18 Tips for Structuring Entry-Level Onboarding to Cut 90-Day Turnover

The step most often skipped is explaining how being employed works. Onboarding usually covers the role and the team and assumes the rest is obvious. For an entry-level hire, it is not. This may be their first payslip, their first request for leave, their first time telling someone they are unwell.

So I would set out the practical mechanics early, covering when and how people are paid, how to read a payslip and who to ask if something looks wrong, how to request time off, how absence is recorded, and where their own record lives. It takes one short session, and it removes a category of worry that entry-level joiners rarely raise, because they assume everyone else already knows.

The lesson I keep relearning is that unasked questions do not go away. They tend to surface later as quiet disengagement, or as a leaver who could not quite say what was wrong.

Give every entry-level employee a peer buddy, in addition to their manager, for the first 90 days.

Managers deal with tasks and performance reviews. Therefore, new employees don’t want to ask silly questions such as: where the printer is located, how to request leave, or whom to eat lunch with. A peer buddy will help with that since he or she is an equal and does not have any hierarchical relationship with the person.

At my job board, I could see the difference in the effectiveness of the approach. For new employees with a peer buddy, the feeling of belonging occurred during the second week of working. Otherwise, for those without a peer buddy, this happened after almost six weeks, and some of them even left the company earlier than that.

The peer buddy doesn’t train anyone. This is the task of the manager. His/her task is to tell the new hire about unspoken rules of the workplace, people to ask for help, and ensure that he/she won’t be eating lunch alone on the first day.

This will make new employees feel more comfortable asking questions without worrying that they are silly.

I would say the thing that changed this most for us was adding shadowing sessions to the onboarding. We had a recruiter join a few weeks ago, and rather than only reading about the process, she spent mornings sitting in with one of our recruiters, watching her run a kickoff call with a client and write the recap email afterwards. Everything is written down in our Notion, and people do read it, but there is a lot of it, and reading it is not the same as watching someone do the work and getting to ask why they did it that way while they are doing it. We only learned this from the feedback of the people who joined us, so now we review the onboarding with every new hire and change it based on what they tell us.

The other thing I would be careful about in those first weeks is volume. If you assign someone too much between day one and day ten, it probably won’t work, and you also learn nothing about how they are actually doing. What I watch instead is the kind of questions they ask and the kind of mistakes they make. A mistake in a situation that isn’t written down anywhere is fine and expected. A mistake on something basic to our process tells me the onboarding wasn’t clear enough.

I recommend making every entry-level hire feel like they belong from their first day and encouraging them to speak about things other than just checking off their tasks.

During engagement activities, employees build confidence when they know who they can turn to, understand how their work matters, and feel confident asking questions. I’ve seen this during engagement activities that included lots of structured ways to listen to employees and bring them together. At my previous company, I led more than 60 engagement activities and 250 events, which helped us achieve a 64% employee engagement rate and 97% satisfaction rate.

The first 90 days are an important time for every employee, but they’re especially important for entry-level employees because they set their expectations for the organization.

There are a number of things that employers can do to ensure that their new hires have a fantastic, high-touch experience that helps them feel like they belong from day one.

Start with making a list of key touchpoints you want to build in:

— welcomed by Senior HR leader and CEO via video pre-hire

— greeted with a warm, personal meeting with hiring manager on day one

— team lunch day one (or week one based on schedules)

— walk around facility – introductions to key team members, leaders

— introduce to a peer for intro to department resources, apps, etc.

— meeting with HR rep to answer any lingering benefits / job norm questions

— prescheduled meetings with key stakeholders and SMEs who will help train the new person

— work with HR to assign a “buddy” who is in same demographic (hired within 1 year)

Provide support tools that will help the new member understand the company they’ve joined:

— Networking worksheet to gather names of “other people you should know” from each 1:1 meeting

— links to resources to understand the company’s products, markets, strategy, and culture

— Swag to help them feel like they belong

Ongoing touchpoints throughout first year:

— quarterly new employee luncheon with CEO

— introduction at All Hands Meeting

— check in at 1 wk, 1 mo, each quarter

— stay interview at end of year one — career planning exercise

While the activities and meetings themselves are live interactive sessions, much of the content (worksheets, links to culture and strategy info, etc.) and meetings can be set up through the HRIS system for each new hire, so that meetings, emails with links to key content, etc. are delivered to the new hire, the hiring manager, the HR rep, and the “buddy” at predetermined intervals from the date of hire. This ensures that each employee receives the same high-quality connection and information they need to succeed in their new roles.

The biggest change I recommend is giving entry-level hires a consistent point of contact during their first 90 days, not just a formal onboarding session on day one.

In my experience, new employees rarely leave because they cannot learn the job. They leave when they are unsure whether they are doing it correctly, who they can ask for help, or whether anyone notices their progress. I’ve seen companies spend hours on orientation and training, then essentially leave a new hire alone after the first week.

