A spell dwells in every beginning: Onboarding as enabler for professional development

In order to enable employees’ successful integration into a new work environment, it is necessary to impart company-specific knowledge, new skills as well as cultural and social aspects. By well designing learning processes of the onboarding phase, individual socialization and professional development can be promoted. Guideline-based interviews will be used to examine how employees perceive onboarding practices, what entry barriers they fear, and to what extent onboarding can contribute to employees’ career development. Initial results show that employees—according to self-reports—only perceive a small number of practices that are planned by the company. In addition, the practices are not consistently assessed as beneficial. Rather, barriers are mentioned which none of the practices are tailored to overcome