Don’t Make These Three Onboarding Mistakes & Your Team Will Thank You
- ivesconsultingllc
- Aug 25
- 6 min read
“We know our onboarding needs work," the executive director of a synagogue told me during one of our early meetings. This New England-based institution had recently updated their employee handbook and was preparing to hire two new administrative staff members. "We want them to feel genuinely welcomed and get up to speed faster," she said. Luckily, they were self-aware enough to recognize that their existing onboarding, while well-intentioned, was informal and missing critical written and unwritten information – such as the organization’s unique cultural nuances and how work actually gets done.
This level of self-awareness was refreshing, and it's also rare when you look at the sector. Most nonprofits invest tremendous resources in recruitment, but when it comes to onboarding, many rely on good intentions and hope new hires will figure it out. The results aren't great. According to Gallup, only 12% of employees feel their organization did a great job onboarding them, and organizations with poor onboarding lose 25% of new hires within their first year.
For nonprofits operating on tight budgets, this is a challenge for:
New hires, who feel the pressure to contribute but don’t yet have the institutional knowledge, internal relationships, or confidence to do so.
Hiring managers, who feel the stress of having their new hire be productive and operate independently as quickly as possible.
Established colleagues, who may not know how to best support the new hire, but know deep-down their help is needed for this new person to be successful.
Many nonprofits are operating under a number of costly misconceptions about onboarding. Let me show you what's really happening by highlighting three of the biggest ones, and show you how to fix it.
Mistake #1: Having Onboarding Documents Equals Having a System
Currently, many nonprofits share onboarding materials like employee handbooks, policy guides, and organizational charts with their new hires. This means that new hires need to figure out the unwritten rules, navigate office dynamics, and piece together how their role actually functions day-to-day. As a result, they feel overwhelmed by information but under-supported in application.
Great onboarding creates a structured learning journey. My client had a decent employee handbook, but that document wasn’t teaching new hires how to actually succeed in the organization. New employees received the handbook, and were then left to navigate the organization’s cultural nuances, local nonprofit landscape, and other key pieces alone.
We transformed their approach by creating a simple, 7-module system where each piece built on the last. Instead of “drinking from the firehose,” we designed bite-sized learning with knowledge checks, reflection questions, and competency verification that align with how adults learn best. The early results were satisfying, as the two new hires gained confidence and contributed to critical work projects within their first 2-3 weeks. Both new hires also reported feeling welcomed and supported in their first month of work. We anticipate this is a good indicator for their longer-term retention. This is critical for nonprofits, as industry research shows replacing an employee can cost from 20-150% of their annual salary, depending on their role.
Key takeaway: Instead of handing new hires documents to figure out, create structured, bite-sized learning with knowledge checks and milestones to track progress.
Mistake #2: Onboarding is Only About the New Hire
Organizational leadership often puts the onboarding ownership solely on the shoulders of the hiring manager, with limited HR support. However, when the manager focuses only on the new employee, while not including the rest of their teammates or the broader organizational ecosystem, it typically doesn’t end well.
Effective onboarding requires collective responsibility across the staff team to help the new hire be successful and productive. In our onboarding project, we identified that every stakeholder needed clear roles: direct supervisors managing their initial “welcome” experience and daily oversight; administrative staff handling logistics and HR pieces; other existing team members also helping to create a welcoming environment and translate their work to the new hire; and executive leadership modeling core values and behaviors.
We created specific responsibilities for each group, from clergy to support staff, including each member of the team contributing to the onboarding framework and holding key 1-on-1 meetings with the new hire within their first 1-2 weeks on the job. This shift was instead of one overwhelmed manager trying to do everything, the entire staff became invested in new hire success. Building relationships between the new hire and full team were put in the spotlight. Cultural integration improved dramatically because it wasn't happening in isolation.
Key takeaway: Instead of making onboarding only the hiring manager's responsibility while everyone else continues business as usual, define specific welcoming and integration roles for direct supervisors, administrative staff, existing team members, and leadership.
Mistake #3: Managers Naturally Know How to Onboard Effectively
This might be the most dangerous assumption of all. Most nonprofits promote their best employees into management roles based on their role expertise and successful past performance, then assume these new managers instinctively know how to integrate new team members. Without any formal training or structured tools, managers often rely on their own onboarding memories (which may have been poor), wing it with good intentions, or simply replicate whatever orientation they received years ago. As a result, onboarding experiences across the organization are wildly inconsistent, and both the manager and new hire suffer.
For my client, we built extensive manager enablement tools: weekly conversation frameworks with specific questions to ask, email templates for different scenarios, checklists for first-day preparation, and structured check-in guides for the first 30 days. We even included individual communication preferences for each staff member, so the new hire knew the best way to ask them questions.
The executive director reported, "The frameworks gave me language and structure I didn't know I needed." She felt confident that she wasn't missing something critical in helping new staff get up to speed, comfortable, and integrated within the team.
Key takeaway: Instead of assuming managers naturally know how to onboard effectively, equip them with concrete tools, conversation frameworks, email templates, and structured check-in guides.
The Real Cost of Getting This Wrong
Poor onboarding doesn't just hurt new hires, it undermines your entire mission. When good people leave because they never felt part of the team, the consequences include:
Financial drain: Replacement costs of 20-150% of their annual salary (depending on the role), plus time and money spent recruiting and training.
Emotional toll: Frustration and burnout among remaining staff who pick up extra work during vacancies.
Lost institutional knowledge: Departing employees take relationships, processes, and unique insights with them.
Damaged team morale: Repeated turnover creates a culture where people expect colleagues to leave.
Mission impact: Every unfulfilled position represents communities and constituents not served, problems not solved, and impact not achieved.
How Your Nonprofit Can Improve Your Onboarding Processes
Don't take on this challenge alone. Navigating the process of improving your onboarding on your own is time-consuming because you'll need to research best practices, design modules from scratch, create manager tools, pilot test it with real hires, gather feedback, and refine the system…all while managing your current responsibilities. It's easy for organizations to spend months in trial-and-error mode, often reverting to old patterns when the workload gets heavy.
I've developed a comprehensive, modular framework that transforms informal onboarding into systematic, relationship-based integration with the broader team. Here's how we'll work together to create a better experience:
Step 1: Assessment and Discovery (2-4 weeks): We'll evaluate your current onboarding materials, interview key stakeholders, and identify the specific gaps between your intentions and new hire experiences. You'll have a clear picture of what's working, what's missing, and what improvements are needed.
Step 2: System Design and Manager Support (4-6 weeks): Together, we'll create your customized onboarding modules, manager toolkits with conversation frameworks and templates, and other key materials. You'll know this is working when managers feel confident and equipped rather than overwhelmed and uncertain.
Step 3: Implementation and Refinement (2-3 months): We'll pilot the system with new and recent hires, gather feedback, and refine the modules based on actual results. Success here means new employees report feeling welcomed and engaged, managers follow consistent processes, and your team sees measurably improved retention and productivity.
An upfront investment in getting onboarding right consistently prevents the much higher costs of turnover and disengagement. Whether you're a small-to-midsize nonprofit worried about resource constraints or a larger organization struggling with inconsistent experiences, there's a tailored approach that fits your situation and budget.