Why people leave right at the beginning
In the first weeks a new employee lives in constant uncertainty: they do not know whether they are doing the work correctly, who to ask questions, or whether they are meeting expectations. If nobody removes that uncertainty, the person draws their own conclusion — and it is usually not a reassuring one.
Three typical departure scenarios:
- "I was abandoned." They were shown a desk, given access and left alone for a month. The person flounders, makes mistakes and feels incompetent
- "This is not the job." The actual tasks diverged from what was described at interview
- "I do not understand how I am being assessed." There are no criteria, no feedback, and by the end of probation both employee and manager equally do not know whether it went well
The good news: all three scenarios are eliminated by a plan that takes a manager a few hours to prepare and 20–30 minutes a week to maintain.
A week-by-week onboarding plan
Before the start date: pre-boarding
The work begins before day one. A few days ahead, prepare the workstation and access rights, send a message with details of the first day, and let the team know someone new is joining. If more than two weeks separate the offer from the start date, keep in touch — otherwise there is a risk the person simply will not turn up.
The first day
| What | Who | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Greet them personally, introduce the team | manager | the person does not feel like an outsider |
| Workstation and access ready | prepared in advance | work can start immediately |
| Paperwork completed | HR records team | employment contract signed on day one |
| Explain the goals for probation | manager | the assessment criteria are clear |
| Assign a mentor | manager | there is someone to ask a "silly" question |
The first week
The aim is to give a first small task with a guaranteed achievable outcome. Success in the first week has a critical effect on confidence. At the end of the week, a short conversation: what is clear, what is not, what is missing.
The first month
Gradual expansion of responsibility, introduction to neighbouring departments, weekly feedback. By the end of the month the employee should be handling the basic part of the work independently and know who to approach with each type of question.
The second and third months
Moving to full workload, working on real tasks, an interim review on day 60. At that point there is still time to correct course if something is going wrong — on day 89 there is not.
A legal detail under the Labour Code of Kazakhstan. A probation period may not exceed three months (up to six months for heads of organisations and their deputies, chief accountants and their deputies, and heads of branches). The probation condition must be stated explicitly in the employment contract, otherwise probation is deemed not to have been set. If the period expires and the employer has not given notice of termination, the employee is deemed to have passed probation.
Manager's checklist
What should be ready before a new employee starts
- Expected results for 30, 60 and 90 days are described in measurable terms
- A mentor is assigned and knows this is their responsibility
- Workstation, equipment and all access rights are ready
- Dates for weekly conversations are scheduled — in the calendar, not merely intended
- A first task has been prepared that the person will certainly complete successfully
- The team knows who is joining and what they will be doing
- Documents for day-one paperwork are collected
The role of the mentor
The mentor is the most underrated element of onboarding and at the same time the cheapest. Their job is not to deliver formal training but to be someone you are not afraid to approach with a question that seems stupid.
| What a mentor should do | What they should not do |
|---|---|
| Answer questions about the work and everyday practicalities | Do the newcomer's work for them |
| Show how routine tasks are handled here | Assess the newcomer and decide their fate — that is the manager's job |
| Check in every few days without being asked | Wait for the newcomer to approach first |
| Introduce them to neighbouring departments | Broadcast their own dissatisfaction with the company |
Mentoring must be accounted for in workload. If someone is given a newcomer on top of a full workload with no compensation, mentoring will remain a formality, and the mentor gains one more reason to be irritated.
At a services company, seven out of ten people hired over six months resigned within the first two months. Recruitment was considered a failure and they were about to change supplier.
Conversations with the leavers showed something else: five of the seven named the same reason — in the first weeks it was unclear who to turn to, and the manager appeared once a week for fifteen minutes.
After introducing a simple rule — an assigned mentor and a fifteen-minute conversation with the manager every Friday — only one of the next ten newcomers left over the same period.
The three most common mistakes
- All training is dumped into day one. Eight hours of information is absorbed at roughly ten per cent. Better to spread it over two weeks in small portions
- Feedback is given only at the end of probation. By then it is too late to fix anything — both sides have already made up their minds
- The mentor is appointed only formally. If they have neither time nor motivation, mentoring exists on paper only
Onboarding remote employees
With remote work, everything that happens naturally in an office — chance conversations, meeting colleagues, being able to walk over with a question — disappears. It has to be organised deliberately.
- More scheduled contact. Where a weekly conversation suffices in the office, remote onboarding needs a short call every day for the first two weeks
- Video rather than messaging in the early weeks. Text does not convey tone, and a newcomer tends to read neutral messages as displeasure
- Explicit introductions to the team. A dedicated meeting where each person explains what they do and what to approach them about
- Documented processes. A remote employee cannot "ask the person next to them", so a knowledge base becomes critical
How to measure whether onboarding works
- Share of people leaving in the first 90 days — the main metric. The norm is up to 10–15%
- Time to reach expected productivity — compare between newcomers
- A short survey on day 30: are the tasks clear, is there enough support, does the work match expectations
In brief
A significant share of new employees leaves in the first three months, and almost always the cause is the absence of proper onboarding rather than the quality of the candidate. A simple scheme works: preparation before the start date, a well-planned first day, an achievable task in the first week, weekly feedback and an interim review on day 60. That is a few hours of preparation against the cost of recruiting all over again.