You know that feeling when you start a new job? That mix of excitement and anxiety that hits you on day one? I've been there. We all have.

And after seventeen years in tech, working across companies like Google, Meta, and now Uber, I've seen onboarding from every angle. In this article, I want to share what we've learned about building and scaling an onboarding program that actually works.

At Uber for Business, we're essentially a startup within Uber. We might be relatively small, but we've been growing consistently with double-digit year-over-year growth for the past eleven years.

We're now in almost sixty markets and ten thousand cities globally, working with 200,000 organizations of every size. Our clients are our lifeblood, and that means our people need to hit the ground running.

The reality of starting somewhere new

Think back to your last job change. Just a few weeks before starting, you said goodbye to everything familiar: the systems you knew like the back of your hand, the tools you could navigate with your eyes closed, the relationships you'd built over years.

All that comfort, gone.

Now you're in uncharted territory. Everyone seems thrilled to have you aboard, but there's this nagging anxiety because, honestly, you have no idea what you've really signed up for. That's the natural experience every new hire goes through.

What you actually need to navigate this new reality is a map. Imagine arriving at a new destination that marks the beginning of your professional journey. You need a prescriptive process; a guide that helps you understand your new stakeholders, the processes that rule this new place, the strategy, and everything else that'll help you succeed.

You need structure in your onboarding process.

Why effective onboarding drives retention

The numbers here might surprise you. Organizations with robust onboarding experiences can boost retention by eighty-two percent. That's huge.

Even more tellingly, eighty percent of employees say good onboarding helped introduce them to company culture and influenced their overall well-being. And get this: ninety percent of surveyed employees say the company culture and how they feel during onboarding influences their decision to stay or leave.

So yeah, this is a super important stage. And it's as much about the return on investment as it is the experience.

Companies that have figured out onboarding see real, measurable results. We're talking two and a half times revenue growth, and almost two times higher profit margins compared to companies that don't invest in their onboarding processes.

The four elements of onboarding as an art form

When you start building your onboarding program, you need four key elements:

Vision: You need to know what you actually want to achieve. Keep this at the back of your mind throughout the process.

Creativity: Remember, it's not one size fits all. While you want a globally consistent program, not everyone learns the same way. We assume what we build will be eighty percent globally-relevant, with twenty percent customization for markets or learning styles. Always think about how to make it creative and engaging for your audience.

Emotion: You want to create positive emotional responses. Make people comfortable. Alleviate that anxiety. Get your existing team engaged with new hires to show them the way. Create that positive experience from day one.

Precision: It needs to be a process. It needs to be prescriptive with all the steps outlined to make your new hire ready and give them that map to navigate your organization.

The Six C's framework we use

With those elements in mind, we use what you might know as the Six C's framework for onboarding. Here's how we incorporate each one throughout the first ninety days:

Compliance: Making sure from day one all new hires know about legal procedures and complete mandatory training. You don't want anyone at risk of doing something non-compliant and losing their job on day one. It can happen.

Clarification: Understanding role expectations and goals.

Culture: Sharing values, norms, and behaviors.

Connection: Fostering relationships and sense of belonging.

Confidence: Building self-assurance through support and wins.

Check back: Testing retention and making sure whatever we told our new hires, they're actually going to apply.

Our 90-day onboarding journey at Uber for Business

What I'm showing you here is our complete onboarding journey from day one through month three. I should mention we actually support our new hires past this window by providing active enablement support up to one year. We try to minimize this period (it costs everyone time), but we recognize they need lots of support.

This ninety-day journey includes different touchpoints: live sales boot camp, shadowing, certifications, and more. They're quite intensely incorporated. Let me walk you through each phase.