One lesson that has stuck with me is the value of scheduled check-ins with the same supervisor or experienced employee. For example, in a manufacturing environment, I’ve seen a new production hire gain confidence quickly when a supervisor spent 10–15 minutes with them each week discussing what was going well, what was confusing, and what they needed help with. Those conversations also allowed small problems to be corrected before they became reasons to quit.

I tell clients that the first 90 days should feel like a supported transition, not a test the employee has to pass alone. Confidence is built through frequent feedback and small wins, not a single orientation session.

You should be able to show them that there is a plan, and that this role is not a dead end. Like, what’s next for me? If I take this job and continue doing this job, is there going to be a future for me?

Especially for entry-level hires, this might be their first job, so they don’t really have anything to compare it to. Their first job can really set the standard for what they expect from their future careers. So they need to see that there is proper training, but also that there is an opportunity to grow and eventually do more.

For example, when I was in an entry-level role, I knew I wanted to be challenged. I didn’t want to just execute tasks. I wanted to be able to make decisions and actually see the results of those decisions and be accountable for them.

And I think that’s important for entry-level hires too. Of course, you can’t give them 100% decision-making authority right away, but can you give them something they can own? Can you let them make a decision, see the result, and be accountable for it? I think even having a small part of the role where they can do that can make them feel like there is actually somewhere for them to go.

The way that employers need to change is to adopt a systematic 30-, 60- and 90-day approach instead of the conventional one-time approach of onboarding. Entry-level employees find it difficult not because of a lack of skills but more so because of their doubts about whether they are making the right amount of effort and asking the right questions.

From our experience, setting out milestones and conducting manager check-ins plays a big part in the process. New recruits will know what they need to learn, what they need to do and who to turn to when they get stuck. In the first 90 days, it is not just about having them become productive quickly; it is about them being able to work without assistance in the long run.

We must stop treating the first week as the entire onboarding process – that’s a common mistake. For entry-level hires especially, the first 90 days should have regular check-ins where they can ask basic questions without feeling intimidated that they may not already know what to do or say in such situations.

We’ve found that a short weekly conversation about what is clear, what is confusing, and where they need help can make a big difference in their ultimate relationship with the company. People settle in faster when they know someone is taking care of their queries and paying attention to their needs, not just when they receive the training manual and a list of do’s and don’ts that a company issues when they join. The little details matter a lot.

Mallon Associates has built graduate onboarding programmes for financial services engineering teams for more than 35 years, training more than 10,000 engineers.

Most graduate onboarding has two states: training, then real work. When a graduate is dropped from theory directly into their first ticket, they can feel underwater in the first week and disengaged by week six. This is often the 90-day drop-off point that L&D programmes do not diagnose.

“The 90-day turnover risk isn’t set at day one. It’s set in the two weeks between finishing training and shipping their first pull request. If the graduate feels they are guessing their way through their first month, they will be job-hunting by their third.”

What works is a supervised middle: fundamentals, applied fundamentals on the actual codebase, guided implementation of real tickets under supervision, and independent work with normal code review. Each stage builds the mental model needed for the next.

“Graduates don’t leave because the work is hard. They leave when they feel unprepared for work that is supposed to already make sense to them. Onboarding design is the difference between those two experiences.”

Entry-level hires are more likely to stay when the first 90 days are structured around visible progress, not just orientation. I would give every new hire a written 30-60-90-day roadmap with three things made explicit: what they should learn, what they should be able to do independently, and who they can go to when they get stuck. Confidence grows fastest when people can see that they are progressing against clear expectations.

The common failure is front-loading onboarding into the first week and then assuming the employee is fully integrated. A better cadence is to pair formal training with recurring manager check-ins, peer support, and increasingly independent work. For example, an entry-level employee might spend the first 30 days shadowing and completing guided tasks, days 31-60 owning a defined workflow with review, and days 61-90 handling that work independently while receiving feedback on quality and judgment.

I recommend managers use a simple weekly question during the first month: “What still feels unclear, and what would help you do this without assistance?” That surfaces uncertainty before it becomes frustration or disengagement. The goal is not constant supervision; it is reducing ambiguity while responsibility increases.

The strongest onboarding programs make progress visible before performance pressure becomes overwhelming.

Implementing a central resource of searchable information in a digital format to support new hire employees for the initial 90 days eliminates many of the stresses associated with early employment and greatly reduces the rate of turnover among those employees. Many newly hired administrative personnel become hesitant to continue disturbing very busy administrators with routine operational queries, resulting in frustration and errors. The solution is to create an easy-to-access internal wiki that consolidates all standard operating procedures for administrative staff, provides software usage guidelines for each department or area within the organization, and outlines general office procedures. Newly hired employees will be instructed as part of their training program on how to use the platform to obtain quick answers to their daily operational questions. Providing entry-level employees with a means to resolve most day-to-day administrative issues without having to request assistance from others allows them to develop independence and increases confidence, which results in significant reductions in 90-day employee turnover.

