5 barriers to onboarding new users

Onboarding new users is a strategic step in any implementation or digital transformation project. Yet many companies find that despite the efforts made, tool adoption remains partial and fragile. Behind this challenge lie recurring, structural or organisational obstacles that undermine the effectiveness of initial training initiatives. Here are five major ones detailed in this article.

Contents:

Theoretical training disconnected from real usage
Immediate pressure to be productive
Training formats unsuited to user profiles
A dispersed organisation that is hard to synchronise
Underestimating application complexity

1. Theoretical training disconnected from real usage

One of the first barriers to effective user onboarding lies in the training content itself. Too often, materials are generic and focused on how the tool works technically, not on users’ actual use cases. New employees, faced with guidance that feels distant from their reality, struggle to link what they’re learning with what they’ll actually need to do in their roles.

This top-down approach does not help instil good practices and often results in information being forgotten immediately after the session. It also creates confusion when users try to act in their specific professional context.

2. Immediate pressure to be productive

The second barrier relates to operational realities. From the moment they start, new hires are often thrown into a fast-paced environment with immediate expectations. The time they can devote to learning is limited and rarely prioritised.

In this context, onboarding becomes secondary, squeezed between urgent tasks or postponed indefinitely. The implicit message from the organisation is that training is not essential to performance, which further weakens tool adoption. And when tool training is delayed, bad habits have time to take hold.

3. Training formats unsuited to user profiles

Every user interacts differently with digital tools, HR systems or business processes. Yet onboarding programmes are often standardised, without distinguishing between roles, levels of experience or tool usage frequency. A manager, field employee or new HR officer do not have the same needs or constraints.

This one-size-fits-all approach prevents targeted, relevant training. It leaves behind users less familiar with digital tools or those who require more gradual support. The result is uneven adoption across user groups.

4. A dispersed organisation that is hard to synchronise

In multi-site structures or remote environments, onboarding also faces logistical challenges. Geographic dispersion, time zones, language differences or available equipment make it hard to organise synchronous training or deliver consistent content.

This lack of synchronisation leads to uneven upskilling. Some employees receive full onboarding, others only parts of it, or none at all. The organisation then struggles to establish a common knowledge base that is essential to consistent HR practices.

5. Underestimating application complexity

Finally, onboarding can falter due to a simplified view of the tool being introduced. An HRIS, for instance, might appear intuitive at first glance. But the variety of processes, input requirements or navigation logic can create unexpected roadblocks.

When users cannot complete seemingly simple tasks, like validating an appraisal or requesting leave, it is often because the user journey includes steps or conditions they did not grasp. And these details are not always covered in initial training, leading to frustration and early errors.

Conclusion

The difficulty of onboarding new users is not due to a lack of goodwill, but to a set of deeply embedded organisational barriers. From time constraints to unsuitable formats, geographic gaps to tool complexity, the conditions for effective learning are rarely fully in place.
To ensure adoption, this stage must be rethought as a strategic process tailored to real-world conditions and users’ concrete needs.

👉 To explore this topic further, our next article will focus on 6 secrets to making your new employees operational from day one

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The Shortways Solution

Shortways Assistant is a digital adoption platform that integrates with your business tools (HRIS, ERP, CRM, etc.) and trains your users contextually and in a personalised way according to their role, language and the screen they are on.
How? Shortways Assistant displays step-by-step guides, notification bubbles and contextual FAQs directly within the screens of your business applications.

🔎 It digitises your user manual by breaking it down into micro-modules, available exactly where needed in your tool.
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