A new developer signs their contract on Friday. Monday morning, they show up for work—and nobody knows what to do with them. No equipment yet, no plan, their mentor is on vacation. Within a week, they're already browsing new job openings on tech job boards.

Sound familiar? For many IT companies, this is the norm, not the exception. But here are some numbers that should make you think twice: approximately 29% of employees leave within the first 90 days of employment, and 20% quit within the first three months.

Onboarding isn't bureaucratic paperwork or a one-hour welcome presentation. It's a systematic process that determines whether a talented professional will stay with your company for years or start looking for an exit within a month. For IT companies—especially those in IT outsourcing, where reputation depends on team stability—this is a matter of business survival.

In this article, we'll break down what onboarding is, why it's critically important for employee loyalty, and how automation through an HRM system helps scale this process without sacrificing quality.

Onboarding: Definition and Key Objectives

Onboarding is a structured process of integrating a new employee into a company, including introductions to the team, corporate culture, tools, processes, and role expectations. It's the first experience of interacting with the organization as a full-fledged team member.

In best practices, onboarding lasts from one to six months and includes several stages: from pre-boarding (the period between accepting the offer and the first day of work) to full integration into the team and projects.

Why Onboarding Isn't Adaptation (And Why It Matters)

Many companies confuse onboarding with adaptation. "We'll show them the office, introduce them to the team, give them access—and they'll adapt on their own." The problem is that adaptation is a passive process. The newcomer tries to figure out on their own how things work here, who to ask questions, which rules are written and which aren't.

Onboarding is active integration. The company takes responsibility for ensuring that a person doesn't just "get used to" things but becomes a full member of the team: understands values, knows processes, feels supported, and sees their future here.

The difference is fundamental:
Adaptation: "Here's your desk, here's Confluence with documentation, figure it out yourself"
Onboarding: "Here's your plan for the first 90 days, here's your mentor, here's how we work with clients, here's what's expected of you in one month and three months, here's how you can grow in the company"

Because only 12% of employees believe their company did an excellent job with onboarding. The remaining 88% rate their experience as a failure.

Core Objectives of Onboarding

Reduce anxiety levels. A new employee enters an unfamiliar environment, and a well-structured process helps them feel supported from day one, reduce stress, and adapt more quickly to new conditions.

Accelerate time to full productivity. Thanks to prepared access, equipment, a clear task plan, and understandable expectations, employees transition faster from orientation to real results.

Increase engagement and loyalty. When a person understands company values, sees opportunities for development, and feels like part of the team, they're ready to invest in long-term cooperation and stay with the company for the long haul.

How Onboarding Works and What Really Impacts Loyalty: 5 Invisible Factors of Onboarding

Most companies focus on visible things: conduct an HR meeting, provide access, show the office. But loyalty is built on less obvious yet critically important elements.

1. Emotional Safety From the First Hours

The first day of work is stressful. New place, new people, new rules. A person doesn't know what's okay and what isn't, fears appearing incompetent, tries "not to mess up."

What reduces anxiety:

• Welcome email a week before starting: "Here's what will happen on your first day, here's your mentor, here's our team"

• Prepared workspace and working access from minute one

• Meeting with mentor in the first hours (not after a week)

• Transparency: clear plan for the first week, not "let's see what happens"

When a newcomer understands that they were expected and people prepared for their arrival, they feel: "They value me here." And that's the foundation of trust.

2. Culture You Can See (Not Just Hear About)

A presentation about mission and company values is good, but culture isn't about that. Company culture is about daily rituals, communication styles, decision-making, and conflict resolution. A newcomer remembers what they see and feel.

How culture is really transmitted:

A newcomer sees culture through real cases. Through observing how the team makes decisions under pressure. Through the manager's reaction to a mistake. Through how colleagues treat each other in Slack. Through whether people respond outside working hours (and whether anyone demands it).

In the first week, it's useful to invite the newcomer as an observer to typical work meetings: daily stand-ups, retrospectives, client syncs. This way they see how the team really works—without embellishment or idealization.

The role of automation:
An HRM system allows you to set up automatic sending of a welcome package the moment a contract is signed. The newcomer gets access to a corporate portal where they can familiarize themselves in advance with the team, projects, and internal policies.

3. Access to Knowledge Without Hunting Down Colleagues

Typical scenario: a newcomer doesn't know where to find information. They write a question in Slack—a colleague responds an hour later because they're busy. They search Confluence—the documentation is outdated or doesn't exist at all. They call HR—she's not aware of technical details.

A systematic approach looks like this:

All critical information is available in one place: corporate wiki, HRM platform, internal knowledge base. The structure is logical, search works, content is current.

• Technical documentation: coding standards, git flow, CI/CD processes, architectural decisions

• Processes and policies: how time tracking works, how vacations are approved, security procedures (NDAs, access)

• Tools: logins, passwords, setup instructions for Jira, VPN, corporate email

• Contacts: who's responsible for what, who to go to with technical questions, who's your HR partner

In outsourcing companies, it's also critically important to document client work specifics: reporting formats, communication channels, escalation processes.

When a newcomer can find an answer themselves in 2 minutes instead of waiting an hour to interrupt a colleague, they feel autonomous faster. And autonomy = confidence.

