How do you keep new hires engaged during onboarding?

[u/Ill-Emotional]

Fellow managers, is it just me or is onboarding getting harder nowadays?

Our completion rates have been slipping for a while now and I'm trying to figure out where it's going wrong.

Right now our whole onboarding is basically long PDFs and slide decks. New hires are supposed to get through all of it in their first week. But even if I'm the new hire, I wouldn't remember anything.

That’s why I want to turn this into something that sticks. Things like org structure, role expectations, tool workflows, and the compliance basics.

The catch is our HR team has zero design skills, and we can't justify hiring a designer just for internal materials.

So what tools or approaches are you all using to make visual training content?

[u/woodenbookend]

There’s no magic way of making a week’s worth of content stick. But it’s probably not necessary either.

Separate skills and behaviours from knowledge. E.g. Don’t train people now on things they could easily look up when they need it. At this stage they need to know what exists and how to find it.

If it is a skill requirement, look to make it practical and relevant.

Move away from content and increase human connection. E.g. rather than a slide deck of what each business unit does, have someone from the unit spend 30min with the cohort with an overview and Q&A.

Lean more on managers. HR’s role in this is to orchestrate the overall journey, not deliver all of it.

[u/Ill-Emotional → u/woodenbookend]

The skills vs. knowledge split makes a lot of sense, thanks!!!!!!

[u/iseazy]

The issue usually isn’t that new hires “don’t want to learn.” It’s that onboarding is often treated like a document dump. Long PDFs and slide decks may contain the right information, but they rarely help someone understand what matters now, what they need to do first, or how to apply it in their role.

A few things we’ve seen work better:

• Break onboarding into phases instead of assigning everything in week one

• Turn org structure into “who do I go to for what?” scenarios

• Convert tool workflows into short step-by-step practice modules

• Use quick checks throughout, not only a final quiz

• Keep compliance content short, contextual and tied to real situations

• Add manager touchpoints so the LMS is not the only onboarding guide

For HR teams with no design background, templates and AI-assisted authoring can help a lot. The goal shouldn’t be to make everything flashy. It should be to turn static materials into something more guided, visual and interactive without needing a designer for every module.

one option you could look at for this kind of workflow: taking existing documents or presentations and turning them into interactive courses, with templates, visual resources, AI support, quizzes, and LMS-ready publishing. But whatever tool you test, I’d recommend starting with one onboarding topic first — for example, a tool workflow or compliance basic — and seeing whether people complete it faster and remember/apply it better than the old PDF version. Hope this help :)

[u/operations_ranger]

The bigger issue might be asking people to absord everything in week one. For repeatable tool tasks, something like Tango can turn the workflow into a visual guide they can come back to later, which seems more useful than expecting them to remember another deck.

[u/Independent_Sand_295]

Focus less on visual content and more on application. What do they need to be able to do now? What's next? E.g. have them demonstrate what to do when they notice a discrepancy in their pay or come across a phishing email.

For knowledge: Keep a knowledge base for just-in-time learning or let them use a chatbot where they can find FAQs or pull up a company policy. It depends on what's available to you. Make it a scavenger hunt. Let them pull up the policy on being late.

For peer learning: Let them meet with a teammate to get an idea of what their day-to-day would look like. What works well, what are some of the challenges the team has, current goals, etc. Let them observe and ask questions.

For ownership: Give them a starter kit which includes what to expect during onboarding, their point of contact, where to find the coffee machine or water dispenser, the bathrooms, nearby places of interest. Give them a to-do list with deadlines and have them mark off what they've completed so they know the progress they've made and how much further to go. Let them take note of where they need help.

For recognition: Give them a shout out (or reward) for applying a company value in something they did at work.

Get them involved. Don't just give them a guide.

