The first week: how new people learn a job, and where it breaks

Someone signs an offer on a Friday. Three weeks later they walk in on a Monday, get a laptop, meet eight people and read forty pages of policy. By Friday they can tell you where the coffee is and who sits next to them. Most of them still could not tell you how the work in their own role gets done.

This report pulls together what we know about that first week: how companies run it, where the knowledge a new person needs actually sits, what it costs, and what the research says helps. We used public research, Swedish regulators and unions, published company handbooks and a few vendor surveys. Vendor surveys are marked as such. A full source list is at the end, and every number in the text links to the page it came from.

12% of employees strongly agree that their organization does a great job onboarding new employees. (Gallup)

1. What a first week looks like today

Most companies run the start the same way, whether they have 30 employees or 30,000. The phases have Swedish names in the public templates, and they line up closely with the English-language guides.

Before day one

The contract gets signed, often electronically. HR sends a welcome message and a form for personal and bank details. At Region Uppsala a welcome email goes out automatically to the new person’s private address 30 days before the start date. HR tools such as Teamtailor schedule these messages, forms and to-dos relative to the start date.

In the last week before the start, the manager picks a buddy (in Swedish a fadder or handledare), books the first-week schedule and tells the team. IT orders the laptop, accounts and access card. The day before, the new person usually gets a short note with the time, the place, who will meet them and what to bring.

Day one

The Swedish work-environment network Suntarbetsliv publishes a checklist that captures the standard first day well: a welcome, fika, introductions to the nearest colleagues, a tour, working hours, the intranet, keys and alarm, someone to have lunch with, setting up the workstation, important routines, and the first tasks. HR walks through salary, leave and sick-day routines. IT hands over equipment.

The rest of week one

The same checklist lists the week-one items: information about the business and its goals, who to turn to for which questions (task questions, IT, HR), the work environment and its risks, time to get to know colleagues, and meetings with relevant people such as experts and other managers. That last item is where most of the role knowledge gets handed over, one conversation at a time.

The new person reads the handbook, the intranet or the wiki, and completes the mandatory e-learning if there is any. They shadow a colleague. Somewhere around day three to five they get a first small task.

After week one: 30, 60, 90 days

Many companies use a 30-60-90 day plan, split into three phases (learn, contribute, execute) with formal reviews at the 30, 60 and 90-day marks (Cornerstone). Swedish research summarised by Suntarbetsliv says it takes about three months for a new employee to establish themselves at a workplace. Region Uppsala’s process has five phases for exactly that span: preparation, the first day, the first week, the first month, and within three months.

Who owns what

The split is consistent across the sources:

• HR owns the contract, the policies, the template and the tools.
• The manager owns the whole start and the role-specific part. Region Uppsala’s routine puts the manager in charge of preparation, the first-day welcome, the role introduction and the follow-ups.
• IT owns hardware, accounts and access.
• The buddy gives practical help and a way into the group.
• Colleagues answer the real questions about the work, informally, between their own tasks.

In Sweden, introduction is a legal duty

The Swedish word is introduktion, and it is not optional. The Swedish Work Environment Authority, Arbetsmiljöverket, lists giving employees an introduction as part of systematic work-environment management and says everyone needs one when they start a job, get new tasks or return from a long absence (Arbetsmiljöverket). The authority publishes an example checklist with a column for who is responsible.

The rules on organisational and social work environment go further. As quoted by Suntarbetsliv, the employer must make sure employees know which tasks to do, what result to reach, whether there is a particular way to do the work, what to prioritise when time runs short, and who they can turn to for help. Read that list again with a new hire in mind. Most of it is role knowledge, and the law already expects the employer to hand it over.

2. Where the knowledge actually lives

The standard process is good at one layer of knowledge and weak at another.

The generic layer is written down

Policies, values, the org chart, the expense rules, the safety routine, the tools. This layer is the same for everyone at the company. HR owns it, it lives in the handbook or on the intranet, and it changes slowly. Most onboarding checklists and HR tools are built around it, and they track tasks completed, such as “contract signed” or “laptop received”.

The role layer sits with people

The role layer is how this specific job is done here. Which report to pull for a client, what “active” means in the CRM, which customer needs a phone call instead of an email, who signs off on what, what good work looks like in this team. It is different for each role and it changes every month.

