Redesigning Onboarding and Early Talent Retention in Specialized Retail: A Critical Analysis

Abstract

Early employee turnover remains a persistent challenge in labor-intensive service contexts. This issue is particularly salient in specialized retail, where performance, customer experience, and brand consistency depend on effective processes of organizational socialization and early skill development. Despite the growing attention devoted to onboarding, its role as a mechanism for organizational structuring, control, and differentiation of integration experiences remains limited. This study examines how the strategic redesign of onboarding can contribute to reducing early turnover among sales professionals in specialized retail. A qualitative interpretive approach was adopted, based on a single case study, and supported by a three-round Delphi method. Eighteen experts from management, human resources, training, and operations participated in the study. The findings indicate that early turnover is associated with an excessive concentration of digital training, insufficient relational support during the initial weeks, a lack of differentiation between contractual profiles, and weak formalization of mentoring roles. These factors reflect underlying organizational tensions related to the standardization of practices, inequality in integration experiences, and the diffusion of responsibilities within the onboarding process. The results support an understanding of onboarding as a management system that structures integration experiences and conditions employees’ initial adjustment. In this context, a redesigned onboarding model is proposed, highlighting how this process can simultaneously facilitate or constrain employee integration.