Employee Onboarding Mistakes: Why Your New Hire Still Depends on You [Ep. 13]

Most business owners think hiring is the solution.

But the real breakdown happens in onboarding.

In this episode, we unpack how onboarding directly impacts performance, ownership, and long-term team success. Drawing from I/O psychology, we explore how role clarity, task significance, and structured onboarding reduce confusion and increase engagement.

You’ll learn:

• Why onboarding is about integration, not just training
• How lack of structure creates role ambiguity and dependency
• The key elements of a simple, repeatable onboarding system
• How to set expectations that build confidence and accountability

If your team feels unclear, hesitant, or overly dependent on you, this episode will help you identify what’s missing and where to start.

If this episode resonated with you, share with an amiga who needs to hear it. And if you're ready to start building your own team the right way, send me a message- I'd love to hear from you. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hola amigas, this podcast is for Latina entrepreneurs building businesses while navigating faith, culture, and yes, motherhood. We unpack how your story shapes your leadership and build real life systems that help you grow without burning out. This is where cultura meets strategy. So let's go.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Alright, so today we're gonna talk about the onboarding process. If you haven't listened to last episodes, which was about hiring, this one's gonna be talking about the onboarding because yes, if you found that, hey, I just hired somebody, I'm good to go, well, it doesn't really stop there. There's the hiring, then there's the onboarding, and then there will be some delegation after that, which we'll talk about in the next episode. But on this one, if you have worked in a company before, more than likely, if it was a good one, you had the hiring process, right? And then you had some onboarding as well, which includes sometimes a little bit of training, you know, making sure that you get your batch, you make sure you get access to the systems. But there's usually some type of like step-by-step of what to expect in the next, you know, couple of weeks, right? So depending if you've had that experience or not, that is something that's very important to kind of set up for in order to have your employee be successful. And also you have a successful hire, an employee that is that is gonna be able to feel not just the culture of your business, but the environment, like what your goals are, why their role is important. And that is actually what's gonna be motivating to them on the day-to-day, you know, tasks that they have to do. Because let me tell you, a lot of um business owners think that, hey, well, I'm paying this person so well because they come with all these skills, they should be plug and play. In reality, it's not it's not like that. It that doesn't work out. Okay, because most of the times, yes, they have those skills, but the way you do business and why you're so successful is because you do it a different way than any other business out there. Okay, so unless they're coming from a franchise and you just bought the same franchise, the process more than likely will be different. I mean, the way you do your tick your sandwich is gonna be different than the other person across the street, how they do their sandwiches. Okay, it's just just that easy as to understand. So because onboarding done well will create independence, but onboarding done poorly will create dependency. So you'll have to choose pick your poison in that sense. Um and if you're ready for this, then grab your cafecito, make sure you get your notepad and let's go. All right. So I'm gonna go like pretty straight on to this. I'm not gonna spend too much time because I hope you already kind of felt the energy, kind of understand why the importance of having an onboarding process is important, you know, because at the end of the day, your employees are gonna be your biggest cheerleaders. And sometimes companies don't think that way. They think like I have to focus on revenues, I have to focus on bringing clients in. And they start leaving the employees behind. But employees are the ones that are making things kind of go to, you know, hand in hand and making your business successful as well. And they're the ones that are also gonna be spreading news about working with your company. So hello. Don't leave them behind. All right, so onboarding is not training, it's integration. So onboarding is not just showing somebody how to do a job or a task, right? It's helping them understand how they fit into your business. You know, research in IO psychology shows that employees who understand their role in a bigger picture perform so much better and are so much more engaged. So this is very important. So just don't throw your employee and say, well, you know how to do this, so go with that, you know, Sayonara, figure it out, you know. And it's like, it's no, like I just explained, you know, the way you you do your business is completely different than, you know, the the way they were using their skills in the other business, you know. So this actually connects something to that is called like task significance. When people understand that their work matters, their motivation and performance increases. And without that, they hesitate, they second guess, and rely on you on more or whoever their direct report. Maybe you're not the direct report, maybe it's gonna be somebody else. Well, guess what? They're gonna be going to them over and over and over again because they don't have that guidance, they don't understand what the purpose is or the bigger picture. So, how do you do this? But okay, well, when onboarding someone, don't just explain the tasks, explain why this matters, why this task matters, you