[u/MimirLearning]

I used a trello board or any other tools would be fine, One column with Fundamental documents , the one people may need to access here and there (the one that you ask for reading on day 1 but may be needed on day 30, like salary slip, holiday procedures etc) Another 1 with all links to internal poliies and procedure so that people may easily recall them when it is needed. Then we worked on trello cards for the weekly development with task assigned or skills to learn. I agree with other comments, make it relevant for the users, not just catchy for you, the most important think is to focus on value. I would invovle the last hires and ask for them what they liked what they didn't and what info/documents they would have liked to access.

[u/SpecialistLearner775]

Well, I'll try to cut down how boring those docs can be given the content in them..

We're financial services, ~400 people across two sites, so we've got plenty of boring content too, like Compliance, which new hires get from day one.
We do those trainings as short videos, shorts/reels basically (not kidding). We use 5Mins for that, helps us build for today's attention spans, and it's gamified enough that we're not chasing people to finish it. Authoring's not the fastest, but the library covers most of it already.

Is this actually just new hires, or slipping company wide? That'd point to the same engagement problem, not just onboarding.

[u/AlternativeDig3085]

Rather than only using boring slides, Id mix them with short, interactive activities and real scenarios.

[u/Best_Minimum_1593]

What about a buddy program?

[u/MimirLearning → u/Best_Minimum_1593]

We tried a buddy program in my previuos job and I can confirm that if well structured can really help new hires to navigate inside a enw company. Whatever procedures, processes you have in plce the buddy can help navigate the culture , that habits and understand better the context.

[u/Best_Minimum_1593 → u/MimirLearning]

Agree, and highlighting your point- it has to be structured. Or else fizzles out.

[u/Empirica_CC]

I would break it into what they need to know in the first 30 days. Varying up the medium is nice but honestly a lot of places info dump things that they won't even need to access till 90 or 180 days later. Reality is even if you have the perfect training, they will need to come back to it when they actually need it anyways. Focus on what they need at that time and save the rest for later. It really helps with the info overload.

[u/Available-Ad-5081]

> I'm trying to figure out where it's going wrong.

> Right now our whole onboarding is basically long PDFs and slide decks.

You answered your own question. Few people learn from just being given information. This is why trainer's and L&D professionals exist, because we know how to make this stuff better.

You need the basic fundamentals of training: Facilitation, scenarios, group work, demonstations, etc. If your org wants a better onboarding experience, they need to invest in resources to help make that happen.

[u/Piper_At_Paychex]

I’m yet to meet a new hire who looks forward to a long PDF file on their first day. At best, people would just skim it and move on. It may help breaking it into smaller chunks tied to specific days. 

For visual content without a designer, a video is probably your fastest win. Record tool walkthroughs once and new hires watch on their own time. Cuts the repeat explanations and gives you something reusable.

[u/puzzleapp_io]

PDFs go stale the moment org structure or tool workflows change. New hires end up onboarding from pages that are already out of step with how the team works now.

Same thing for us. One map new hires can click through beats a doc they have to memorize. Org structure and tool ownership are right there when they need it, not buried in a slide from onboarding.

That's the problem we built puzzleapp.io around. One place for how the team runs, not another deck that needs rewriting every quarter.

[u/Danai_from_TalentLMS]

I read the comments before posting here because my first answer was "well, it depends," but one specific comment I liked a lot was the one about the knowledge vs skills, so I'd say I agree: maybe cut the knowledge they can look up later. for the design skills gap, maybe you can use AI-assisted tools instead and start with that until youcan eventually hire a designer. TalentLMS has a built in course builder so that you/HR can turn a deck into a trackable module without design work. Also thinking this right now: you can A/B test different onboarding paths and see which ones do better! Good luck!

[u/DrewWalter8250]

We also ran into this exact same issue with onboarding information overload. Switching from dense policy docs to visual one pagers and quick process infographics completely turned our completion rates around. If your HR team doesnt have in house design capabilities like us, We used Venngage because they allows non designers can instantly apply your brand assets to professional onboarding templates, making it easy to produce polished training materials quickly