Onboarding as the First Act of Leadership
When you step into a new agency, or even just a new project, the first impression matters. Not just for the client, but for the people doing the work. If the very beginning feels chaotic—logins scattered across Slack messages, teammates you’ve never met, expectations already piling up—it sets a tone that can be hard to recover from.
In distributed teams especially, where faces are spread across time zones and projects number in the hundreds, onboarding isn’t a “nice-to-have.” It’s the first act of leadership. It’s how you tell people, you belong here, here’s how we work, here’s where you’ll find help.
What Larger Teams Get Right
At scale, well-run organizations rarely leave onboarding to chance. Even if they don’t have rigid SOPs, they build predictable rituals around how new people enter the system. A new engineer might expect an internal portal that lays out coding standards, release processes, and who owns which parts of the stack. Designers anticipate a library of brand and component guidelines. Project managers want to see a clear RACI or at least a map of who approves, who executes, and who signs off.
These aren’t just documents—they’re signals of maturity. They tell the individual: you’re stepping into a system that’s been thought through. And they tell the team: we don’t need to reinvent the basics every time someone new arrives.
What Individuals Look For
Every role, regardless of seniority, quietly asks the same questions on day one:
- Who do I go to when I’m stuck?
- Where do I find the tools and the context?
- What does “good work” look like here?
A developer might be scanning for code repositories, style guides, and who reviews pull requests. A content strategist wants clarity on voice and tone, content calendars, and approval loops. A project manager craves visibility into priorities, risks, and the rules of engagement with clients.
When these answers aren’t offered up front, people go hunting for them in the dark. And in that darkness, trust begins to erode—not just in the system, but in the leaders responsible for setting it up.
The Role of Welcome Materials
Call them welcome packets, starter guides, or clarity sheets—whatever the format, what matters is that they exist. These artifacts should feel less like legal documents and more like maps: pointing out landmarks, showing safe paths, and letting people know what to expect around the corner.
The best ones are written in plain language, not corporate jargon. They introduce the team in human terms, outline the core tools without drowning in detail, and explain how decisions get made. Think of it as extending a hand rather than dropping a manual.
Portals and Leave-Behinds
In larger organizations, internal portals have become a lifeline. A single link where FAQs, process templates, and decision logs live. The danger is letting these sprawl into digital graveyards. To stay useful, they need caretakers—people who prune, update, and keep the content alive.
Leave-behinds are just as important. After onboarding, invite the newcomer to summarize how they understand the system. Their perspective often reveals gaps you didn’t see, and that write-up becomes the next breadcrumb for the next person who joins. Over time, these lived accounts create a more authentic knowledge base than any static playbook.
Breathing Space at the Beginning
The most overlooked gift in onboarding is simply giving people space. A moment to absorb before they’re thrust in front of clients or dropped into deliverables. A chance to meet the teammates they’ll rely on, not just in passing on Slack, but with some context of what those people do and how they work.
When you rush someone straight into execution, you’re asking them to build while blindfolded. They might still succeed, but at a cost to morale, to clarity, and to the client experience.
Culture Signals Through Onboarding
Onboarding is culture in practice. If it’s messy, improvised, and opaque, the unspoken message is: this is how we operate here. If it’s thoughtful, welcoming, and consistent, it sets a foundation of trust. People begin projects with confidence rather than suspicion. Clients sense alignment rather than scramble.
For distributed agencies, where so much depends on invisible threads of communication, onboarding isn’t just a step in the process—it’s the stage where culture is performed, reinforced, and made real.
Closing Thought
Think about the last time you joined a team. Did you feel oriented, or lost? Did you know who to turn to, or did you scramble for answers? That feeling doesn’t fade quickly—it colors how you approach every task afterwards.
That’s why onboarding isn’t paperwork. It’s leadership. It’s the chance to make someone feel, from the very first moment, that they’re not alone in the work.