The role of automation:
In Tallenta, you can create a centralized knowledge hub where every employee has access to all necessary documents and policies. Moreover, the system can automatically send relevant materials at different onboarding stages—a developer gets access to the tech wiki on day two, while a project manager receives client report templates.

4. Mentorship That's Not Formal

"You have a mentor, reach out if you need anything"—this doesn't work. Most newcomers don't know when it's "acceptable" to interrupt their mentor and try to figure things out themselves.

What works:

• Regular one-on-ones: not "on request," but scheduled (once a week in the first month, then every two weeks)

• Structured format: not just "how's it going?" but specific questions: what's clear, what's unclear, what blockers exist, what's needed for progress

• Proactive mentoring: they don't wait for the newcomer to come to them, but initiate meetings and ask how they can help

Mentorship isn't about transferring information. It's about transferring context, unwritten rules, stories, and mistakes that others learned from.

5. Transparency About the Future (Not Just Today)

One of the biggest reasons talented professionals leave is uncertainty about career growth. A person may perform well at work, but if they don't see what will happen in a year, they'll look for opportunities elsewhere.

What needs to be discussed in the first months:

• Clear KPIs for 30-60-90 days: what's expected at each stage. Learn more about metrics for IT teams in our article "KPIs in IT Projects: How to Measure Team Success and Avoid the 'Metrics for Metrics' Sake' Trap"

• Development trajectories: what career growth looks like in the company (from Middle to Senior, from IC to Team Lead)

• Performance review process: how often work is evaluated, by what criteria, what influences promotion

• Learning opportunities: what trainings, certifications, conferences are available

When an employee sees a transparent picture of their future, they invest in long-term cooperation.

The role of automation:
An HRM platform allows you to create a transparent onboarding plan with clear stages and success criteria. The newcomer sees their progress, the manager controls execution, HR gets analytics across all newcomers simultaneously.

The Cost of Poor Onboarding: Why It's Expensive

"Well, someone quit in the first months—we'll find someone new." The problem is that each such case costs significantly more than it seems.

Direct costs:

• Recruitment (recruiter's time, job postings, technical interviews)

• Salary of an employee who didn't have time to deliver value

• Team's time on interviews and training

• Re-onboarding a new person

Hidden costs:

• Loss of team productivity (colleagues spent time on onboarding with no results)

• Reputational risks: negative reviews on job boards, Glassdoor, in professional communities

• Team demotivation: "We trained someone again, and again the person left"

• Loss of client trust (in outsourcing): "Why is there another team change on the project?"

Organizations with quality onboarding increase new employee productivity by 70%. This isn't just a number—it's the difference between a team that consistently delivers and a team that constantly spends resources on rotation.

Want to set up an onboarding process step-by-step in your IT company? Read our guide: "IT Onboarding: How to Build a Process for New Employees"

Onboarding Automation: From Chaos to System

"But we don't have resources for perfect onboarding for every employee." It's not about resources, it's about the system.

Automation through an HRM platform allows you to scale quality onboarding without additional burden on HR and managers.

What automation provides:

Single Space for Everything

Instead of chaos with PDFs in email, links in Slack, and documents in Google Drive—a single portal in an HRM system where the newcomer finds everything necessary: corporate policies and values, technical documentation and instructions, key people's contacts, knowledge base.

Automated Scenarios for Different Roles

Onboarding for a developer differs from onboarding for QA or a project manager. An HRM system allows you to create custom tracks for each role:

• Different sets of documents and policies

• Specific trainings and workshops

• Adapted tasks for the first weeks

Example from Tallenta: What a Custom Process Looks Like in an IT Outsourcing Company

Day 0 (pre-boarding): automatic sending of welcome email with information about the company, team, and first day of work, link to internal portal

Day 1: automatic creation of tasks for HR (prepare workspace, access), for mentor (meeting in first 2 hours), for newcomer (sign NDA, pass security test)

Week 1: access to technical documentation, introduction to projects and clients, participation in daily stand-ups as observer

Month 1: first project tasks, regular one-on-ones with mentor, onboarding satisfaction survey

Month 3: performance review, KPI discussion, development planning

All stages are automated, and HR can track progress in real-time, adjusting the process as needed.

Conclusion: Onboarding Is Not a Cost, It's an Investment

Every company wants loyal, engaged, productive employees. But loyalty doesn't appear on its own. It's built from the first days—through attention, support, transparency, and systematic approach.

Organizations with quality onboarding increase employee retention by 82%. This isn't just a statistic—it's the difference between a stable team that grows with the company and constant rotation that exhausts everyone.

For IT outsourcing, where reputation depends on team quality and stability, onboarding isn't nice-to-have. It's a competitive advantage that allows you to attract the best specialists, retain them long-term, and build trust with clients.

Automation through an HRM platform makes this process scalable. A company can grow, hire dozens of new people—and each of them will receive quality, personalized onboarding without additional burden on HR and managers.

Want to build onboarding that transforms newcomers into loyal team members?

Tallenta automates the entire process: from pre-boarding to full project integration. Book a demo, and we'll show you how it works for your IT company—with real cases, metrics, and customization options for your needs.

👉 Schedule a demo call