What Most People Get Wrong About Onboarding & Training
You hired someone great. They showed up excited on day one. Six weeks later, they’re overwhelmed, undertrained, and already thinking about leaving.
Most ABA clinics make the same onboarding and training mistakes without realizing it. These aren’t signs of bad intentions—they’re signs of missing systems. The good news? These mistakes are fixable, often with simple changes you can start today.
This article is for clinic owners, clinical directors, BCBAs stepping into supervisory roles, and anyone responsible for bringing new staff into an ABA setting. You’ll learn the difference between onboarding and training, see the most common mistakes clinics make, and get practical fixes you can implement immediately. We’ll also cover role-specific guidance for RBTs, BCBAs, and administrative staff, along with templates and checklists you can adapt.
Ethics and client safety come first throughout. Every recommendation here prioritizes competency verification before independent practice, clear supervision boundaries, and proper handling of protected health information.
Onboarding vs. Training: Clear Definitions
Before you can fix what’s broken, you need to use the right words. Onboarding and training are not the same thing, and mixing them up leads to fixes that miss the mark.
Onboarding is the process of integrating a new hire into your organization. It covers the first days and weeks: paperwork, technology access, introductions, clinic culture, and learning how things work. The owner is typically People Operations or the direct manager. The timeline usually spans the first 90 days, though competency-based milestones may extend or shorten this. Success measures include completed touchpoints, new-hire satisfaction, and signed role-sheet acknowledgments.
Training is different. Training is the teach-to-competency work that builds the specific skills someone needs to do their job safely and correctly. For clinical roles, this means learning intervention procedures, data collection methods, documentation standards, and supervision protocols. The owner is typically the clinical lead or supervisor. The timeline is competency-based rather than strictly time-based. Success measures include passing competency checklists, observed-session sign-offs, and direct skill assessments.
Why does this distinction matter? Different people own each process, they happen on different timelines, and they require different measures. When clinics treat orientation as the whole onboarding process—or skip competency verification in training—problems multiply.
Quick Glossary
A few terms you’ll see throughout this article:
RBT stands for Registered Behavior Technician. RBTs are frontline staff who implement behavior intervention plans under BCBA supervision.
BCBA stands for Board Certified Behavior Analyst. BCBAs design treatment plans, supervise RBTs, and hold clinical responsibility for client outcomes.
Competency assessment is a direct check that someone can perform a task safely and correctly. It’s not a quiz about theory—it’s an observed demonstration of skill.
Understanding these terms and the onboarding-versus-training distinction sets the foundation for everything that follows.
Top Onboarding and Training Mistakes
Here are the nine mistakes that derail new hires most often in ABA clinics. Each one creates problems that compound over time.
No role clarity or written expectations at hire. When expectations live only in people’s heads, new hires act on assumptions. Assumptions lead to misalignment, frustration, and early exits.
No competency checks before independent work. Allowing someone to work independently without verifying their skills puts clients at risk and creates expensive rework.
Too much information on day one. Overloading new hires with policies, procedures, and introductions in a single day leads to overwhelm. Most of what they hear gets forgotten.
Weak supervision cadence after orientation. Without regular check-ins and observations, issues go unnoticed until they become serious. Trust erodes on both sides.
Skipping ethics, privacy, and PHI handling in training. This creates legal exposure and risks client rights. Protected health information must be handled correctly from the start.
One-size-fits-all training for different roles. An RBT and a scheduler need different skills taught in different ways. Generic training wastes time and misses critical competencies.
No 30/60/90 milestones or checkpoints. Without shared milestones, neither the supervisor nor the new hire knows what “on track” looks like. Progress becomes invisible.
Missing hands-on practice and feedback loops. Reading about a skill is not the same as demonstrating it safely. Practice and feedback are essential.
No measurement plan to show progress or risks. If you’re not tracking anything, you can’t see what needs to change. Problems stay hidden until turnover spikes.
Each mistake has a fix. Let’s walk through them.
Mistake Deep Dives: Problem to Quick Fixes
No Role Clarity or Written Expectations
When people don’t know what success looks like, they make it up. Different assumptions lead to different actions, which leads to confusion and conflict.
The fix is a one-page role sheet. This document includes the role title, direct manager, assigned mentor, three to five success metrics for the first 90 days, a brief 30/60/90 roadmap, required tools and systems access, and key stakeholders to meet.
Share this before day one as part of preboarding. Then review it aloud in the first supervisor meeting. When everyone literally signs the same page, alignment improves dramatically.
No Competency Checks Before Independent Work
Client safety depends on verified skills. When new hires work independently before demonstrating competency, mistakes happen. Some are fixable. Others harm clients or require significant rework.
Use a short skills checklist for the first observed sessions. Pick five to eight core tasks for the role and write observable steps for each. Require supervisor sign-off before the new hire takes on independent cases.
For clinical roles, schedule a two-week observed practice block where the new hire works alongside experienced staff before handling cases alone.
Too Much Information on Day One
New hires forget most of what they hear when you cram everything into a single day. Worse, they leave feeling overwhelmed rather than welcomed.
