The First 90 Days

Strong onboarding helps new AEC hires feel valued, useful, and confident they made the right decision.

Every one of us has done it. You take a new job and spend the first two weeks wondering if you’ve made a terrible mistake.

Maybe the old company wasn’t so bad after all. Maybe the new boss isn’t what you expected. Maybe everyone here seems to know each other and you’re the awkward kid showing up at a high school cafeteria trying to figure out where to sit. It’s normal.

The problem is that most AEC firms act as if the candidate accepting the offer letter means the hard part is over. They spend weeks recruiting, interviewing, negotiating compensation, and convincing someone to join the company. Then the new hire shows up on Monday morning and finds out no one ordered their computer, their email doesn’t work, and the person who was supposed to train them is on vacation. This even happened to me personally! Nothing says “welcome to the team” quite like spending your first day staring at a blank desk while everyone else rushes around wondering who you are.

Most firms understand the importance of onboarding. There are forms to sign, benefit elections to complete, safety training videos to watch, and organizational charts to memorize. Those things matter. What matters just as much, however, are the dozens of little signals that reassure a new employee they made the right decision.

Over the years, I’ve come to believe there are six things every AEC firm should do if they want to keep new hires from experiencing immediate buyer’s remorse:

1.  Make them feel genuinely wanted. Not by HR alone, but by their manager, coworkers, and firm leadership. Have people greet them, take them to lunch, and include them in conversations. No one wants to feel like an unexpected package that showed up at reception, or worse, have someone ask, “And what exactly do you do here?”
2.  Give them meaningful work immediately. Few things create regret faster than sitting at a desk for three days pretending to be busy. Most professionals didn’t leave one company to spend 40 hours setting up passwords, watching training videos, and perfecting the arrangement of paper clips in their desk organizer. People want to contribute, solve problems, and earn their place. Let them.
3.  Check in constantly during the first few months. New employees are often reluctant to ask questions because they don’t want to appear incompetent. Don’t mistake silence for satisfaction. Sometimes silence means everything is fine. More often it means they’re confused, frustrated, or wondering if accepting your offer was a big mistake. 
4.  Sweat the small stuff. A handwritten welcome note, a company golf shirt that actually fits, lunch with a principal, public recognition at a staff meeting, or even a special parking spot for the first week all send the same message: someone cared enough to think about your experience. It’s amazing how many firms will spend $25,000 recruiting someone and then balk at spending $25 making them feel welcome.
5.  Ask for their ideas early. Every new employee arrives with experiences from another firm. Treating them like a blank slate wastes an opportunity. Solicit their opinions and implement good suggestions whenever possible. Nothing builds commitment faster than seeing your fingerprints on the place before you’ve even memorized everyone’s name.
6.  Make it easy for them to build relationships. Most people won’t admit it, but work is a lot more enjoyable when someone is actually happy to see you. The faster new employees develop friendships and professional relationships inside the firm, the less likely they are to spend their lunch break scrolling through job postings and wondering if they should have stayed where they were.

The reality is that every new employee experiences moments of doubt. They compare their new office to their old one. They miss familiar coworkers. They question their decision. That’s human nature. Your job isn’t to eliminate those feelings completely. Your job is to overwhelm them with positive experiences, meaningful relationships, productive work, and visible signs that joining your firm was a smart move.

If you don’t provide those signals, their former employer probably will. The old boss will call. Former coworkers will text. The nostalgia machine will start operating at full capacity. Suddenly the place they couldn’t wait to leave starts looking pretty good. The boss they complained about for three years becomes a misunderstood genius. The broken printer they cursed every day becomes a charming reminder of simpler times. Before you know it, the employee you worked so hard to recruit is mentally halfway back out the door.

The firms that retain people best aren’t necessarily the ones with the highest salaries, fanciest offices, or most elaborate onboarding programs. They’re the ones that make new employees feel valued, included, useful, and successful from day one. That’s what turns a new hire into a committed employee, and it’s a whole lot cheaper than starting the recruiting process all over again.

Mark Zweig is Zweig Group’s chairman and founder. Contact him at mzweig@zweiggroup.com.