The public sources describe this layer by pointing at people. Region Uppsala’s shared introduction covers the whole region, and then each workplace adds a role-specific introduction that it documents separately (Region Uppsala). Somebody has to write and maintain that document for each role. Suntarbetsliv’s checklist handles the role part with two items: tell the new person who to turn to, and book meetings with the experts. That is a meeting schedule standing in for written knowledge.

GitLab runs one of the best-known public company handbooks. Its onboarding page still lists a default Slack channel, #questions, for “anything that the Handbook can’t help with” (GitLab). Even with thousands of written pages, the gaps go to a person.

New graduates say the same thing. In a 2025 survey by Saco, the Swedish confederation of professional associations, respondents named access to people they can ask as one of the most important things when you are new (Suntarbetsliv on the Saco report).

So the written layer tells a new person what the company is. The unwritten layer tells them how their job works, and they can only get it by interrupting a specific colleague.

“Nearly 20 percent” of the workweek goes to looking for internal information or tracking down colleagues who can help with specific tasks. (McKinsey Global Institute, 2012)

3. What it costs

There is less solid data here than the internet suggests. Many of the onboarding statistics that circulate on vendor blogs trace back to nothing, or to a different number in the original. We left those out. What remains is enough.

Few people think it works

Only 12 percent of employees strongly agree that their organisation does a great job onboarding new people, according to Gallup. In a later Gallup piece, only 29 percent of new hires say they feel fully prepared and supported to excel in their role after onboarding.

Gallup also describes what the typical start looks like: new people put to work without training or context, not introduced to the team, pushed into tactical work too early, and without early, regular feedback from their manager. Gallup’s own words are that these are “more the norm than the exception” (Gallup).

Doubt sets in during week one

BambooHR, which sells HR software, surveyed 1,565 US full-time office workers in April 2023. In that survey, 44 percent said they had regrets or second thoughts about the job within the first week. The same survey found that 56 percent say they need only one or two days to ease into a new role. New people want to start doing the work. A week of orientation is slow for them too.

44% of new hires had second thoughts about the job within their first week. (BambooHR survey of US office workers, 2023)

Searching and asking take the time

The McKinsey Global Institute estimated that a knowledge worker spends nearly 20 percent of the workweek looking for internal information or tracking down colleagues who can help. The figure is from 2012 and covers all employees, not only new ones. A new person has less context than anyone, so their share is unlikely to be lower.

The cost lands on two desks. The new person loses hours looking. The colleague who knows loses focus answering. We found no solid study that measures how many hours colleagues spend answering new-hire questions, so we will not invent one. You can count it in your own team: write down every time someone asks you something during a new colleague’s first two weeks.

The stress is real

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet interviewed lawyers, social workers, doctors, teachers and nurses during their first year after graduating. They found three challenges of being new that cause stress: being overloaded with information about the job, feeling unsure and afraid to ask or to make mistakes, and feeling alone before you have landed in the team (Prevent, reporting the KI study).

The lead researcher, Petter Gustavsson, made a point that cuts against most first weeks: the plan should not contain too much information at the start, and you cannot force the introduction time. A firehose on day one followed by silence is the opposite of what the research recommends.

4. New people who work in their second language

In Sweden this is a large group, not an edge case. In November 2024, more than one in five employed people in Sweden were born abroad, according to Statistics Sweden (SCB). In hotels and restaurants it was more than four in ten.

More than 1 in 5 employed people in Sweden were born abroad (November 2024). (SCB)

Being born abroad does not mean weak Swedish, but language is the barrier employers name first. In a 2022 report from the think tank SNS, 87 percent of recruiters who answered pointed to insufficient Swedish as a challenge when hiring people born outside the Nordic countries. In Svenskt Näringsliv’s recruitment survey, nearly one in four companies say insufficient Swedish is an obstacle when they recruit.

Formal language training only goes so far. Of the people who started SFI, the state Swedish course for immigrants, between 2010 and 2020, under 10 percent had completed the final upper-secondary course in Swedish as a second language by 2020 (SNS). Meanwhile the job asks for more language than it used to. A 2025 research review from Ratio notes that tasks increasingly include evaluation and documentation, even in low-skilled jobs.

