In 2025, effective onboarding is about connection, belonging and well-being — not just orientation sessions or process checklists. Today’s programs must be designed to help new hires feel supported, seen and prepared to thrive in their roles.
In this episode of The Business of Learning, sponsored by Wisetail, we spoke with Geoffrey Roche, director of workforce development at Siemens Healthineers, to explore how L&D can drive more human-centered, inclusive onboarding experiences that make a lasting impact.
Tune in now to learn:
- The current state of employee onboarding — and what’s changing
- How to embed belonging, mattering and purpose into onboarding programs
- Strategies to help leaders create welcoming, inclusive environments for new hires
- How to measure the impact of onboarding on retention and engagement …and more!
More Resources:
- [Glossary Entry] Onboarding
- [Article] Ditch the Slide Decks: Bring Social Learning Into Onboarding
- [Magazine Article] Shaping the Onboarding Experience
The transcript for this episode follows:
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Michelle Eggleston Schwartz: Hi. Welcome back to The Business of Learning. I’m Michelle Egleston Schwartz, editor in chief here at Training Industry.
Sarah Gallo: And I am Sarah Gallo, a senior editor. Effective onboarding isn’t about checking boxes, and in 2025, it’s really about creating those meaningful human-centered experiences that set employees up for success. With today’s employees largely valuing belonging, wellbeing, and purpose. The onboarding process has become really a critical moment to show employees that they matter. So today we’re speaking with Geoffrey Roche, director of workforce development at Siemens Healthineers, to explore the do’s and don’ts of onboarding in 2025. Geoffrey, thanks for speaking with us today.
Geoffrey Roche: So glad to be here. Thank you for having me.
Michelle Eggleston Schwartz: Yes. Thank you for joining us today, Geoffrey. To get things started today, how would you describe the current state of employee onboarding in 2025?
Geoffrey Roche: You know, based on what I see and, and all the conversations I have, it’s, it’s still quite fragmented. I think there’s been a lot of intentional work done, at least in the healthcare space that I know so closely to make it a better experience, but I don’t truly get the sense that we’ve made it, the onboarding experience, as friendly and really as authentic as it needs to be. I still think it, in many ways, to me it almost seems like it’s so much like a machine. We just do it, get it done, and then we move on to the next thing. When I think about it, it’s not dissimilar, honestly from a recruiting process, either. When we think about it, we go through interviews, and I think oftentimes we’ve created the onboarding. Through that same lens rather than actually think about it through an experience. I just had the privilege of spending several days with some great friends, and one of the friends that I stayed with is a big proponent of experience. So much so that even when you visit and stay in his home, he always is thinking about these unique experiences that make you feel special. I often feel that that’s how onboarding should be. I can’t say though in my career that I’ve ever had any onboarding experience that was special, and I’m fearful in all the conversations that I have that that’s very common.
Sarah Gallo: Definitely. I love that idea of sort of making it into this experience, because it really is an opportunity when you think about it from the beginning. Now that we have that understanding of where we’re at, so to speak, can you share more on why it’s important to intentionally embed belonging, mattering and also well-being into the onboarding experience and how can that impact retention and engagement long term?
Geoffrey Roche: Sure. I think, if we look at it from the vantage point of if somebody goes through onboarding during their onboarding experience, they get this genuine sense they matter, that they belong there, that they’ll feel seen, heard, acknowledged, valued. I think it’s going to go a long way of helping that individual feel that this is the place for them now. I will say, I don’t think it’s going to go all the way because obviously, you know, onboarding is one important part of your journey. If you, you know, onboard and it goes well, but then you have different elements that maybe you don’t feel like you matter or don’t feel a sense of belonging, then obviously that’s going to change … but I do believe that if you do offer as a leader and as leaders, an onboarding experience where people feel a strong sense of belonging and that they matter, and you even think about embedding mentorship early in that process, there’s a greater sense that we’re going to retain individuals. So that’s what I would share from that, from that vantage point.
Michelle Eggleston Schwartz: I’d love to share some real world examples for this, kind of turning the onboarding program into more of an experience like you said. Can you share some examples of learning initiatives or maybe some onboarding strategies that can help increase belonging for new hires?
