A Swiss marketing agency with a team of around 50 people was growing steadily, bringing in a mix of full-time employees and part-time or freelance contributors across roles including account management, design, development and content. As hiring increased, onboarding became harder to manage consistently.
The challenge
Onboarding varied significantly depending on the team, manager, and availability. Some new starters had structured introductions and early support. Others received minimal guidance and were expected to pick things up as they went.
In practice, this created a number of issues:
- Inconsistent onboarding experience across roles and teams
- Slow ramp-up, with new hires taking time to contribute meaningful work
- Over-reliance on busy team leads to fill in gaps
- Missed context on how the business actually operates day-to-day
- Misaligned expectations, where new starters were unclear on what “good” looked like
Feedback from new joiners reflected this clearly. The experience was often described as overwhelming, hectic, and lacking structure. The business needed a way to onboard people consistently, without adding unnecessary overhead or slowing the team down.
What was implemented
The focus was to create a structured, repeatable employee onboarding process that worked across different role types and levels of engagement.
1. A structured onboarding plan (pre-start to early weeks)
A clear, task-based onboarding plan was introduced, covering everything from contract signing through to the first weeks in the role. It was broken down into day-by-day actions, designed to be followed by an onboarding owner, and adaptable for full-time or limited-scope contributors. This removed ambiguity and ensured every new starter followed a consistent baseline experience.
2. Defined responsibilities and preparation points
Onboarding no longer relied on ad hoc input from team leads. Key meetings were scheduled in advance, team leads were given clear prompts to prepare for new starters, and ownership of each step was defined — reducing last-minute scrambling and ensuring new joiners arrived to a prepared environment.
3. Centralised onboarding experience within Slack
To avoid introducing additional tools, onboarding was embedded into existing workflows. This included dedicated Slack channels for each new starter, structured templates with welcome messages and key links, daily checklists, and gradual release of documentation to avoid overload. Onboarding became easy to follow, easy to access, and aligned with how the team already worked.
4. Immediate task ownership from day one
A key shift was moving away from long onboarding periods before any real work. New starters were assigned meaningful tasks from day one, and where immediate work was not available, they were directed to relevant project context. The goal was early contribution, not delayed readiness.
5. Structured probation and feedback loops
Monthly probation check-ins were introduced, supported by simple surveys gathering input from both the employee and their manager. This created earlier alignment and reduced the risk of surprises later in the process.
The result
The onboarding experience became consistent, structured, and significantly easier to follow.
New starters began contributing from day one rather than after extended onboarding periods. They had clear expectations, experienced a more organised introduction to the business, and got up to speed with how the organisation worked in days rather than months.
Internally, teams were better prepared for new joiners, there was less reliance on ad hoc support, and issues became visible earlier through structured check-ins.
Where onboarding had previously been described as overwhelming and disorganised, new joiners reported a clear, well-paced, and positive experience.
The result was not just a smoother onboarding process, but a more scalable one — able to support continued hiring without increasing operational friction.
If onboarding feels inconsistent, slow, or overly dependent on a few people, it is usually a sign that the structure behind it needs tightening. A few practical changes can make a significant difference to how quickly new hires contribute and how confident they feel from the start.
Onboarding slowing your team down?
Book a free consultation to talk through what a structured approach could look like for your business.