What the first week looks like in a second language

The onboarding documents exist in one language, usually Swedish or English. The person reads policies and instructions in that language and asks questions in it. Meetings run at the speed of the fastest speaker in the room.

The Swedish Language Council, Språkrådet, has published guidance for this situation. Its language advisor Sofia Tingsell points out that language problems at work are often invisible to managers because colleagues sort them out on the floor (Prevent, on Språkrådet’s guide). The guide’s advice includes:

• appoint language supporters at work
• provide text templates for letters and reports
• show text and pictures in meetings, instead of only talking
• slow down, simplify and check understanding with questions
• keep using Swedish so the person gets to practise, instead of switching to English at the first difficulty

There is a third language at work

Employers who do this well teach the job’s own vocabulary, not just Swedish. The car workshop group Mechanum gives new technicians cheat sheets that explain common Swedish words and each car brand’s terms for the same parts. Their quality manager adds a third kind of Swedish: fikasvenska, the Swedish spoken on breaks. Scandic, with about 130 nationalities on staff, runs its own job courses in Swedish with translation into 100 languages for words people do not understand (both via Svenskt Näringsliv).

The common thread: language support works best when it sits next to the actual job. Ratio’s review says workplace-based language development seems to have positive effects on work environment, sick leave and how long people stay (Ratio).

5. Interns, graduates and consultants

These groups get the same process as a new hire, shorter and lighter, even though they need it most.

Graduates get the shortest start

Saco’s 2025 report surveyed just over 500 recent graduates who had worked at least three months (Saco report, summarised by Suntarbetsliv):

• A quarter had no introduction at all or were unsure whether they had one.
• Only half felt their workplace had a clear onboarding strategy.
• Of those who did get an introduction, over half had support for a month or less, and one in five only during the first week.

Compare that with the three months the research says it takes to settle in.

1 in 5 Swedish graduates who got an introduction had support only during their first week. (Saco 2025, via Suntarbetsliv)

Interns get a lighter version still. Checklists such as Workable’s cover the basics: contact before day one, a manager who has the seat and the first project ready, a buddy if nobody has time for full training, and HR on hand because it may be the person’s first job. The role layer is learned by asking.

Consultants arrive outside the HR process

Hired-in consultants and contractors often sit outside the HR onboarding entirely. GitLab’s handbook says its People team is not involved in hiring, onboarding or offboarding temporary service providers (GitLab). In Sweden the client still has duties: under chapter 3, section 12 of the Work Environment Act, a company that hires in staff must assess risks and examine working conditions for them too (Arbetsgivarverket). Suntarbetsliv’s checklist lists hired-in staff, interns and temporary workers among the people who need an introduction.

We found no solid data on how consultants experience their first week at a client. The usual pattern is an account, a contact person, a kick-off meeting and a link to some documents. The client’s way of doing things gets learned on the job, and the consultant is expected to bill from day one.

6. The next hire starts from zero

The sources above describe one person’s start. None of them follows what happens to the knowledge after that start.

Picture a made-up but typical case. A new analyst spends ninety minutes in week one working out which report to pull for a client, who owns it, and what “active” means in this team. She asks a colleague, gets the answer in a chat message and gets on with it. Three months later another analyst starts. He asks the same colleague the same question. The answer exists only in the colleague’s head and in a chat thread nobody will find again.

The process does not capture answers. Checklists record that a meeting happened, not what was said in it. Buddies answer questions, but the answers stay in their heads. The handbook is updated by whoever has time, which in a busy team means nobody. When the colleague who knows leaves, the answer leaves with them.

This is why the first week costs the same for the fifth hire as for the first. The team pays for the same explanations again, and the experts lose the same hours to them.

7. What works

The research is clearer about what helps than about what it costs. Several findings point the same way.

The manager takes part

When the manager takes an active role in onboarding, employees are 3.4 times as likely to say their onboarding was successful (Gallup). The manager matters most and has the least time. A manager with five open questions from a new hire and a full calendar has to choose.

3.4x as likely to call onboarding a success when the manager takes an active role. (Gallup)

A role-specific introduction, with a plan

Region Uppsala splits introduction into a shared part and a role-specific part, and the role part is documented. Suntarbetsliv’s checklist, drawn from Saco’s report and current research, asks for a written plan, clarity about the role, its content and what is expected, and help with prioritising tasks (Suntarbetsliv).