Geoffrey Roche: You know, I think, I’ve had the privilege obviously of being onboarded, you know, in different places in my career. And one experience that was, was really, you know, somewhat, somewhat unique, uh, and somewhat neat as well was, you know, particularly in healthcare, when we think about interdisciplinary teams, it can be a really neat experience when you’re actually onboarded with not just the same professionals that you’re actually working with. And what I mean by that is some of the experiences I’ve had when you onboard with a clinical colleague or clinical colleagues and you’re nonclinical, it’s really great when you hear their experiences, their journeys. And what I’m getting at there is that I believe that onboarding should be a time where, yes, we learn the company. But it also should be a time where the company learns us. Yes, that happens in the interview process, but now we’re employed. Uh, now we’re there. And so I believe what I’ve seen some really cool experiences is when we actually focus on telling our story listening, to our story. [I’ll] give you an example that I have not necessarily seen done in onboarding, but I think it could work extremely well in onboarding. Recently, in a space where I didn’t know many people, and it was an organized … what I’ll call yet still fluid type of social dinner. And the host basically gave us little cards. We were in groups of four. Again, we didn’t know anyone, frankly, in our groups, but we had little groups of four, and we had little cards [that] would have a statement or one word on there that all of us had to read and then reflect, pause, and then answer. And, you know, as I was sitting there and thinking about it, it would be a really cool way of doing onboarding, uh, because ultimately. Some of the people that you onboard with could become your closest colleagues, even if you’re not working in the same area. And if you can get to know them genuinely, you run into those tough times at work, which we all do at some point in time in our career, you know more about that individual, I. It can be a fascinating experience and you know, that one dinner led to so many different conversations that I’m now having with four of those people. And the most powerful thing about at the end of the night that the host had us do was to go back and in little jars put things that we remembered that they shared. And then each of us got to take that jar home and you know, we now have that as a keepsake, uh, for the rest of our lives. I think about, imagine in, in an onboarding situation where you have that, that I think is going to truly get at a sense of belonging and also, a particular aspect around mattering.
Sarah Gallo: I love that idea of creating these prompts for connection sort of across the org. That seems really kind of beneficial too. I do want to make sure we touch on the leader’s role here in onboarding. What role do leaders play in sort of creating that welcoming and inclusive onboarding experience?
Geoffrey Roche: I think leaders without question play a pivotal role, and I think far too often in organizational. Leadership, particularly in larger organizations, we see sort of, you know, just said, stated from a leader, oh, that’s leadership development, or that’s organizational development’s responsibility. And until they move over, back to us, that’s their responsibility. reality of it is, is it’s everyone’s responsibility, and I’ve often felt things are done, so in such a disconnected manner, and I’ve had this personal experience as well where onboarding actually was very, very well done, but then the handoff to the leader was so poorly done that I didn’t have a divisional type of onboarding I believe strongly that at least in my healthcare experience, you’ve got to have both be done. Well, there has to be some really synergistic patterns that are clearly developed and constructed in the onboarding experience. So that. They’re going to get onboarded by whoever’s going to do that larger onboarding, but then when they’re transitioned over, they’ve got to have that same level. I think far too often leaders miss the boat when it comes to these issues, and frankly, All the work that’s gone on to recruit a top candidate, literally we could lose them in those situations. I know it’s been my experience where, you know, I can remember sitting back and thinking, oh my gosh, why did I even take this, make this mistake of coming here? Because clearly this leader, you know, was, was what I call a fake it, make it moment, uh, in the interview process. But as soon as I really got to experience, you know, that leader operates like a machine. That leader doesn’t have personality. That leader doesn’t have human interaction and want to even have that. that’s why we have to have leaders that not only care about people, but want to be a part of a full onboarding experience. And the word I would use is that leaders have to want to create community. And if the onboarding experience creates community, then you better have leaders that also want to follow through in that community. Because once that village or that community suffers, we’re done at that point.
Michelle Eggleston Schwartz: It is such good points because those early days, the first 90 days, like, um, the candidate really assessing is this. The right place for me. Do I belong here? Did I make the right choice? And so having that sense of community early and forming those relationships is so important. And the leader’s role there is tremendous.
Geoffrey Roche: Well, and I think the other point that I’ll add here. About that, to your, to your reflection there is that I think far too often many leaders will delegate of this to another team member, but the risk you have with that is, I know my personal experience, this is what happened for me, it was delegated to a team member that I had no connection with. And so how I interpreted it was, you really don’t care about me. So you just handed me off to this other individual who cares even less about me. And so now this experience at this point is like, hmm, whatever. So then I actually went and found my own way. Uh, I found other colleagues who help, who helped to frankly onboard me. But that’s, I mean, I’m at a different level, so okay, maybe that worked for me, but that’s not how it works for everybody. I still didn’t feel good about it, but it’s what I had to do because at some point you just have to do what you have to do. But I think to your point, there has to be genuine accountability on this. And frankly, I know my hospital administration days, our organizational development team ran trainings for leaders when it came to onboarding. Uh, I’ve had to go through it many times. Uh. In my leadership experience, and I’m always thankful that our team did that because what I could tell was there was this genuine desire to connect onboarding to the overall employee experience. And, and I can remember our CEO saying that at the end of the day, if good and or great, and the handoff to the leader is good or great, imagine how that individual’s going to treat our patients. Because at the end of the day, it’s all about our customers or those that we are here to serve. And she would always say, that’s going to be what we have to remember because we know employee culture, organizational culture definitely impacts our customers and, and in our case, our patients.
