Bag packed, lunch money tucked away and the perfect outfit styled just right — the first day of school is a familiar memory for everyone.
But what many forget about the first day of school are the little details that went into making sure everyone knew what to do and where to be. Grade school teachers spend countless hours putting together lesson plans, designing their classrooms and setting up the little routines and check-ins that help kids adjust to a new environment.
Some recruiters are taking a cue from the classroom to plan new hires’ initial days on the job.
Onboarding is one of the most volatile times in employees’ tenures at a company. There is a high chance that the new hire will leave within the first 90 days; Jobvite research found that 34 percent of those who left in those first three months pointed to company culture as a reason for leaving.
A 2023 study published in the National Library of Medicine found that structured support and on-the-job training were highly favored as the best way to onboard new employees. Notably, what the study also found was that there is a lack of evidence on what those strategies should look like exactly.
Unlike teaching, it’s often up to HR teams to develop their own curriculums and practices.
Built In San Francisco spoke with a recent hire at Endpoint Clinical, who shared what stood out to him about the onboarding process for the healthtech company.
Endpoint provides interactive response technology systems and solutions for the life sciences industry.
Describe your experience with the onboarding process at Endpoint. What resources, tools, or people were made available to you during the process?
The onboarding process was very thorough. I have been in the interactive response technology industry since 2008 and this is my third company. The onboarding exceeded my expectations based on what I had experienced in the past.
It started before I officially joined the company, which was a nice touch. I signed the contract three to four weeks before my start date, and I started receiving onboarding emails to welcome me to the company and provide some background information. This really helped to prepare me for day one and beyond.
The onboarding lasted for the first two to three months of my employment and culminated in an IRT Certification exam, which helped to reinforce all that I’d learned. I believe it also gives a chance for the Endpoint team to see if there were any gaps in their onboarding process.
How did the onboarding process contribute to your understanding of Endpoint’s culture, values and expectations? Were there any specific training programs, resources or mentorship opportunities provided during onboarding that you found especially helpful?
I was assigned a mentor and separate “buddy” from day one. The mentor is a peer in my role to show me the ropes, and my buddy was on hand to answer any employee questions I had. In truth, though, both answered any queries I had about anything and made me feel part of the team very early.
The onboarding focused on a high-level overview of the company at first. I valued this, as it makes me better at my job if I understand high-level processes in other parts of the business, how my work impacts them and vice versa.
I’m very experienced in designing studies in the IRT field but had not used Endpoint’s systems before, and the training was very informative and allowed me to work at my own pace. Also, there were group training sessions, where we would all have our cameras on, get to know each other and work together to share and advance our learning.
“There were group training sessions, where we would all have our cameras on, get to know each other and work together to share and advance our learning.”
What about your onboarding was different from past experiences starting in a new role? What do you think made it so effective?
It was much more thorough than I’ve experienced at other companies. Our new hire group was based all over the world, so whenever we would have onboarding meetings, it would be at a time that was suitable for all. We then had our own onboarding program to work through at our own pace. We had our own Teams channel and meetings were recorded, allowing us to watch them back again if we needed a refresher.
It seems to be quite a big team involved overall. I was impressed by how well they worked together, coordinated things and followed up with us new hires individually, if we needed anything. The whole experience reinforced my belief that I had chosen to join the right company in Endpoint.