A named person to ask, and permission to ask

The same checklist asks for a mentor or supervisor and an open learning climate where it is allowed and welcome to ask. Saco found that graduates with a mentor or supervisor were more often satisfied with their introduction, and more of them got help to prioritise and reflect on their role.

Less information at once, over a longer time

The KI researchers recommend a plan that does not overload the new person at the start. The Suntarbetsliv checklist recommends letting the introduction take three months. Together these say: give people what they need when they need it, not everything on Monday.

Answers in writing, in a form people understand

Språkrådet’s advice to show text and not only talk, and to provide templates, helps people working in their second language and, as the guide notes, native speakers too. Mechanum’s cheat sheets and Scandic’s translated course words are the same idea: write down the job’s own words and make them readable for the person in front of you.

Put the findings side by side and they describe the same thing. New people need the role knowledge in writing, a person behind it for the questions the writing cannot answer, and a pace they can follow.

8. What we do about it at Opmore

We built Opmore around the role layer, the part of the first week that lives in people’s heads. Here is what that means in practice.

1. We interview the people who know. Before the new person starts, we talk to the people who do the role today and the experts around it. Their answers become a written role playbook: how the work is done here, who decides what, what good looks like.
2. New people can ask the playbook. They ask questions in their own language and get answers that show where they came from. They don’t have to work out which wiki page is current or whether a question is too basic to ask.
3. Questions the playbook cannot answer go to the right expert. The expert answers once, and we write the answer back into the playbook. The next person who asks gets it straight away, and so does the next hire.
4. The new person gets a first-week plan. It sets a few concrete tasks per day, built from the playbook, so day one has a purpose beyond forms.
5. They can listen to the role before they arrive. We turn the playbook into a book about the company and the role that the new person can listen to before day one.

HR, IT and the welcome lunch stay as they are. Opmore covers the knowledge handover, so the meet-the-team meetings can be about the people instead of facts, and the manager can see which questions came up in week one instead of finding the gaps at day 30.

The test we hold ourselves to is simple: how many of a new person’s first-week questions the playbook answers on its own, and whether the rest get answered once and stay answered.

Sources

Vendor-run surveys are marked. Pages were read on 10 October 2026.

• Gallup. Why the Onboarding Experience Is Key for Retention (2018, updated 2026)
• Gallup. 8 Practical Tips for Leaders for a Better Onboarding Process (2021, updated 2025)
• BambooHR (vendor-run). First Impressions Are Everything: 44 Days to Make or Break a New Hire (survey of 1,565 US full-time office workers, April 2023)
• McKinsey Global Institute. The social economy (July 2012)
• Prevent. En bra introduktion minskar stress (on the Karolinska Institutet study, December 2020)
• Prevent. Så funkar språkstöd på jobbet (on Språkrådet’s guide “Flerspråkighet i arbete”, October 2021)
• Statistics Sweden (SCB). Befolkningens arbetsmarknadsstatus, november 2024 (published January 2025)
• SNS, Stefan Eriksson and Dan-Olof Rooth. God svenska, vägen till arbete för utrikes födda? (October 2022)
• Svenskt Näringsliv. Ny rapport: Så blir jobbet en träning i svenska språket (September 2026)
• Ratio, F. Forsberg Lundell and L. Ahlgren. Språk och arbetsmarknad i Sverige, en svår ekvation? (June 2025)
• Saco. Trygg i starten, stark i längden: vikten av introduktion för nyexaminerade (2025)
• Suntarbetsliv. De första 100 dagarna, lyckas med onboarding (August 2025)
• Suntarbetsliv. Tips vid introduktion (checklist, PDF)
• Arbetsmiljöverket. Systematiskt arbetsmiljöarbete
• Arbetsmiljöverket. Example checklist for introduction (PDF)
• Arbetsgivarverket. Arbetsmiljö (on hired-in staff, Work Environment Act chapter 3, section 12)
• Region Uppsala. Rutin för introduktion av nyanställda (May 2024, PDF)
• GitLab Handbook. GitLab Onboarding
• Workable. Onboarding interns checklist
• Teamtailor. Start the onboarding of your new hires in Teamtailor
• Cornerstone. 30-60-90 day onboarding guide