When you work on onboarding at scale, you start to notice something quickly: the difference between a good and a bad experience often comes down to something very simple: whether someone feels supported.

During my time at Techcombank, I supported 600+ onboarding cases within just 6 months. On paper, everything looked structured since Techcombank is such a big corporation: processes, checklists, timelines. But in reality, the experience varied a lot. Some new hires adapted quickly, while others felt lost after the first few days.

The gap wasn’t in the process but in the connection.

That’s where the Buddy Program came in.

The idea was simple: pair each new hire with a buddy who works under the same department to guide them through their first months. But making that idea work consistently across hundreds of employees? That was the real challenge.

Turning an Idea into a System

I wasn’t leading the program, but I was deeply involved in making it work in practice.

Working across 600+ onboarding journeys, I started noticing patterns. Buddy assignments were inconsistent. Some teams were proactive, others weren’t. In some cases, the buddy relationship worked well. In others, it barely existed. From a buddy's perspective, some of them don’t know what they need to do, some of them volunteer to do things but don’t know where to register.

So I focused on three things:

• Making the invisible visible through data: I gathered and organized onboarding data to identify where the experience was breaking down. This helped the team move from assumptions to actual insights. We gathered which department already had a buddy and which didn’t, we collected data from people willing to do it and also encouraged people to join it as well.

• Connecting the dots across teams: Onboarding doesn’t sit in one function. I worked closely with HR, IT, and operations to align processes so that buddy assignments, system access, and communication didn’t fall out of sync. We helped the buddies don’t feel lost and made sure all the paper and working materials were ready from day 1.

• Keeping the engine running: I supported the day-to-day execution by tracking connections, maintaining communication flows, and making sure the program was applied consistently across departments.

None of these tasks sound big on their own. But together, they made the difference between a program that exists and a program that actually works.

What Changed

Once the Buddy Program became more structured and consistently applied, the impact started to show:

New hire satisfaction improved especially in the first 30–60 days

We received mostly positive feedback from new hires along the program.

Most importantly, the onboarding experience became more consistent across all 600+ cases, instead of depending on individual teams

What I Took Away

This experience changed how I think about HR. Before, I thought impact came from designing good programs. Now, I know it comes from making them work at scale.

Sometimes, your role isn’t to lead from the front. It’s to connect data, align people, and keep things running smoothly behind the scenes. And when you do that well, you don’t just support a program. You shape how hundreds of people experience their very first days at work. And that stays with them much longer than any onboarding checklist ever will.