Book excerpt: Onboarding turns the key, opening the door to talent development Investing in onboarding means investing in employee success and the business of the future. Effective onboarding programs both increase and facilitate employee engagement and business results; onboarding shortens the employee learning curve by increasing job knowledge. If you need to design, revise, or expand your company’s onboarding program, Effective Onboarding offers a simple-to-follow path forward. Talent development experts Norma Dávila and Wanda Piña-Ramírez combine their significant consulting experience and the latest onboarding trends to create a single source for onboarding best practices, job aids, templates, and checklists. Also included are examples and stories based on real-life situations the authors have encountered in their practice. While many books about onboarding limit their approach to employee recruitment and selection, this book is more comprehensive, following employees through their first year on the job. Effective Onboarding clarifies the differences between orientation and onboarding, describes how to build a business case for your onboarding program, and guides you to design, implement, evaluate, and sustain the program that’s right for your organization. Effective Onboarding is part of a new ATD series, What Works in Talent Development, which addresses the most critical topics facing today’s talent development practitioners. Each book in the series is written for trainers, by trainers, and offers a clear, step-by-step path to solve real issues.