Insights / Design
Onboarding starts with the five tasks
Most onboarding teaches a new person the history of the company before teaching them how to do Monday.
By McKinley Malbrough III, J.D., MS-HRM. Published September 8, 2026.
Short answer
The five tasks the person has to complete without help by Friday, and who to ask when something breaks. Company history, values and the org chart belong in a document they read in week three. Say the unwritten rules out loud, because people who arrive with connections learn those in a hallway and everyone else learns them by getting them wrong. Ninety minutes live in week one, then thirty minutes at day thirty.
What belongs in week one?
The five tasks the person must complete without help by Friday, and who to ask when something breaks. That is the whole session.
Company history, values and the org chart belong in a document they can read when they are curious, which is week three.
What is the part everybody skips?
The unwritten rules. How decisions actually get made here, which meetings matter, what "send me a note" means at this company, whether you are expected to respond after hours.
People who arrive with connections learn these in a hallway within a week. People who do not learn them in year two, or learn them by getting them wrong in front of somebody. Saying them out loud in onboarding is the cheapest equity move an employer has.
How long should onboarding training be?
90 minutes live in week one, then a 30 minute check at day thirty. The check is what separates onboarding that works from onboarding that happened.
That second session is where the real questions come out, because by then the person knows what they do not know.
Who should run it?
A manager or a peer, not only HR. HR can build the material and hold the standard. The person who actually does the work is the one whose version the new hire believes.
McKinley Malbrough provides education and is not an attorney. Contacting him creates no attorney-client relationship. If you have a legal question or need legal advice, contact an employment attorney.
Keep going
Programs
Live programs where everyone practices in every session.
The playbook
My one page session plan, free.
Store
Programs, courses and merchandise.
Want this applied to your own session?
Book twenty minutes and bring the agenda you are stuck on.