Onboarding doesn’t fail because of design. It fails because leaders don’t show up.
I recently ran an onboarding programme I was genuinely proud of. It wasn’t built in isolation. It was built with the business, for the business.
And it failed.
Not because of the content. Not because of engagement. But because the people who mattered most didn’t show up.
Let me explain.
I had 6 new joiners starting—Account Managers and Key Account Managers across 5 different countries in Europe. Some had already been in the role for a few weeks. Which, in a fast-moving culture, matters. Weeks feel like years.
One even asked me directly: “Is this worth my time?”
Fair question.
Because corporate training often isn’t. But this was different. After running learning impact audits, I’ve seen it clearly: trained team members outperform untrained ones.
And still, one chose not to attend.
That decision alone says a lot about how onboarding is perceived. The experience itself was intentionally simple, but very deliberate.
A self-study connecting their role to company strategy → not click-through, but built as a problem to solve
Three live sessions, highly interactive, grounded in real scenarios
A final case study using actual business situations, presented back for feedback
This wasn’t theoretical. This was the job. From the beginning, I involved their team leads.
We aligned on the experience. We agreed on what good looked like. In the first session, they showed up and told their new joiners:
“Learn from each other. Ask questions. Be active. You get out what you put in.”
And we made a commitment.
We would come back together at the end. They would review the case studies. They would give feedback to their people.
And then…
No one showed up.
Not one team lead.
In that final session—while new joiners were working through real business problems, ready to present and get feedback— I was scrambling. Messaging. Chasing. Trying to find anyone who could step in and show that the business cared.
I managed to secure two last-minute leaders. Both said they could give 20 minutes. Not ideal, but I was determined to make it work.
One didn’t show up.
And here’s the thing. This wasn’t a design problem.
This was a culture problem. You can build the most thoughtful onboarding in the world.
You can:
Involve the business
Align stakeholders
Design for real application
Apply every principle of good learning
And it still won’t matter…If leaders don’t show up.
Because onboarding isn’t just about what new joiners learn. It’s about what they see.
And what they saw in that moment was this:
This isn’t a priority
My development doesn’t really matter
When things get busy, this is the first thing to drop
We talk a lot about how important people development is. But culture isn’t what we say. It’s what we prioritise under pressure.
And in this case, the message was clear: Business meetings mattered more than people.
Onboarding isn’t an L&D programme. It’s a leadership behaviour. If you’re a leader and you didn’t show up for your new joiners this week, you didn’t just miss a meeting.
You told them exactly how much they matter.