The three most common hiring mistakes are moving too fast, underpaying, and bringing on a high-skill but low-collaboration person who poisons team culture. Lia walks through each mistake with real examples and shares how slowing down, paying fairly, and enforcing a no-jerk rule are your best protection against costly turnover. This episode is essential for founders, team leads, and new managers who have ever felt the pressure to fill a seat fast.
This episode is part of the Hiring, Onboarding & New Team Members series. Browse all episodes →
Mic drop moments
“…if an employee is sitting idle, every minute of that is an hourly rate they’re getting paid that you are not utilizing for your business.”
“…when we set expectations, we can make that person have such a more seamless transition, and they make a better impression from the start.”
“…people don’t think about it. They think it’s like, oh, whatever. They’ll figure it out and it makes a bad experience and they wonder why did I join this company?”
Episode highlights
Why no onboarding plan is never “no big deal”
Lia opens with a story from her own career. She moved to a new state for a job, walked in on day one excited, sat down at 8:30am, and no one spoke to her until 4:45pm. Her manager was at an offsite and never checked in. The result: “Why the hell did I move? Why am I here?” That one experience tarnished the whole job.
The lesson is direct. When you do not think about onboarding, you are not just being disorganized. You are sending a message: you are not a priority here, I am not excited you joined. That message lands hard, especially now when people are willing to leave a job in under a year.
The business case you cannot ignore
Beyond the human cost, Lia makes the financial case bluntly. If a new hire sits idle, every minute is an hourly rate you are paying without getting anything back. Someone earning $20 an hour who has nothing to do for eight hours across their first three days? That is hundreds of dollars that could have been reinvested in the business. Idle time is not harmless. It is a direct cost.
Move one: 15 minutes at the start and end of day one
Block 15 minutes to welcome the new hire at the start of the day and check in at the end. If your schedule truly will not allow it, assign someone on the team to do this instead, but Lia is clear: unless it is literally impossible, show up yourself for at least one of those two windows.
The opening meeting sets the tone. Show them around physically or virtually, walk them through the Slack channels, the shared drives, how things work. The closing meeting is simple: “How did it go? What questions do you have?” That invitation alone removes the awkward “I have a question but I do not know who to ask” spiral that kills early momentum.
Move two: send the welcome email
A short email or Slack message introducing the new hire to the whole team does more than feel nice. It tells everyone why this person exists on the team, what they are working on, and signals that they have been endorsed to reach out. It removes the friction of a new hire cold-messaging people who have no idea who they are.
Lia gives a template on the spot: welcome the person, name what they are working on, invite others to connect. Bonus move: ask the new hire to reply with a few things about themselves so teammates have real hooks to respond to. She has seen managers wait two or three weeks, even a month, to send this. By then the new hire is already emailing strangers who respond with “who are you again?” Send it day one.
Move three: define what success looks like in week one
New hires want to add value immediately. Without guidance, some will overcorrect and start recommending product changes in meetings before they know anything. Others will wait quietly and feel uncomfortable not knowing if they should be doing their job or just watching.
The fix is simple: tell them. In the first-day sync or a short email, spell out what you want to see by Friday. Read these documents. Shadow this person. Ask questions. Or if they need to jump in right away because the role demands it, say that too. Clear expectations prevent both the overachiever misfire and the disengaged drift.
Related episodes in this cluster
- Ep 235: Why your new hire is not working out (and how to fix it before it costs you). When a new hire is not working out, it is almost never a people problem. It is a process problem caused by two gaps: an interview that skips values and expectations, and an onboarding that skips knowledge transfer. Lia walks through both gaps with a real example from Google and gives you the fixes to de-risk your next senior hire.
- Ep 219: Did you make a bad hire? How to know and what to do next. Most ‘bad hire’ situations are actually bad onboarding or missing feedback situations. Lia walks through a 30/60/90-day check-in framework that helps you assess a new team member clearly, without panic or dragging it out too long. This episode is especially useful for founders and small team leaders who are second-guessing a recent hire.
- Ep 191: The two onboarding mistakes that kill a new hire’s excitement before week one is over. Most onboarding failures come down to two problems: new hires left with nothing to do and no direction, or new hires who charge in too hard and alienate the team. Both happen because the leader never set clear expectations before day one. This episode walks through exactly what to fix, with Lia’s own story of a disastrous first day as the centerpiece.
