Chapter 3 of 7:
These 3 focus areas will boost your onboarding: Collaboration, Competencies and Results
How do you create a smooth and supportive start for your new employees – one that helps them build a strong connection to your organisation and their new colleagues? According to onboarding experts, the key is to focus on six essential dimensions in your onboarding programme. In this blog post, we’ll take a closer look at three of them.
When you onboard a new employee, you know how quickly things can become a little random – a folder here, an email there, a tour that runs a bit late – and suddenly you have someone who’s technically started, but hasn’t really arrived.
That’s not unusual. Onboarding is often one of those areas where we do our best, but without the structure and direction that creates a confident, professional, and meaningful start for the new employee.
In this part of the series, we take a closer look at three of the six dimensions in The Onboarding Model©, developed by Christian Harpelund and Morten T. Højlund, and described in detail in the book Onboarding – Getting New Hires off to a Flying Start.
You’re reading a chapter from our new blog series: HR-ON All the Way
A series of HR guides offering you concrete insights and tools for every stage of the employee journey – no matter where you are today.
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Chapter 3 – Boost your onboarding: Collaboration, Competencies, and Results
You might also like:
Chapter 1 – The Employee Experience A-Z: The invisible thread you can weave into every experience
Chapter 2 – Understanding the onboarding dimensions? How to work with culture, rules, and network from day one
Why these three dimensions in particular?
How do you build a solid onboarding programme? In this blog post, we offer one answer, inspired by the book “Onboarding: Getting New Hires Off to a Flying Start.”
In the book, the authors present The Onboarding Model©, which they developed themselves. It consists of six dimensions:
- Culture
- Rules
- Network
- Collaboration
- Competencies
- Results
In the previous blog post, we explored Culture, Rules, and Network. In this chapter, we focus on Collaboration, Competencies, and Results – three areas that help new employees feel part of the organisation, understand their role, and start creating value early on.
When these dimensions are strong, you boost both engagement and connection, while also helping new hires get up to speed faster and settle into their role more effectively.
To support this process, we’ve created a digital tool: HR-ON Boarding – our onboarding platform designed to build clarity and connection from day one.
INDHOLD
- Collaboration: Boost your onboarding by building psychological safety within the team
- Competencies: Create a professional start with clear learning in your onboarding programme
- Results: Help your new employee succeed early on
- Reflect: Boost your onboarding by evaluating what’s working – and what’s not
- In summary: A good onboarding programme is the sum of many parts
- FAQ
Collaboration: Boost your onboarding by building psychological safety within the team
A new employee steps into an established community – complete with existing relationships, routines, and dynamics. That’s why psychological safety is crucial during those first few weeks.
According to Google’s Project Aristotle, psychological safety is the single most important factor in high-performing teams.
How your onboarding programme can strengthen collaboration
- Make sure the manager facilitates a team-wide expectations session
- Use a buddy system that introduces both tasks and social norms
- Plan small collaborative tasks where the new employee plays a role early on
When new hires experience a team that feels safe, open, and curious about their contribution, onboarding becomes much more grounded. This is where the sense of belonging begins.
You might also like: 3 Steps to Leverage Digital Employee Onboarding
Competencies: Create a professional start with clear learning in your onboarding programme
Most employees expect their new workplace to have learning management systems in place. That doesn’t mean long courses, but rather a clear sense that the company takes development seriously.
According to research from CIPD, organisations with a strong learning culture not only boost performance but are also better at retaining their talent.
Your onboarding programme can strengthen the competency dimension by:
- Clearly outlining what the employee is expected to learn during the first weeks, for example, using HR-ON Boarding
- Offering short, focused learning modules – not an overload of information
- Demonstrating how learning actually happens in your organisation: on the floor, through conversations, and in your systems
A competency-focused onboarding experience shows new employees that they’ve joined a workplace where professionalism and development are priorities.
Results: Help your new employee succeed early on
The first few weeks aren’t about big wins – they’re about small successes that create direction and motivation. This is where many onboarding processes fall short: the new employee doesn’t know what counts as a “good start.”
Studies from PwC show that employees who experience early wins and have clear goals are significantly more engaged.
How you can help new employees achieve early results
- Set 2-3 “first wins” that are realistic within the first 30 days
- Share small wins within the team – it builds social recognition
- Use FastTrack in HR-ON Boarding or similar tools to track progress
When employees feel they’re making a tangible contribution, both their confidence and sense of belonging increase.
What do we do at HR-ON?
At HR-ON, new employees are typically assigned a buddy – a “go-to” person who can help with all kinds of questions. That includes everything from understanding the company culture to knowing who to contact for different matters.
The buddy isn’t necessarily from the same team, but is someone who knows HR-ON’s culture well and is someone the new employee feels comfortable approaching.
Reflect: Boost your onboarding by evaluating what’s working – and what’s not
To improve your current onboarding programme, we recommend trying the reflection exercise below, inspired by the book Onboarding – Getting New Hires off to a Flying Start.
Review your onboarding programme and consider the following points with the six dimensions in mind.
Reflection Exercise
- List all the activities in your current onboarding process
- Place each activity under one of the six dimensions: Culture, Rules, Network, Collaboration, Competencies, Results
- Pay attention to:
- Which dimensions are highly active?
- Where are the gaps?
- Where might you be lacking balance?
Often, one or two dimensions are heavily weighted – while others are barely addressed. This can be an eye-opener: Do you need to adjust the balance? Add more learning opportunities? Strengthen social connections? Provide more support within the team?
You might also like: 5 Tips for Employees and Managers: What Makes a Great Onboarding Program?
In summary: A good onboarding programme is the sum of many parts
A strong onboarding programme isn’t just one thing – it’s the sum of many small experiences. When you actively work with Collaboration, Competencies, and Results, along with the three other dimensions covered in our previous blog post, you create a start where new employees feel seen, supported, and set up to succeed.
In the next chapter, we’ll delve into recruiting new employees and explore how to enhance this process using data and analytics.
Until then, you can explore our whitepaper for more inspiration – or take a closer look at FastTrack if you want a more structured way to measure the impact of your onboarding.
You might also like: 5 Steps to a Fair Employee Termination
FAQ: What makes a good onboarding programme?
What is an onboarding programme?
An onboarding programme is the process you create for a new employee to ensure structure during their start. It helps create a sense of calm and security.
What does an onboarding programme include?
To create a strong onboarding programme, it’s important that the new employee feels connected to the company early in the process. This could be through a strong network (new colleagues) or a sense of belonging to the company culture.
How do I ensure that an onboarding programme is comprehensive?
In the book Onboarding – Getting New Hires off to a Flying Start, the authors present six dimensions: culture, rules, network, collaboration, competencies, and results. By covering these six dimensions in your onboarding programme, you can create a comprehensive onboarding experience in your organisation.
Why is a good onboarding programme important?
It’s essential to establish a structured onboarding process for new employees, so they feel that their arrival has been carefully planned and well-organized. At the same time, you ensure that onboarding across the organisation is streamlined and consistent, so that no key steps are missed.
How can HR-ON help me boost my onboarding?
With HR-ON Boarding, you can boost your onboarding by creating a smooth and secure start for new employees in your organization. You’ll benefit from templates built on years of experience in the field – templates that have been used and reviewed by thousands of employees in globally recognised companies, ensuring continuous optimisation for the best possible onboarding experience.