know? Help that would help them in just not taking ownership, but also accountability. And who does it impact? Who is the end person that is gonna impact if their work is not done correctly or is not done in a timely manner or whatever it is? And then what happens if it's not done well, right? So those are the things you kind of have to talk to them about and making sure why it's important because you're you're making this investment on hiring somebody, it's huge. So don't take it for granted that it's just it's not just because you need an extra person because that other person is overwhelmed and it is what it is. So, no, it's it's not about that. You're investing and it's a big investment, permanent investment, to bring somebody on board. So you want to make sure that you do it right and you want to understand why you're doing it as well for your business. What's the impact for your business? So even something simple like this is how this impacts our client experience, will help them take ownership so much faster. Okay. The next thing is that you need to have a repeatable onboarding system. You need a simple, repeatable onboarding process. There's research showing that structured onboarding leads to higher performance and faster productivity. You know, when onboarding is inconsistent, people experience what's called a role ambiguity, which is one of the biggest predictors of stress and low performance at work. I mean, that's exactly what happens in small businesses. Everything lives in your head. So every hire has a different experience. Since you've worn multiple hats, you know, because you've been, for the most part, the operator and the business owner and everything else in between. You haven't taken the time to really analyze, like, you know, step A, step B, step C. And so this person comes in and it's like, well, where are, you know, what what do I do next? You know, so create a simple, basic onboarding checklist. You don't have to do like something insane, but just at least create a simple checklist and say, hey, when this person gets hired, I need to collect, you know, driver's license. I need to con Social Security. I mean, even just like that, because those are things that I mean, if you're gonna put them on payroll, you can make sure that you have all those things. So, you know, have your checklist for that. Then you have your checklist for these other things that you're gonna need for them. Hey, maybe they needed a business um employee card. You know, you have to make sure that you get all that information and that all those things are done. Maybe you have to give them a t-shirt because you know your company has the uniform that they wear, so you expect them to wear the same. So you have to make sure that you have their shirts ready for them to go, maybe not just one, but multiple, um, so they can have an exchange, you know, the day to day. Those are the things that you would want to put on this checklist, or maybe record some Loom videos about the key processes that you don't want to say over and over again, especially if you're repeating yourself over and over again. Those things just record them, you know, put them on a video, uh, have them watch it, and then have something where documents that they have understood, they have listened, they um understand what your uh requirements and policies are. Now, the last one, the last tip I want to give you is having clear expectations that reduce dependency. So setting expectations early is critical in onboarding processes. And this is really where role clarity and psychological safety really work together because people know that what's expected and feel safe to take action, they perform better. So when expectations are unclear, people default to asking you for everything. And we don't want that, right? And not because they can't do it, but because they don't want to do it wrong. You know, they have a fear of failure, right? So be clear up front. You know, what does success look like? What decisions do they own and when should they come to you? And be clear about that. I trust, say something like, I trust you to make a decision here, and if you're unsure, here's when you can loot me in. So that allows them to be able to say, okay, well, for the most part, my boss trusts me. He's giving me, you know, ownership of things, but if XYZ happens, then I can come to them, or being able to have that flexibility to come to them. So those are my three things that I want to really emphasize on. I mean, there's obviously so much more in each one of them that you can go into detail, but uh just to kind of have a clear, clear picture, like those are the couple of things that would help you just be better at that onboarding process. So take your time, don't rush things. Onboarding is not just a step after hiring, but is a is within the process of making sure that it will determine whether your team becomes independent or will stay dependent on you. So the three things to focus on is onboarding is integration, not just training. Number two, create a simple, repeatable system to reduce ambiguity. And three, set clear expectations so your team can act with confidence and they don't rely on you with everything for everything, right? So you don't need perfect systems, you just need supportive ones, especially if you're just starting. All right, well, that's all that I have for you today, Amiga. So feel free to reach out to me if anything of this resonated with you. If, you know, if you know somebody that should listen to this, please share and please don't forget to comment below and give me a review. I would love to hear your comments. I want to share what you say as well because this is all about helping each other out. So if you have questions, let me know. Send me a DM. I would always be happy to answer those for you. And I'm here for you. Don't hesitate to reach out. Hasta luego, mias, bendiciones.