- Ep 190: Three hiring mistakes that wreck your team (and what to do instead). The three most common hiring mistakes are moving too fast, underpaying, and bringing on a high-skill but low-collaboration person who poisons team culture. Lia walks through each mistake with real examples and shares how slowing down, paying fairly, and enforcing a no-jerk rule are your best protection against costly turnover. This episode is essential for founders, team leads, and new managers who have ever felt the pressure to fill a seat fast.
Want to go deeper?
The Unstoppable Team. How to build a team that runs without you in the room.
Full transcript (click to expand)
From your bottom line perspective, if an employee is sitting idle, every minute of that is an hourly rate they’re getting paid that you are not utilizing for your business. So if you want to think about it as far as that, and if someone’s getting paid $20 an hour and they sit there for eight hours, three of their first days, now that’s hundreds of dollars that could be reinvested in your business. Welcome to the Managing Made Simple podcast, where I bring a decade of experience working in some of the most influential companies in tech to help you navigate the ins and outs of being a people manager from conflicts to feedback, to delegating and more.
We will leave no stone unturned when it comes to what makes us love managing, kind of hate it and everything in between. Doesn’t matter if you’re a new manager looking for some tips or a seasoned manager looking up their game. Everyone is welcome to hang out with managing Made Simple. Let’s go. Let’s go, let’s go. I know you’re here because you want to be better manager, but I also know it’s often easier than done. That’s why I put together a scorecard of 20 things that you can do this month and every month to show up better for your team as a manager, from positive feedback to recognition, to honoring those working norms that we know we gotta do, but sometimes forget.
This scorecard serves as a checklist and accountability buddy to remind you of all those things you gotta do to be a great manager. Download your copy today at liagarvin/com/scorecard. Welcome back to the show and welcome back to my regularly scheduled sinus issues. So apologies for sounding like I’m coming at you from inside of a fish tank. All right, well, it is Sunday and we are going to talk about the situation you might find yourself in sometimes of help.
I have a new team member starting tomorrow and I haven’t thought about it. I don’t have plan and I don’t know what to do. We’ve all been there where we spend so much time on looking for candidates, on interviewing, on finalizing details. Then we get busy because we have the person squared away and realize, oh my God, they’re starting tomorrow and I don’t have a plan. Okay. No shame. No shame on the podcast. And if you’re finding yourself in this situation, first I wanted to set the stage of why onboarding is even important, because this is something I think we can overlook.
And then we have a new person starting and we’re like, well, why should I have thought about it in advance? And I want to bring you back. A long time ago, my first job in tech, I moved by myself to another state up up the coast. My husband was still in school, so I got an apartment and I started a job. And on the first day I was so excited. I got there early. I parked my car, I go inside and the admin assistant for the team walk me to my desk, and I sat down.
It was about eight 30 and no one said a word to me. Until 4 45 when I was like, well, I guess this is my life now where I got up and left and I felt terrible. I said, why the hell did I move? Why am I here? What am I doing? And it really, really tarnished the experience in this job. My manager apparently was in a offsite all day and didn’t reach out at any point.
I had no idea what I was supposed to be working on. No idea where to look for anything. You know how to even get started, use that time to ramp up. The person just like didn’t think about it. And what happens when we don’t think about it is it tells an employee at the outset, I don’t really have time for you. I’m not, I’m not excited that you’re here. I, you’re not a priority. And that’s not how we wanna make our new employees feel.
Because a lot of times, especially now when people are freely changing jobs in any amount of time, including like way less than a year, We don’t wanna set it off on the wrong foot, we actually wanna set it off on the right foot. Not only that, okay, from your bottom line perspective, if an employee is sitting idle, every minute of that is an hourly rate they’re getting paid that you are not utilizing for your business. So if you want to think about it as far as that, and if someone’s getting paid $20 an hour and they sit there for eight hours, three of their first days, now that’s hundreds of dollars that could be reinvested in your business.
