Welcome, but Disconnected: When Onboarding Misses the Mark on Belonging

By Stelios Sergis

When it comes to the employee experience, onboarding is the first culture moment that matters. For new hires, it’s a profoundly emotional time when excitement and ambition meet uncertainty and vulnerability. And where the desire to fit in is met by the quiet fear of feeling forever like an outsider.

For companies, it’s their opportunity to create bonds that last longer and empower their new members to feel safe and productive from the start.

Still, the emotional weight of onboarding doesn’t erase its practical side. Compliance tasks, form-filling, and training modules have an important part to play too.

The challenge is balance.

But looking at the current landscape, striking that balance is easier said than done. The missing piece? Belonging, not bureaucracy, must become the new metric of success.

The Belonging Gap

In our latest onboarding report, by TalentLMS and BambooHR, 76% of new hires said their onboarding experience made them feel welcome. Yet nearly one in three (31%) said the process lacked human interaction.

This gap between efficiency and empathy isn’t trivial. It can be the difference between a new hire staying and thriving in their new role—or deciding they’ve made a mistake and looking for their next move.

Our survey underscores the risk. Nearly 4 in 10 new hires (39%) admit to having second thoughts about their job during onboarding. For Gen Z (the generation shaping the future of work), that figure climbs to almost half (49%).

The picture becomes even clearer when we look at the number-one challenge experienced by new hires. Our data shows it isn’t completing forms or training modules, but adjusting to a company’s culture, values, and work style.

There’s a clear message here. “Welcome” cues (swag, kickoff emails, new hire bios, company introductions) may create a short-term lift. But the interpersonal touchpoints that build lasting connections are often missing. The result? Without strong human support in navigating cultural dimensions, doubt takes root quickly. And onboarding risks isolating new hires instead of integrating them.

Nurturing a sense of belonging during a new hire’s early moments in a new organization is clearly essential. But it doesn’t happen by accident. So, how can learning professionals weave belonging into the fabric of this pivotal process from day one? Our research points to five critical areas where L&D can make the greatest impact.

KPMG research finds that friendships formed at work are deeply tied to belonging. Eighty-three percent of professionals say these connections boost their engagement, and 80% agree they help them feel anchored to their workplace. These findings align closely with our own. More than half of the new hires (53%) we surveyed pointed to feeling welcomed by the team as one of the top three drivers of belonging. And two-thirds of Gen Z emphasized the importance of making friends at work.

It’s easy to assume that human connection is an organic process that happens naturally. But the data makes one thing clear: Early friendships matter too much to be left to chance. This means that L&D teams need to intentionally design for strategies that create structured and meaningful ways for new hires to connect.

How Can L&D Design for Connection?

Create a buddy system: Pair new hires with role-adjacent buddies who can help them navigate work and culture, as well as answer the small questions they might have during their first weeks. Encourage short, 15-minute “how’s it going?” chats, supported by simple calendar nudges or conversation prompts. Nurture psychological safety, which will build the foundations of a similar team culture later on. These quick touchpoints make belonging a routine and ensure the joiners have the support they need.
Strengthen social scaffolding: Widen out meet-and-greets. Design small, informal moments that make it easy for new hires to meet people beyond their immediate team. These could include a monthly coffee with the CEO, a welcome day with all joiners and their teams once every quarter, a “Day-10 doughnut” coffee chat, or a first-month peer cohort circle. These social micro-moments create early bridges across the organization and offer a chance for existing teams to freshen up their bonds, too.
Foster informal connection spaces: Invite new hires to Slack or Teams channels centered around shared interests, not just work streams. For example, #bookclub, #parents, or #running. Promote participation in in-person bonding activities in these early days, such as a team lunch in the first week, coffee breaks, or group attendance in company events. These casual experiences give employees an easy entry point into the company’s social fabric and help friendships grow organically across roles and locations.

2. Make Space for Real-Time Feedback & Questions

Belonging grows when people feel that their voice is heard and their opinions carry weight. And in the workplace, it’s what transforms an isolated and detached employee into an emotionally invested participant in their team’s culture and community. Our research echoes this sentiment. Nearly half (45%) of employees said they felt a sense of belonging during onboarding when they had opportunities to give feedback or ask questions. The takeaway? Build feedback in, don’t bolt it on.

How Can L&D Embed Feedback into Onboarding?

Introduce milestone-based feedback loops: Use the buddy and the manager as the first and most influential loop. Suggest short pulse questions like “What’s unclear right now?”, “Want to have a sync on how things are going?”, or “Who helped you this week?” Also, L&D and HR can complement this with more structured check-ins at 30, 60, and 90 days. All these feedback points create predictable moments for conversation and reflection, helping new hires gain clarity, remove uncertainty, and feel supported as they settle in.
Host ‘Ask Me Anything’ (AMA) sessions: Rotate who leads each session (team or department leaders or cross-functional team members)and publish a short recap of key themes. Then share follow-up actions to visibly close the loop. These relaxed conversations normalize curiosity, give new hires visibility into different parts of the business, and reinforce a culture where questions (and voices) are welcomed.
Create anonymous feedback channels: Offer a simple, ongoing way for new hires to share questions or concerns privately. This could be through an online form, chat tool, or survey.

