We believe that first impressions count at 9fin, so a strong onboarding process is critical to setting new 9finners up for success. And for us, onboarding doesn’t start from the first day on the job — it starts way before that with our candidate-focused hiring process, which you can read about here. This blog will focus on what happens once we extend an offer to a candidate.

Since the start of 2024, our onboarding program has received a score of 93 out of 100 from over 110 new joiners, reflecting the smooth experience and thoughtful approach we take to welcoming and preparing new team members. Here’s a closer look at what makes our onboarding experience stand out.

The 4 Cs: culture, connection, clarification, compliance

Employee onboarding goes beyond simply introducing new joiners to their roles — it’s about helping them integrate smoothly into the company’s environment, culture, and ways of working. Many successful onboarding programmes look at four key elements to achieve this, known as the 4 Cs: Compliance, which covers the basic legal and policy-related procedures; Clarification, which ensures new joiners understand their job and the company; Culture, which immerses them in the company's values, mission, and overall atmosphere — the things that make a company unique; and Connection, which fosters meaningful relationships with colleagues and builds a sense of belonging.

We’ve tailored these pillars to 9fin’s specific needs to create an onboarding experience that delivers clarity, excitement, and compliance across the board.

Autonomy from Day 1

At 9fin, autonomy is central to how we work, and this starts from onboarding. We encourage a self-serve mentality, empowering new 9finners to take ownership of their onboarding journey. Through our HR tech stack — Ashby and HiBob — all the information and tasks new joiners need are provided automatically, allowing them to progress at their own pace. Our goal is to give new joiners the information and tools they need to be successful, then step back and let them take control, with support always available.

For example, new 9finners are given access to our company intranet on Notion, a platform that some new joiners may not be familiar with. But we make the transition easy by housing everything in one place on Notion: our Onboarding Hub. From team-specific resources to IT support, everything is linked, so whether you’re a manager looking for our Manager Playbook or an employee needing info on our settling-in period (this is what we call the ‘probationary period’ here), it’s all accessible in a few clicks.

Screenshot of our Onboarding Hub

We took this a step further and created personalised onboarding guide templates for each team. The templates break down 30-60-90-day plans that are specific to every department. New 9finners can tick items off one-by-one, and this helps build momentum and a sense of accomplishment from the start. This self-serve approach also ensures all key onboarding milestones are met.

Screenshot of the inside of the Engineering onboarding template

Connections across the company

To ensure we build connections across our new 9finners, we also run a Buddy Programme specifically for new joiners, which pairs them with more experienced team members who have been with the company for at least six months. The buddy is there to answer any questions and to integrate them into the company informally.

Outside of our Buddy Programme, we also run a company-wide initiative called 9Pair that pairs people up across the company to get to know each other informally. We started this because our recent bi-annual engagement survey highlighted that some folks can struggle to connect with others outside of their own teams, especially since we’ve scaled so quickly, so 9pair was created to tackle this. We encourage all new joiners to join 9Pair.

To round out onboarding at 9fin, we also have a monthly recurring programme of intro-friendly calls that give overviews of our industry, product and teams. We’re looking at how we improve these calls, so this’ll be a big focus for us in the first quarter of 2025.

More generally, folks at 9fin are approachable, warm and excited to meet new members of the team. We invite people to message new joiners and even reach out to them before they start, and new joiners appreciate the extended warmth that fosters a sense of belonging from the beginning.

Feedback from our 9finners

I think our onboarding programme is great, and I could talk about it for hours. But don’t just take my word for it. Our recent 9finners love our onboarding, too. Here’s what a few of them say:

Not done yet.

Whilst the quantitative and qualitative data show that we’re doing well with onboarding, we don’t rest on our laurels. We’re continuously iterating on our onboarding programme and are treating it like a people product that is constantly adapting to feedback.

Our people operations coordinator, Rebecca Mbendo, is now responsible for running the onboarding programme, and she’s run some retrospective sessions to inform the next batch of improvements. She has already made tweaks to our onboarding and benefits presentations, buddy system and Hibob flows!

We’d love for you to join and see our onboarding programme for yourself!

Love what we’re building at 9fin? Check out our open roles here.