Onboarding is a communication process. It transmits knowledge, culture, and expectations from an organization to a new hire. If you view onboarding through information theory, you begin to see where and how “noise” interferes with the message.
The Channel Model
In information theory, a message is sent through a channel, and noise distorts it. In onboarding:
- Message: What the organization wants the new hire to know.
- Channel: Training sessions, documents, mentors, tools.
- Noise: Ambiguous instructions, outdated docs, missing context.
Noise leads to misunderstandings, slow ramp-up, and frustration. The goal is not to eliminate noise entirely but to reduce it systematically.
Measuring Noise
You can detect noise by observing the learning curve:
- Where do new hires repeatedly ask the same questions?
- Which steps cause confusion or rework?
- What do people learn only after weeks of trial and error?
These are signals that the channel is distorted.
Reducing Noise
- Clarify the message: Write docs with explicit context and examples.
- Improve the channel: Use interactive tools, mentors, and feedback loops.
- Capture feedback: Every question is data about what the system failed to transmit.
Onboarding as Improvement Engine
The most powerful shift is treating onboarding as a system that improves itself. Each onboarding cycle updates the knowledge base, reducing noise for the next cohort.
Over time, onboarding becomes faster, clearer, and more reliable—because the system learns from every transmission failure.
Implications
When onboarding is treated as a channel, organizations gain a measurable way to improve learning. Instead of relying on intuition, they can track noise, reduce distortion, and ensure knowledge is transmitted with precision.