In 1985, I took my first job in the aerospace industry. On day 1, an HR person showed me to a conference room, handed me a thick manual, and said, “Read this.” That was onboarding. It took 4 hours to read the manual. I had nothing else to do—nothing else to be engaged in.
Imagine trying that onboarding process today with digitally connected hires. Who could make it through a dull, mostly irrelevant manual when the Internet is a tap away?