Entry-level hires hear “ask if you need help” everywhere, but that doesn’t tell them who owns the answer, when feedback should arrive, or whether their confusion is normal. Support has to appear in the work system before the new person starts guessing.

At Ronas IT, we treat internal work as real project work. Research work, mentor time, new-hire onboarding, internships, recruiting, one-to-ones, and performance reviews all sit in planning and tracking with the same seriousness as delivery. That changed the practical conversation around junior employees. Mentoring stopped looking like spare time, and onboarding stopped depending on a manager’s memory. If a new hire needs a code review, a product context session, access, a trial task, or time with a lead, it sits in the same operational system as paid delivery work and has an owner.

The lesson for large employers is to design the first 90 days around visible commitments. A new hire should see who owns their onboarding, what should be learned this week, where to raise blockers, and when feedback will happen. The manager should see the same thing. That shared view makes support concrete: missed access, unclear tasks, or a silent mentor become work items to fix before they turn into exit-interview surprises.

This also protects the experienced employees. Mentoring entry-level hires takes time, and if that time is invisible, managers will overload the people who are best at helping. Once mentoring is planned, leaders can balance it against delivery work and ask better questions: who is carrying too many juniors, which hires are waiting for feedback, and which parts of onboarding create repeated blockers.

My advice is to give every entry-level hire an onboarding project with named owners, weekly outcomes, and tracked mentoring time. A repeated wait for access, feedback, or mentor time in the first month is the warning sign.

The first 90 days are often overwhelming for any employee, as they have to bring themselves up to speed on new systems, all while asking their team lots of questions about the right way to do things. The best way to make people feel welcome and settled during this period is to make time for candid and honest conversations. People often don’t want to feel like a burden, so hesitate to reach out during those early weeks. But it’s exactly in this time frame that employees need the most support. By laying the foundation early and setting aside time to reach out to a person and see how they’re doing and if there’s anything they need, the employee doesn’t feel embarrassed when they need to take advantage of that time.

Waiting until the end of the 90 days to check in will leave an employee feeling isolated during their entire onboarding period. It should be a continual conversation where managers seek to identify issues early on and offer proactive solutions for them.

Supporting throughout also shows your new employee that your company is there to help. There are challenges in every new company when joining a new role. Being able to identify them and help out before frustration leads to burnout (or disengagement) is a much better strategy.

One thing employers should change during the first 90 days is to move realistic practice much earlier into onboarding. Too many new employees spend their first few weeks absorbing information, policies, and presentations, then encounter the real interpersonal and judgment-heavy parts of the job for the first time when the consequences are already real.

Give entry-level hires low-risk opportunities to practise situations they will actually face: presenting an idea, asking for clarification, responding to critical feedback, speaking with a senior colleague, or making a decision when they do not have perfect information. Then provide specific feedback and let them try again.

That combination of practice and feedback does more than teach a process. It helps new employees understand what good performance actually looks like and gives managers an opportunity to coach before uncertainty turns into disengagement. Early-career employees do not need every answer on day one, but they do need a clear path for building confidence and capability.

Running a job board has taught me something important about onboarding. Many companies fail to build a connection with new employees before giving them lots of paperwork and policies. I believe this is one reason people leave within their first 90 days.

A better solution is providing all new employees at the entry level with a “buddy” or peer mentor, someone they can ask “dumb” questions to and will not feel judged. We partnered with a client once who was hiring warehouse employees. We had new employees who were paired with a buddy and had much less early turnover compared to those who were left to figure it out on their own.

Training is helpful, but people often gain real confidence when they know they will not get in trouble for making a mistake. A simple 15-minute buddy call each week, just asking how they are settling in, can make new employees feel much more comfortable.

It is very difficult to have an established team and make entry-level hires feel included and connected to the team. However, simply asking for an opinion can make a huge difference in a new hire’s initial experience. Our natural inclination is to push entry-level employees to the edge and let them observe, wait for them to show us who they are and what they’re capable of, then begin to include them by asking for feedback. When we ask for that feedback immediately, we learn who they are and how they fit into the team much faster. In IT support, experience isn’t everything. New hires are full of surprises when we socially invest in them immediately.

Give new hires the reasoning behind decisions, not just a list of tasks to complete. This sounds simple, but most companies skip it entirely, and it’s the single biggest thing I’d change about how entry-level onboarding usually works.

When I helped scale a nonprofit tech platform from one million to twenty million, we brought on new hires fast, and the ones who struggled most weren’t missing skills. They were missing context. Nobody had explained why a certain process existed or how their work connected to what the rest of the team was doing, so they hesitated on decisions they could have made confidently with a little more background.

At a company our size at Chronicle, that connection has to happen faster than it would at a bigger company with a formal onboarding program. There’s no room for someone to spend their first month figuring things out quietly on their own. Explaining the why behind the work early on builds confidence far faster than any onboarding checklist ever could.