So what do we do instead? Well, I wanted to share three simple, simple things that we can do in employees first week to help them to get set up for success, to show them that we’re excited that they’re there to help them get up to speed right away so they can hit the ground running. First one is to carve out 15 minutes at the start and the end of that person’s first day where you can meet with them.
And if you are not able to do this, because it’s literally tomorrow when they’re starting and there’s no way you have an all day meeting or something, then find someone on the team that can meet with that person at the beginning of their day and at the end. You want that person to be welcoming the, the new hire, telling them they’re excited, they’re there. Showing them the ropes, showing them around if you’re in a physical location or showing them around virtually, you know, a, a Google Drive folder or a Dropbox or wherever you have stuff, how to use the Slack channel.
Whatever it is, you want someone to give them a tour at the beginning, and this is gonna be really, really important because this sets the tone right away. Ooh, okay. I can find my way around here. I belong here. Ideally, you do make yourself available at least for one of those two meetings because if you are the person’s manager and you’re evaluating their career, you wanna be building that relationship. From minute one, so I’m gonna say if unless absolutely impossible, please make the time that day, at least for one of those 15 minute syncs.
And ideally, two, what is the sync? At the end of the day, it’s saying, how did it go? Welcome again. I’m so excited for you be here. What questions do you have now that you’ve been here a little bit of time and opening that invitation for someone to come to you so they’re not sitting idly, waiting around with questions and they don’t really know how to ask them. We wanna create that moment. What questions do you have?
Where are you getting stuck? So we get them off and running back on day two. Next, we wanna send a welcome email where everyone in the team can know this person has joined, can help celebrate them, and knows what that person is working on. I’m calling it a welcome email. Obviously this could be a Slack message or whatever communication forum works for you. The welcome email’s awesome for a few reasons. Because it opens the door for other people to reach out to them and say, Hey, you know, I’m working on a similar space.
Let’s collaborate on this. And it opens the door for that person to, to reach out to other employees because they’ve been announced that they’re actually there. And a lot of times folks feel uncomfortable reaching out and saying, hi, I’m new here. Can we meet about something? Or, I have a question, and we wanna make that a little bit easier for someone. Even if they are comfortable reaching out proactively, we wanna open the door so that it’s clear why this new hire is reaching out who they are.
You’ve endorsed them as a person that should be connecting with people and so on. So this is gonna be really important. The email can literally be two sentences. Hey, everyone. Wanted to welcome Joe Smith to the team. He’s going to be focused on X, Y, Z. I’ve asked him to reach out to folks about the role. Please also reach out to him to connect. Thank you everyone. Bye. Right. That’s more than two sentences and it’s still very easy to write.
So, and bonus points for saying, Hey, Joe. Reply with a little bit about yourself so that person can share about themselves, some personal things, some fun things, and other people have some hooks to grab onto to respond and connect with them. That’s an easy one, and we don’t always do it. I’ve been in teams where I join and the manager doesn’t send this welcome email for two or three weeks, maybe even a month, and I’m emailing people or sending invites or asking people to connect and they’re like, who are you again?
Like, why would I meet with you? Just send the email. Literally, I gave you a template right now, a couple sentences, send it out. Try to do it. That person’s first day, if you can. Honestly, because that’s going to make everything so much easier for you. The more proactive your team member can be, the less they’re asking you to be helping them and answering questions. And we wanna be available to answer their questions, but if we’re not the right person to answer a question and we could have pointed them to someone through this email, then let’s do that last one.
We wanna give them an overview of what success looks like this first week. A lot of employees start a job and they want to bring value right away. And it makes them uncomfortable to just be sitting and waiting and soaking things in and feeling like, well, how long should I be onboarding for? How long should I not really know? Should I be doing my job from day one? Should I be meeting with people? If it’s not clear, people make assumptions and it may not be the same as what you’d like to see.
So explain what you’d like to see outlining a couple things. Sending an email to that new employee or talking about it in this 15 minute sync and saying, Hey, wanted to let you know, here’s what success looks like this first week. I want you to be reading these kinds of documents, taking in this information. I want you to be shadowing someone in their role. Or maybe they have to start the job immediately and you wanna say, well, you know, you have to start the job immediately because you know, you are working on the customer service desk, and this was, we don’t have somebody here or something like that.
