First Day Fog: Onboarding Benchmarking Report for 2025

Missed connections, information overload, and AI confusion are clouding the path to success for today’s new hires.

Onboarding is a major driver for employee retention, and in 2025, new hires set their standards high. When experiences fall short, consequences come fast. Nearly 4 in 10 employees (39%) have second thoughts about their new job during onboarding. A third (32%) of new hires walk away from onboarding disappointed—for Gen Z, that number jumps to 40%.

Between fast-moving hiring cycles, complex employee needs, and major shifts in how we work, onboarding has become a critical moment in the employee experience.

So how does your onboarding stack up?

This report breaks down what today’s employees actually experience during onboarding, what’s working best, and how organizations are falling short. Read on to see how your own process measures up and get insights into where onboarding trends are headed for 2026.

3 out of 4 employees are satisfied with their onboarding

Today’s employees expect more. From compensation to workplace culture, the bar has risen on what makes a job worth hanging onto. And as hiring cycles start to speed up, onboarding is now a make-or-break moment for employee retention.

The good news is, satisfaction is high: 73% of employees report being satisfied with their onboarding experience.

Onboarding satisfaction

• Overall onboarding experience: 73%
• Opportunities to get to know teammates: 75%
• Training content: 73%
• Format: 71%
• Support from HR: 67%

Most employees walk away from onboarding feeling prepared for success (68%) and with a better understanding of how their role contributes to company goals (75%).

Onboarding satisfaction appears to be fairly consistent across age groups, with the majority of every working generation expressing satisfaction with their experiences. Satisfaction does wane slightly for older groups, with only 68% of Baby Boomers feeling happy with their onboarding.

Onboarding satisfaction by generation

• Gen Z: 76%
• Millennials: 75%
• Gen X: 76%
• Baby Boomers: 68%

But satisfaction doesn’t tell the whole story. While most people are happy with their onboarding, more than 1 in 3 employees (39%) have second thoughts about their new job during onboarding.

Some of the biggest pain points come down to poor training: half of employees (52%) find that onboarding focuses too much on admin rather than role training. Employees say the biggest roadblocks to developing skills are the pressure to perform before training is complete (25%), a lack of follow-up after initial training (24%), and insufficient personalized learning options (23%).

Nearly 1 in 3 new hires feel lonely during onboarding, especially Gen Z

Fostering a sense of belonging is crucial to successful onboarding. A culture of belonging supports employee wellness and improves workplace engagement. It’s also indicative of employee psychological safety, which is essential for collaboration and open communication.

Creating a culture of belonging begins on day one, but for nearly one third of employees, that connection never clicks: 31% of respondents say their onboarding lacked meaningful interactions.

Isolation is an especially pressing concern for younger workers: 41% of Gen Z and 33% of Millennials report feeling disconnected during onboarding, compared to only 29% of Gen X and 18% of Baby Boomers.

This aligns with general workplace trends, which indicate that employees under 35 are more lonely than older employees. Close-knit social relationships are waning among young people, and Gen Z is relying more on the workplace to find meaningful connections—66% of Gen Z new hires say they care about making friends at work.

If you want your new hires to feel a sense of belonging, personal interaction is key. The top driver for feelings of belonging among new hires is being welcomed by their team (53%), followed closely by manager support (48%). For younger employees, focus on open communication: Gen Z employees report benefiting the most from having opportunities to give feedback and ask questions.

What drives belonging during onboarding?

• Feeling welcomed by the team: 53%
• Support from managers: 48%
• Clarity about role and expectations: 47%
• Opportunities to give feedback and ask questions: 45%
• Recognition and appreciation: 32%
• Introduction to DEI initiatives: 30%

Information overload: 2 in 5 employees are overwhelmed by onboarding

New hires want to leave onboarding feeling prepared, but what happens when you give them too much information? Across all demographics, employees cite “too much information” as one of the hardest parts of onboarding: 2 in 5 new hires (42%) say their onboarding overwhelmed them with too much content at once.

Remote employees are especially impacted, ranking information overload as their top onboarding challenge.

By comparison, in-person onboarding or hybrid formats (a mix of in-person and digital experiences) appear to be more effective at easing information fatigue. This suggests remote employees may be craving more interactive or accessible onboarding experiences—and some breaks from staring at a screen all day!

While remote environments have a big impact on information overload, there’s also a notable generational divide. Baby Boomers stand out for their resilience—less than 1 in 3 Baby Boomers (31%) feel overwhelmed during onboarding.

