The Onboarding Black Hole and the Missing Link

Who Owns Onboarding? The Messy Handoff and the Untapped Power of Hiring Managers

In Part 1, we explored how a broken onboarding process leads to early attrition and significant financial costs. But why is it so hard to get onboarding right? Our survey reveals a key reason: a lack of clarity around who is responsible for the new hire experience and a messy handoff between departments.

Traditionally, onboarding was neatly divided into two buckets: the “HR” part (paperwork and compliance) and the “functional” part (role-specific training). This division has created a fragmented process with no single owner. We asked HR leaders who they believe is responsible for onboarding:

• HR or People Operations team (42.5%)
  
• A combination of HR, managers, and team members (32.7%)

At companies with over 10,000 employees, leaders were also more likely to see onboarding as a shared, cross-functional responsibility. The takeaway? Onboarding is no longer a solo act.

The Onboarding Black Hole

This lack of clear ownership often creates a “black hole” in the new hire journey. The handoff from the talent acquisition team to HR and then to the hiring manager is frequently riddled with gaps. Our survey found that while 36% of organizations have a “seamless” process, a combined 62.9% describe their handoff as “adequate,” “inconsistent,” or “poor.”

With such inconsistent handoffs, it’s no surprise that hiring manager engagement in the process is disappointing.

• Nearly 1 in 3 (28.8%) said they’ve seen a hiring manager fail to provide their new hire with any guidance or training.
  
• 23.6% said they’ve seen a hiring manager give their new hire unrelated or meaningless tasks.
  
• In the U.K., 30% of HR leaders said managers overload new hires with unrealistic expectations.

Most hiring managers are not maliciously unhelpful; they simply lack the tools, resources, and training to effectively onboard new hires. 

The bottom line? Leaving a new hire’s success to the discretion of an untrained manager is essentially leaving productivity to chance. To fix this, we must empower hiring managers and invite them to be co-creators in a streamlined, cross-functional onboarding experience.

The full report is available for download here.