Onboarding has long been acknowledged as a pivotal phase in the employee lifecycle. Yet, for many organizations, onboarding still remains an under-utilized process, often seen as administrative instead of strategic.
However, using assessment data can shift this trend. In an era of increasing complexity, hybrid work, and high-performance demands, onboarding is no longer just a welcome email or compliance checklist. It is a high-leverage opportunity to integrate, develop, and retain new hires.
The question facing HR professionals and IO Psychologists is how to ensure maximum return on investment when onboarding new talent. Increasingly, the answer to this conundrum lies in making use of the rich data already generated during selection and development assessments to create personalized, science-based onboarding journeys.
The strategic importance of onboarding
Research consistently shows that effective onboarding drives improved retention, less delay for staff productivity, and greater employee engagement.
Structured onboarding leads to higher role clarity, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment: Outcomes that all directly influence early performance and talent retention. Yet, recent (2023) Gallup research reported that only 12% of employees strongly agree that their organization does a great job onboarding new team members.
This expectation gap presents both a challenge and an opportunity. For organizations that already invest in robust selection and development assessments, that same data can inform onboarding strategies.
From selection to onboarding
Selection assessments yield rich, validated insights into a new hire’s cognitive capacities, behavioral styles, motivational drivers, strengths, and development areas.
Too often, this data is archived once the hiring decision is made. But when framed through the lens of onboarding, these insights are immediately actionable.
For instance, if a high-potential new hire shows potential for adapting to change but has development areas in strategic thinking their manager, equipped with this information, can tailor the new employee’s exposure to strategic-orientated meetings and activities accordingly. Conversely, the candidate may become a good resource during times of rapid change and uncertainty. Using assessment data like this can enhance early coaching conversations, as well as personal development planning during the crucial first 90 days of tenure.
A key insight is that utilizing assessment for onboarding does not necessarily require re-testing, but re-purposing existing data for onboarding insight rather than just selection.
TTS onboarding reports: A practical bridge
Here at TTS, we have used client insights, best practices in IO Psychology and our decades-worth of experience in helping organizations make better talent decisions to develop user-friendly onboarding reports for managers and new hires that help bridge the gap between onboarding expectations and reality.
Such reports have clear benefits for both new talent and their managers:
- For managers: Actionable tips to coach and support the new hire based on their unique learning orientation, development areas, and work environment preferences.
- For the new hire: Self-awareness around strengths that can make immediate contributions, their potential development areas, and practical strategies to adapt quickly to organizational and role requirements.
This approach enhances mutual understanding, accelerates the establishment of competence, and fosters a growth mindset for employee and manager alike.
Onboarding is a crucial time for personal and professional development.
Fortunately, many new employees are highly motivated to make good impressions, establish relationships, and define their identity within a new organizational culture. Providing them with onboarding-aligned psychometric insights supports their agency in this process.
A new hire who understands their preferred role-specific strengths or potential blind spots can adapt more intentionally. When paired with expert feedback, such data can help them clarify expectations, and align themselves faster with team dynamics and business priorities.
In this way assessment data (and expertly crafted, robust onboarding reports) can help new employees and their managers better navigate ambiguity, setbacks, or early interpersonal friction that often accompanies transitions.
Enhancing managerial capability
From the manager’s perspective, onboarding reports function as coaching guides. With minimal effort, leaders can gain insight into:
- How to motivate their team member from day one
- Likely challenges and developmental gaps new hires may experience in their new role
- Tips for communicating, managing and coaching new hires more effectively
This evidence-based support reduces the load for busy managers and supports consistency across onboarding experiences.
As Bhatia and Taneja (2022) noted in a recent article in the Journal of Organizational Psychology, onboarding that supports self-efficacy, social integration, and cultural clarity is more predictive of early success than training alone.
Assessment data gives managers and IO Professionals the roadmap to deliver exactly that, at scale and informed by scientifically robust insights.
Final thoughts
At TTS we have long championed the value of assessment. And indeed, the same insights that help us select talent can (and should) help us onboard it.
Customized, science-based onboarding reports represent a practical, high-value way to bring these insights to life. By investing in onboarding not just as an event, but as a data-enabled experience, organizations can drive early success, reduce costly turnover, and build the foundation for long-term excellence.
If you would like to know more about TTS’s onboarding assessment solutions, connect with us at info@tts-talent.com.
Sources and further reading
Gallup. (2023). State of the Global Workplace Report.
Bhatia, P., & Taneja, S. (2022). “Transformative Onboarding: Bridging Assessment and Acculturation.” Journal of Organizational Psychology, 22(1), 45–58.