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Michelle Eggleston Schwartz: I’d love to touch on the measurement aspect of onboarding. Um, can you share a little bit about how organ organizations can go around, go about measuring the effectiveness of their onboarding programs and what should they do with those results?
Geoffrey Roche: Yeah, this is where it gets really interesting, right? Because ultimately to get the most effective results. You’re generally going to have to also ensure that there’s some level of psychological safety, uh, within that space. And sometimes a newer employee may be a little hesitant to give as much feedback on the experience, just depending on where they came from. Because if they came from a culture where they were demoralized or beaten down or not treated with respect or didn’t have a sense of mattering or belonging, it may be difficult,. However, there are definitely, certainly ways to do it through surveys, but again, they may not answer that depending on their experience because look, I think those of us that have been around know even anonymous surveys don’t always come across as truly anonymous. I could share some experiences of my own with employee engagement and it’s been interesting, but I do think I have seen this done very well is. Some level of both the organizational development team and the leader asking their team members what was the experience like, and whether that’s done in written form or done in verbal form. think it’s, it’s certainly important. It can also help us tweak it. Now in my organization at Siemens, for example, when I was onboarded, we had a survey, and now in our case we had a large onboarding, which was part of all of our customer service. And then we actually had a smaller onboarding. When I say smaller, because it was part of our education workforce solutions space, and we had a survey for both. Now, I didn’t particularly worry about answering it because I looked at it from the vantage point [of] the questions were basically more around what was my experience like, were there things that I would propose changing? There wasn’t anything on there that made me fearful, but again, some people could… that was some of the things. And then generally what I have seen is, you know, team members will really utilize that to certainly make it better. I’ve seen things like some people comment on, they feel like there was almost too many sessions, less opportunities for networking. I think that this is a really, really important part because when we talked about it in the beginning, we talked about mattering and belonging. It is sometimes in those situations where we get to network with our other folks that are onboarding, that we actually find our true sense of belonging. And so we need to use that feedback, create the space for that feedback. I would actually argue, if it’s a well facilitated onboarding, you’re actually going to get that feedback during the actual experience. Um, because if you’re a good facilitator, you’re going to have enough emotional intelligence to read the room, but also have the sense to say, Hey, how’s everyone feeling right now? You know, are we, are, are we, is this going really well for you? Are you excited? Are you pumped? Um, think those are the types of things we should also be thinking about. I regularly say if we wait until after we’ve already missed the opportunity.
Sarah Gallo: Definitely. I’d love if we could dig into some sort of actionable advice here. Because I know sort of creating these human-centered experiences can be, um, challenging. Do you have any advice for our listeners who are looking to make onboarding more inclusive and human centered 2025 and into the future?