3. Train Managers to Lead Onboarding with Empathy

Managers have more influence over the onboarding experience than any platform, policy, or PowerPoint presentation. Our research bears this out: Nearly half of employees (48%) said manager support was one of the top three drivers of belonging.

At the heart of that influence is empathy. New joiners are likely to be in a vulnerable state, and they want this feeling to be acknowledged and respected. It’s a core human need. When managers show genuine care, actively listen, and meet new hires where they are, they turn information-sharing into trust-building. Which then transforms onboarding from an administrative task into a shared human experience. The result is a strong emotional connection that lasts long after the first few weeks.

What’s encouraging is that 75% of the new hires we surveyed said their manager supported them during onboarding. This is a strong foundation to build on. But given that managers carry so much of the emotional and cultural weight of onboarding, there’s still room to strengthen their capability and confidence.

That’s where L&D comes in. Learning teams can help managers gain expertise with tools, frameworks, and good practices to lead with empathy. This greatly enhances not only the onboarding experience of their teams but also their learning journey in the company.

How Can L&D Help Managers Lead with Empathy?

Offer targeted onboarding training for managers: Use a learning management system to develop and deliver short, focused learning sessions centered around the human side of onboarding. For example, how to run meaningful first-week 1:1s, master active listening, or recognize the signals of doubt or disengagement.
Create space for reflection and feedback: Empathy grows with awareness. Aside from formal, milestone-based feedback loops, encourage managers to seek ongoing feedback from their new hires about the onboarding experience in general.
Encourage empathy in action: Promote everyday tactics that turn empathy from a learned theory into a daily practice. This could mean managers sharing their own onboarding stories, hosting informal “office hours” for new hires, or sending short weekly check-ins during the first 90 days. Coach managers in building such skills, and the return will be profound.

4. Prioritize Clarity over Completion

When new hires know what success looks like (and how their role connects to the bigger picture) they’re far more likely to feel grounded and engaged. Because clarity doesn’t just reduce confusion. It also builds confidence, autonomy, and trust, which are the foundations of belonging and performance. Our onboarding data supports this correlation. Nearly half (47%) of new hires ranked clarity about their role and expectations among the top three drivers of belonging.

How Can L&D Design Clarity into Onboarding?

Define success early on: During the first week, ensure managers and buddies walk new hires through their role, scope, initial goals, and success metrics. Remember that for the new hire, everything feels new during the first few weeks. So it’s important to reduce noise as much as possible and facilitate understanding. The learning content needs to be easily accessible, relevant and to-the-point. It’s a good idea also to provide it in a staggered approach, so it doesn’t overwhelm them. Frequent catch-ups to remind new hires of their role, goals, and metrics also help as their understanding deepens.
Make clarity a milestone: Build 30-, 60-, and 90-day check-ins around learning and understanding, not just task completion and compliance checks. Experiment with using simulated tasks or activities to measure practical understanding. Use these touchpoints to ask new hires, “What’s still unclear?” and “Where do you need more support?” Tracking clarity alongside progress ensures learning remains at the center of onboarding.
Document the definition of ‘done’: By day 90, every new hire should be able to clearly explain their role and key objectives, and know where to go for help. When that happens, onboarding has moved beyond administration and into a practical learning experience. The result? Belonging becomes part of the outcome.

5. Tailor Onboarding by Work Setting

A one-size-fits-all onboarding approach no longer fits with the new world of work, where setting is anything but set in stone. Hybrid, remote, and in-office arrangements have all become standard ways of working, and each brings its own belonging challenges.

L&D has a critical role to play in designing employee onboarding that meets people where they are. By tailoring onboarding to each work setting, L&D teams can remove friction, foster connection, and make belonging accessible. No matter where employees log in from.

How Can L&D Tailor Onboarding for Every Work Environment?

For remote workers: Simplify the experience by curating information instead of delivering an overwhelming data dump. Provide clear “start here” guides, structured learning paths, and frequently scheduled virtual touchpoints. Pair each remote hire with a buddy or mentor to humanize the digital experience and reduce feelings of isolation.
For on-site workers: Focus on cultural integration. Encourage managers and peers to make norms and unwritten rules explicit through in-person walk-throughs, “culture tours,” or team lunches. Ensure new hires feel included in the rhythm and rituals of the workplace from day one.
For hybrid workers: Design intentional connection moments. Coordinate in-office anchor days for new hire cohorts, buddy meetups, or team huddles. Use digital channels to maintain continuity between on-site days, so relationships and learning don’t get lost in the shuffle.

Belonging by Design, not Default

The measure of an effective onboarding program shouldn’t rely solely on compliance completion rates or overviews of processes and tools.

Most programs get those parts right, yet they often fail where the actual value of onboarding lies. And they fail because they assume that cultural integration and a sense of belonging naturally emerge from simply having an onboarding process. In reality, these are the core elements of onboarding, and they require deliberate planning and continuous effort to achieve.

And as the workplace continues to evolve, L&D has the opportunity to lead that transformation by designing for belonging from the get-go. The result? Onboarding that doesn’t just welcome people to a company, but also helps them connect with a culture and community that lasts.

Image credit: sesame