Why Personalized Learning Beats One-Size-Fits-All
Why One-Size-Fits-All Learning Doesn’t Work (And What To Do Instead)
We’ve all seen it happen.
A new hire joins the team, excited to get started. On day one, they’re handed a 40-item onboarding checklist that hasn’t been updated in months - or maybe years. It includes outdated processes, tools they’ll never use, and training modules that are barely relevant to their role.
A few weeks later, the feedback rolls in:
“This didn’t apply to me.”
“I’m still not sure how to do half the things I’m responsible for.”
“I finished everything, but I still feel lost.”
It’s not that the onboarding was bad. It’s that it wasn’t built for them.
The Problem with One-Size-Fits-All
Most companies want onboarding to be efficient and consistent. So they build a single, standardized plan and give it to everyone. But the problem is no two hires come in with the same background, role, or expectations.
One-size-fits-all onboarding assumes that everyone needs the same information, in the same order, at the same time. But that just isn’t how real people learn. And the data backs that up. According to Gallup, only 12% of employees say their company does a good job onboarding new hires (source). That means 88% of onboarding experiences are falling short. And one of the top reasons? The onboarding isn’t tailored to the role or individual.
Another report by Sapling HR found that individualized onboarding plans lead to 54% greater new hire productivity and 50% greater new hire retention. That’s not a small difference, that’s the difference between someone who sticks around and thrives, and someone who quietly disengages or quits in the first six months.
Why Personalized Onboarding Matters
When onboarding is personalized, people don’t just complete checklists. They actually understand what they need to succeed in their role. They feel seen. They build confidence. They make fewer mistakes. And they don’t waste time on irrelevant training that adds no value to their day-to-day.
Let’s say one person is joining to lead a customer implementation. They’ll need context on client workflows, success metrics, and how to manage blockers. Someone else might be joining as a backend engineer. They need system architecture, codebase orientation, and security protocols.
Same company, same onboarding checklist? That makes no sense. And yet, that’s how most teams still do it.
The good news? Personalizing onboarding doesn’t have to mean starting from scratch for every new hire. It just means designing the system to reflect the reality of how different people learn, contribute, and ramp up.
Onboarding That Reflects the Actual Work
That’s exactly how we designed onboarding inside Tohdo. Instead of assigning a generic list of modules, you assign onboarding tasks that are tied directly to the work a person will be doing - real deliverables, actual projects, and tools they'll use every day. They don’t just get a document explaining the team structure - they see their first task, who’s involved, and where to go when they have questions.
They don’t just read about the product - they engage with examples, notes from others who’ve done the work, and role-specific insights that feel like they were made for them. And when someone new figures something out, that insight doesn’t disappear into a chat thread. It gets added back to the system, so the next person benefits too.
Consistency Where It Counts, Flexibility Where It Matters
We’re not saying everything should be custom. Some parts of onboarding should absolutely be consistent, like your company values, security protocols, or how to request time off. But beyond that, the plan should reflect the role. That’s how you keep the important parts standardized without turning the whole experience into a bloated, impersonal checklist. It’s about meeting people where they are and helping them get where they need to go, faster.
When people feel supported and relevantly challenged in their first few weeks, they don’t just get through onboarding - they actually thrive:
Faster ramp-up: Personalized plans reduce the time it takes to become fully productive
Higher retention: Employees who feel confident and valued early on are more likely to stay
Fewer “I don’t know how to do this” moments and way more “I’ve got this” moments
And for the team around them? Less rework, fewer repeated questions, and more time spent on meaningful progress—not cleaning up onboarding gaps.
Generic onboarding is easy to build. But personalizing it is what actually works. If your team is growing, and you’re seeing signs that new hires are getting lost, moving slowly, or asking the same questions again and again—it’s probably not a hiring issue. It’s an onboarding one.
With the right system in place, you can make onboarding something people talk about for the right reasons. Thoughtful, useful, relevant. Built for the real work they’ll do - not the checkbox you want to tick. Because when you set people up for success in the beginning, they carry that confidence through everything they do next.