Make Every Job Transition a Life-Changing Experience for Your People

Traditional onboarding tends to focus on new employees in an organisation. New hires get a full onboarding experience, company swag, welcome notes, and a grace period of learning and connection. But what about employees who start new roles in their existing companies?

‍How employees make any job transition—whether it’s a promotion, change in teams, or shift in responsibilities—can impact their engagement and success. When done well, job transitions can lead to employees thriving in their new roles. But when left to “sink or swim”, employees can feel forgotten, disengaged, and regretful of their choice, ultimately leading to higher attrition.

“If someone is shifting to another part of the organisation or taking on a significant shift in their role, it is a mistake not to onboard them again. Not doing so will set those internal transfers up to struggle, underperform, and potentially quit.”
—Brian Kropp, Group Vice President, HR, Gartner

Our latest research shows that onboarding isn’t just for new hires. Onboarding should happen for all employees changing job roles, because job transitions are an opportunity to create transformative experiences for your people.

See all the data on job transitions in the 2025 Global Culture Report.

Four Key Factors of a Transformative Job Transition Experience

Research from the 2025 Global Culture Report finds there are 4 key elements to making a job transition experience transformative—a self-described, life-changing experience.

• Connection. Having strong relationships with new team members, leaders, and the organisation. Feeling connected to a common purpose. Odds of a positive transition experience increase 14x when employees feel a strong connection with their new teams.
• Community. A workplace community where employees feel safe to be themselves, trust their coworkers and leaders, and feel a powerful sense of belonging. Odds employees will have a positive transition experience increase 11x when there is a strong workplace community.
• Development. Employees who believe they have learning and growth opportunities in their new role have 5x better odds of experiencing a positive transition. Odds increase 10x when they have career advancement opportunities and flexibility to develop new skills.
• Flexibility. Having time to adjust to the many changes that come with new jobs. Providing autonomy to manage day-to-day work and allowing adequate time off for personal matters can increase the odds of a positive transition 5x.

When all four elements are present, the odds of a transformative or life-changing job transition experience increase 60x. And when job transitions are transformative, business outcomes improve:

3 Ways to Create Transformative Job Transitions 

1. Build connection and community with recognition

Recognition is a natural touchpoint between leaders or peers and a new employee to build connection. When organisations add integrated recognition to each of the four key job transition factors, the impact increases.

Make recognition a frequent part of every job transition. Give welcome eCards or handwritten notes when an employee first starts on the team, and swag boxes to build connection and community. Then use team building activities and regular peer-to-peer recognition to foster community after the onboarding period is over. Provide a variety of tools to recognise, ensure people have access to them, and encourage leaders and employees to use them.

2. Provide and recognise learning and development

Provide employees with opportunities to develop skills and grow in their new roles, and recognise them when they do.

Whether it’s recognition for certifications or formal training employees have completed, for learning a new skill or taking on a new project, or after their first accomplishment on the team, showing appreciation for growth fosters a sense of opportunity, success, and belonging early on.

3. Give employees flexibility and autonomy

When employees have some input and autonomy in how, when, and where they accomplish their work and can take time away for personal matters, it helps them feel valued and thrive at work.

Including recognition for things like innovation and life events and recognising in a variety of ways that are meaningful to the recipient all promote a sense of flexibility in the workplace.

The job transition period is a window of opportunity to build connection, belonging, and appreciation to help new employees thrive. Don’t miss out on a great opportunity to make every job transition a transformative experience.

‍

O.C. Tanner is the global leader in software and services that improve workplace culture through meaningful employee recognition experiences. Learn how Culture Cloud can enhance every stage of the employee lifecycle.