Geoffrey Roche: Yeah, I think it’s incredibly important. Back to that early point that I highlighted. That when we do these onboarding experiences, we need to really ensure that we’ve created this space so that individuals feel psychologically safe. And I think that has to be the foundation. You know, we’re at a time where a lot of people don’t feel heard, seen, recognized, valued by government, by employers, by their families, by their neighbors, by their community, and so much more. And we also know the data right now, right? I mean, from an organizational culture standpoint, we’re probably at the most challenging time when it comes to retention and also when it comes to individuals feeling like they belong somewhere in particularly the workplace. And so for anyone that is engaged or involved, which frankly should be every leader, and certainly anyone that’s involved in the organization of this, the first thing you could do is truly to create that space. And that starts with even, know, instead of, and again, I know it can depend on the size of the organization, but instead of having everything be automated, you know, think about picking up the phone or sending a, a message to say, “Hey, we’re so excited, you know, for you to be here. Onboarding is this time. If you have any questions in advance, let’s connect because we want to make sure you have the best experience possible.” [They] really need to take that extra step to make sure people, not that they feel special, but that they truly feel like it’s actually going to be a really positive experience. And then we’ve got to follow through on it obviously as well. I think what’s important though is once we’ve created that foundation. We need to have, and I’m not suggesting a ton of icebreakers because I know not everyone likes icebreakers, but we need to have appropriate ways of learning about one another and allowing individuals to share what makes them special. when that happens, the connection that occurs is so powerful and everyone needs to have a peer, everyone needs to have a colleague that they can connect with, that can be their listening sounding board when things get tough. That can be their accountability partner at times as well, and I think making sure we have the space for that is super. The other piece I would suggest is, make the onboarding just so regimented. Allow some flexibility within the schedule so that if individuals, you know, want to connect further with other colleagues within the onboarding, that they have that opportunity. Yes, we are there to get a job done, but if we always want to have things be so machine oriented and so systematic, we’re going to lose the joy in the workplace. And I think all of us know that from onboarding to the overall work, we’ve got to find what that joy in the workplace is, or we’ll, not, we will not retain people. And then the final point I would make is, as I would argue that however it’s structured, we’ve got to allow new team members like they had just as much of their voice in the process as, as much as they were listening. And what I mean by that is don’t talk at them. Find ways to truly make it engaging. Don’t just show a PowerPoint of company values. This is what we do in the workplace. I mean, come on, how many onboardings we’ve been through? That’s just absolutely boring. You walk away and feel like you’re back in K through 12 school and your teachers [are] just teaching you. We need to make it engaging. Show some videos; engage them. Ask them what the workplace should be like. Get their feedback early. You never know what may be shared that ultimately could lead to a powerful moment for the entire organization. I remember in my former health care system, [an] employee that onboarded when we started, and I was there a decade, and then got the privilege of being a leader. So I got to also participate in onboarding. because at our healthcare system, you as a leader had to actually participate with the handoff, when they finished onboarding, you had to be there for the last several hours so that you would actually be there and see it. And then actually they would hand them off to you and then you would take them on to do the rest of the onboarding experience. But one of the things that was powerful was every employee was always asked, why did you come into health care? What brought you into health care? And it was always powerful to hear those answers, but what came from those answers? This certain level of how do we really work together in an interdisciplinary nature? Because everyone was coming at it in a different way. So, it was very powerful and we need to be always thinking about allowing individuals to share those human-centered examples because it’s what brings us into community.
Michelle Eggleston SchwartzL I love that. Like unlocking everyone’s why, like why are you here, your purpose. Because that is so powerful. Like, it’s a powerful motivator about, um, their work and how they’re going to show up every day. And for a leader to understand what motivates them, I mean, that is extremely powerful. So before we wrap up today, what’s one step our listeners can take to begin improving their onboarding process? After listening to this episode?
Geoffrey Roche: Yeah. I think, obviously depending on the role of a listener, certainly if you’re in the C-suite, my advice to you is first of all, see learning and development as a trusted learning advisor. And if they tell you that, you know, onboarding and all of this needs to change, don’t ask them why. Allow them to explore and show you what it can be like. Allow them to find those moments to demonstrate that this is not just a robotic onboarding work experience, but rather this can be fun, it can be engaging and all that. It could be a life changing moment if we do it correctly. And we all know people desire community, so let’s think about that for others that are in various L&D roles, training roles, leaders, et cetera. I would be thinking about how it is and what it is to our conversation here. You always allow individuals to share their why, their purpose, and how does that connect to your purpose? How does that connect to your organization’s mission and how do, how does it overall create that community? Every one of us every day should be asking, what are we doing to ensure every member of our team matters, are we doing for them to have a true, authentic sense of belonging? That can start with onboarding, but then it has to follow through. And so I think every leader has to walk away and know that is their responsibility. ultimately the executive team has just as much responsibility to follow through on that. And ultimately the board and shareholders do as well. Because the reality of it is, is that fiduciary responsibility is also people, and if there’s one thing we should be really remembering right now, [it’s that] people are our best asset. They are our best resource. They are the DNA of our organizations, and we need to lift them up and show them that they matter.
Sarah Gallo: I love that. What a good note to end on here. So with that, thank you again for speaking with us on the podcast, Geoffrey. I know I got a lot out of our conversation and I’m sure our listeners will as well. How can they reach out if they’d like to get in touch?
Geoffrey Roche: Yeah, happy to connect anytime on LinkedIn and happy to any [questions] also talk through these issues anytime. This is the benefit; [the benefit] is when we all learn together and really think about how we practice it together as well.
Michelle Eggleston Schwartz: For more resources on this topic, check out the episode description or visit the shownotes on our website at trainingindustry.com/podcast. And don’t forget to rate and review us wherever you tune into the business of learning. Until next time.
