. 

As you may know, HubSpot is big on certifications, so they strategically use these to provide encouragement and highlight new member work achievements. 

4. Google

Being the data-fueled company that it is, Google has found that its best employee onboarding experiences are achieved by offering a highly structured approach that has been carefully optimized by analyzing the onboarding experience of previous team members. 

For example, a Google manager asks new Googlers, or Nooglers, to complete surveys after one month, three months, and one year into their job. 

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Source: Google re:Work

Google then takes that data and uses it to refine their employee onboarding strategy moving forward. Additionally, they lean heavily on mentorship and offering customized learning resources for each role to streamline training processes.

5. Netflix

Unlike many companies on this list that take a structured, somewhat rigid approach to training, Netflix gives new hires a lot of freedom and autonomy without needless meetings. 

For instance, Netflix shows team members the basics, like company culture and values, and provides the necessary information resources. Then, they essentially let new hires jump in headfirst and let them start making their own decisions. 

The goal is to foster a sense of trust between Netflix and their employees and build confidence for accelerated improvement right out of the gate. 

6. Spotify

A big part of this music platform’s appeal is how collaborative it is, as it allows users to easily curate playlists, share music, and discover new artist information. And Spotify takes a similar approach to onboarding new hires. 

For instance, they offer personalized welcome kits and interactive workshops as part of their onboarding program. They use culture-building exercises that place an emphasis on getting to know the company and other employees. 

And Spotify provides new employees with access to digital onboarding resources that allow them to develop at their own pace, while providing valuable feedback along the way. 

7. Meta

The goal of any well-built onboarding program is to accelerate ramp time and get new hires into the thick of things while ensuring they’re properly prepared. 

Meta is a company that excels in this department, primarily because of the “bootcamp” approach they take for integrating engineers into workflow processes. 

During the course of a six to eight-week onboarding process, new employees are comprehensively trained on tools and code, as well as company objectives and cultural information. 

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Source: Archbee

That way, they should be fully prepared to thrive in the opportunity they’ve been given and shouldn’t need any hand-holding to get the job done. 

8. Taktile

Known as “the decision platform for the AI age,” Taktile is designed to help users create intelligent decision flows. And you can also see this methodology applied to their onboarding process.

Taktile specializes in remote employee onboarding, where each new hire is given pre-configured devices to speed up ramp time. They also automate access permissions to save even more time and reduce friction during the onboarding process. 

Taktile also appoints a mentor to each new employee to check in frequently throughout the onboarding process to resolve issues and boost employee engagement.

9. Accenture

Accenture’s secret sauce involves taking a hybrid approach to the onboarding process. 

More specifically, they have new team members leverage digital resources and in-person sessions to quickly get a grasp of their new role and rapidly fit in with the culture. 

Like so many of the companies on this list, Accenture goes all in on mentorship so new hires can get plugged in more easily and receive ongoing feedback throughout the onboarding process. 

And they strive for a high level of personalization with each team member to fully unlock their skills and talents.

10. Verisys

Finally, this healthcare compliance data solutions provider prioritizes highly structured training for each unique role to ensure continuity across the board. 

Verisys is also big on feedback and tracks employee satisfaction and progress every step of the way. This allows them to identify weak spots and swiftly correct issues so they’re able to continually improve the onboarding process to ensure the best possible employee experience. 

Ensure New Hires Receive Their IT Equipment on the First Day

Whenever an employee is starting a new job, one of the biggest contributors to success is getting the right IT equipment into their hands right off the bat. 

Whether it’s a monitor, laptop, mobile device, or any other gear, you want to ensure they receive it the first day with no hiccups. Otherwise, it’s going to create friction that can be disruptive to a new employee finding their footing in your company. 

Even better, you’ll want to pre-configure devices with the right software, apps, and access permissions so employees don’t have to fumble with it themselves. This is something that companies like Taktile do, which has been a key contributor to their success. 

So how can you accomplish this?

Using allwhere’s IT asset management services and IT procurement services through a third-party provider is usually your best bet. 

They specialize in creating custom kits based on the individual needs of each team member. The gear is sent to the appropriate employee while handling end-to-end logistics to ensure it reaches its correct destination securely and on time. 

A third-party provider will handle both vendor and employee communication while letting you track everything from a single dashboard. 

And many also offer pre-configuration, so a device is ready to go right out of the box for rapid engagement. 

Make Onboarding Seamless and Impactful with allwhere

If you’re looking for a provider that handles onboarding from start to finish so you don’t have to do it yourself, you’ll definitely be interested in allwhere.

At allwhere, we cater to worldwide teams and deliver a truly hands-off onboarding experience. Our goal is to procure and deploy the perfect IT assets to your new employees, regardless of their location, while taking care of logistics and communications every step of the way.

If you’ve been struggling with this area of onboarding and are seeking to reduce workload and get operational relief, allwhere’s IT asset management services can be right up your alley. 

To learn more, you can schedule a demo with one of our experts today.