Meanwhile, feelings of overwhelm are prevalent among younger employees, with nearly half of Gen Z (47%) finding onboarding to be too much. Mid-career employees aren’t far behind in their stress levels: Many Gen X (44%) and Millennial (41%) new hires also express being overwhelmed by onboarding.

So while older employees may be ready to dive in right away, most new hires are likely to benefit from more self-paced, hands-on learning experiences with the support of colleagues, such as through an onboarding buddy program.

30% of new hires say onboarding is either too rushed or too long

Timeline is one of the biggest success factors of onboarding. Keep things too brief, and new hires will be unprepared.

But run onboarding for too long, and employees will feel restless and worn out. Fortunately, most employers are getting the timeline right, and the majority of new hires (70%) say that their onboarding provided just the right amount of training to get started confidently.

However, employees who aren’t happy with the length of onboarding are divided on what goes wrong: 10% of new hires feel that training takes too long, while 20% want more time and support.

These timing perceptions vary by environment. In-person employees (22%) are the most likely to feel their onboarding is too short. While in-person experiences can enable employees to feel less overwhelmed and more engaged, onboarding coordinators may need to extend the timeline to make the most of those benefits.

Hybrid and remote employees are slightly more likely than in-person workers to find onboarding to be too long. Alongside remote employees’ greater tendency to feel overwhelmed, the data suggests that some new hires may have less stamina for remote onboarding than an in-person program.

Missed opportunity: 60% of new hires receive no AI training during onboarding

AI continues to have a rapidly growing role in the workplace, but few onboarding programs are actually preparing new hires to use those AI tools. 60% of new hires receive no AI-specific training during onboarding. In about half of all onboarding programs (53%), AI isn’t touched on at all.

When AI tools are incorporated into onboarding, the results are mixed—only 30% of new hires use AI in onboarding and find it helpful, while 11% say it’s confusing or difficult to use.

There’s a significant generational gap in AI exposure during onboarding. Gen Z is the most exposed, with 58% interacting with AI as part of their onboarding experience. In contrast, older employees are far less likely to interact with AI: 64% of Gen X employees and 71% of Baby Boomers report having no AI exposure during onboarding.

Although younger generations are finding more success with using AI than their older counterparts, AI in onboarding is having middling effectiveness across all age groups.

Of the new hires who receive AI-specific training, less than half of Gen Z (38%) and Millennial employees (39%) find the training helpful. Even smaller portions of Gen X (27%) and Baby Boomers (14%) are satisfied with their AI training experiences.

AI training is lagging behind, but in some onboarding programs, AI use may be replacing human interaction. About 1 in 3 new hires (32%) say they use AI to answer questions rather than asking a manager or colleague. This practice is most common among Gen Z (44%) and hybrid employees (38%).

As AI becomes the workplace norm, HR pros will need to intentionally incorporate it into the onboarding experience—not only to keep employees prepared, but also to prevent the isolating effects of automation.

Onboarding trend: Hybrid onboarding yields strong results

Amidst the ongoing RTO debate, onboarding data reveals a notable trend. In 2025, hybrid onboarding outperformed both remote and in-person formats. By blending in-person connection with digital convenience, hybrid onboarding delivers the strongest results across almost every metric.

Employees who experience hybrid onboarding report the highest satisfaction (75%), just ahead of in-person (73%) and remote onboarding (71%). Conversely, hybrid onboarding had the lowest portion of dissatisfied employees, at only 10%.

But satisfaction is just the start. Compared to other onboarding formats, employees felt the most prepared for success with hybrid onboarding.

Hybrid onboarding also leads the way in ramping up performance: 73% of hybrid-onboarded employees say their experience helps them start contributing faster.

New hires find that hybrid onboarding sets the tone for continuous growth, with 74% of employees saying that hybrid onboarding feels like the beginning of a learning journey. Nearly three-quarters (73%) of hybrid employees were satisfied with their post-onboarding learning opportunities, compared to 68% of on-site and 63% of remote employees.

The only possible weak point for hybrid onboarding is engagement fatigue. By a small margin, hybrid employees are the most likely to feel that onboarding goes on for too long. HR pros may need to find a balance between in-person and virtual events to prevent an onboarding agenda from dragging on.

That said, when thoughtfully designed, hybrid onboarding appears to offer the best structure, flexibility, and support new hires need to feel confident and connected from day one.

Methodology

BambooHR and TalentLMS partnered to survey 1,156 US-based employees in May 2025, all of whom had started a job in the last 12 months. Respondents spanned industries, age groups, and work environments (remote, hybrid, in-person). Minor discrepancies in total figures may exist due to rounding.