And so success looks like by Friday you feel like you have less questions than you had today. Something like that. Very, very simple. But we wanna give people a clear picture of what we are expecting of them. In this first week, I’ve been on teams where employees come in hot, they go, I need to add value right away. I need to be adding value In meetings where they don’t know anything, they’re already like making suggestions on product directions, stuff like that.
And it’s like, Ooh, rain and in Buddy. And I think that’s because the manager didn’t set expectations of. Hey, in the first week, I just want you to be getting to know people, listening, soak things up, be a sponge. Instead of that person feeling like, well, they hired me. I better run in and, and start changing stuff. So when we set expectations, we can make that person have such a more seamless transition, and they make a better impression from the start.
Those are the three things we can do. If you have a new hire starting literally tomorrow or imminently and you haven’t really thought about it, make 15 minutes at the start and end of that first day, or find someone who can connect with the person just to welcome them, show them the ropes, give ’em that tour of the company. Second, send a welcome email within the first few days, introducing them, talking about what they’re gonna work on, and inviting other people to connect with them.
And then third, give them an overview of what success looks like their first week. If you do this, you will give your new hires such a better experience than like 90% of managers out there because people don’t think about it. They think it’s like, oh, whatever. They’ll figure it out and it makes a bad experience and they wonder why did I join this company? And that is not what we want our new hires to think. We want them to think, I am so excited I joined this company.
Right. Okay. So that’s what we’re gonna do. And if you want more specific support on how to set up your onboarding system, this is one of the core six areas of the ops playbook because they know it needs to be tailored to your own company. It has to feel authentic. So this is why we cover this in the Ops Playbook because it’s a fundamental piece of how you drive efficiency in your team and it saves you money at the outset, and that’s what the Ops Playbook is all about.
Finding those little quick changes that you can make on your team that optimize people. Save time and save money that you can reinvest in your business. To get started with the playbook, reach out at [email protected] or head tolia garvin.com/playbook. See you next time. That’s all I have for today. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Managing Made Simple Podcast where my goal is to demystify the job of people management so that together we can make the workplace somewhere everyone can thrive.
I always love to hear from you, so please reach out@ at liagarvin.com or message me on LinkedIn. See you next time.
Questions this episode answers
What do I do if a new hire is starting tomorrow and I have no onboarding plan?
Focus on three things you can pull together fast. First, carve out 15 minutes at the start and end of their first day to welcome them, show them around, and check in on how it went. If you genuinely cannot be there, find someone on the team who can do it. Second, send a welcome email to the whole team introducing the new hire and what they will be working on. Third, tell the new hire what success looks like in their first week so they are not left guessing. These three steps take almost no prep time and make a huge difference.
Why does a bad first day hurt employee retention?
When a new hire sits alone with no direction and no one reaching out, the message they receive is that they are not a priority. That feeling sticks. People change jobs freely now, often in less than a year, and a rough first day gives them an early reason to question whether they made the right call joining your team. A little intentional effort on day one signals that you are excited they are there and sets the tone for a relationship built on communication and trust from the start.
How do I introduce a new team member to the rest of the team?
Send a welcome email or Slack message on their first day. It does not need to be long. Two to four sentences saying who they are, what they will be focused on, and an invite for teammates to reach out works perfectly. You can also ask the new hire to reply with a little about themselves so people have something personal to connect over. This simple step opens the door for collaboration and makes it easier for the new hire to reach out to colleagues without feeling like they are cold-calling strangers.
What should I tell a new employee success looks like in their first week?
Be specific and say it out loud, either in your first check-in or a quick email. Tell them whether you want them reading key documents, shadowing a teammate, attending meetings as a listener, or jumping into the actual work right away. Without this guidance, new hires make their own assumptions, and sometimes they come in trying to change things before they understand the context. When you set clear expectations for week one, the new hire makes a better impression and feels far less anxious about whether they are doing the right things.
How much does it cost a small business when a new hire has nothing to do on their first days?
Every hour a new hire sits idle is an hour of pay you are not getting any return on. If someone earns $20 an hour and spends three of their first days mostly waiting around, that adds up to hundreds of dollars in wages with little to show for it. A simple onboarding plan, even one built the night before, gets that person productive faster and turns those early hours into an actual investment rather than a sunk cost.