Move noncritical items to preboarding or week two. Use a bite-size schedule: day one covers administrative setup and clinic values, day two involves shadowing experienced staff, and subsequent days layer in additional training.
Give new hires a simple checklist they can mark off as they complete each step. This creates a sense of progress rather than drowning.
Weak Supervision Cadence
When supervisors disappear after orientation, new hires feel abandoned. Issues that could be caught early escalate. Trust erodes on both sides.
Set fixed weekly check-ins for the first 90 days. These don’t need to be long, but they need to be consistent. Use short observations with immediate feedback rather than saving everything for formal reviews.
Assign a mentor for day-to-day questions so the new hire has someone accessible when the supervisor isn’t available.
Skipping Ethics, Privacy, and PHI Handling
Protected health information requires careful handling. Training new hires on PHI after they’ve already had client contact creates legal risk and violates client rights.
Teach PHI handling before any client contact occurs. Use redacted examples for practice so new hires learn the concepts without exposure to actual client information. Add a signed acknowledgment to personnel files confirming the new hire completed this training and understands their responsibilities.
One-Size-Fits-All Training
An RBT needs hands-on clinical skills. A scheduler needs systems training and confidentiality protocols. Training them identically wastes time and misses critical content.
Create role-specific core modules. Shorten or extend timelines based on prior experience. Use competency gates rather than time-only goals.
Someone with relevant experience might pass competency checks faster. Someone without that background might need more support. Let competency drive the timeline.
No 30/60/90 Milestones
Without clear milestones, neither the supervisor nor the new hire knows whether things are going well. There’s no shared view of progress and no early warning when someone is struggling.
Publish simple 30/60/90 milestones for each role. Tie each milestone to a supervisor sign-off so there’s a built-in checkpoint. Use these milestones in the first performance touchpoint. This creates accountability on both sides and surfaces problems before they become crises.
Missing Practice and Feedback
Reading about behavior intervention is not the same as doing it safely with a real client. Skills require practice, feedback, and refinement.
Include role-play and observed sessions in week one. Use short, frequent feedback cycles—five to ten minutes—rather than saving everything for lengthy formal reviews. Log improvements in a shared competency tracker so progress becomes visible.
This approach builds skills faster and helps new hires feel supported rather than tested.
No Measurement Plan
If you’re not measuring anything, you can’t see what’s working or what needs to change. Problems stay invisible until they show up as turnover or client complaints.
Pick three simple measures: competency pass rates tell you whether training is effective, supervisor touchpoints completed tells you whether the supervision system is functioning, and new-hire readiness surveys tell you how confident people feel.
Track these weekly for the first 90 days and review them in a 90-day onboarding review. Use what you learn to improve the process for the next hire.
Role-Specific Notes: RBTs, BCBAs, Clinical Support, Admin
Different roles need different training priorities and pacing.
RBT Quick Plan for the First 30 Days
RBTs are your frontline clinical staff. Their first 30 days should prioritize:
- PHI and safety training before any client contact
- Basic behavior intervention skills including prompting, reinforcement, and data collection
- Shadowing sessions with experienced staff
- Scaffolded practice with direct feedback
The initial competency checklist should cover client rapport, following the behavior plan accurately, and data entry hygiene. Use observed sessions with immediate feedback. Don’t move to independent caseload until core competencies are verified through sign-off.
BCBA Quick Plan for the First 30 Days
BCBAs coming into a new clinic need to understand local systems and expectations. Their first 30 days should prioritize:
- Meeting each supervisee and reviewing supervision documentation standards
- Observing local clinic workflows and documentation practices
- Establishing their supervision cadence and case priorities
New BCBAs also need clarity on what tasks require their oversight, how to document supervision sessions, and when to escalate clinical concerns. Even experienced BCBAs need onboarding to your specific clinic’s systems.
Admin and Clinical Support Notes
Schedulers, intake coordinators, and administrative staff interact with clients and families constantly. Their training should prioritize:
- Step-by-step standard operating procedures for common tasks
- Checklists for client intake and scheduling handoffs
- Confidentiality training before any client-facing work
Give these staff clear escalation points. When should they bring something to a clinician? What gets documented where? Clear handoff checklists reduce errors and protect client information.
30-60-90 Day Timeline with Milestones and Checkpoints
A 30/60/90 framework gives structure to the onboarding period.
Days 1–30: Learn. The new hire completes mandatory compliance and PHI training with a signed acknowledgment. They get access to systems and tools and meet key stakeholders. They complete initial training modules and supervised shadowing. The supervisor holds weekly check-ins and conducts the first observed practice session.
Days 31–60: Contribute. The new hire begins independent but supervised client work or task ownership. They receive targeted feedback throughout. Midpoint competency checks verify progress on core skills. The mentor continues weekly check-ins. The supervisor conducts observed sessions with a checklist and creates a corrective action plan if needed.
Days 61–90: Own. The new hire demonstrates consistent competency on core tasks. Full sign-off on all checklist items is required before truly independent practice. The supervisor discusses longer-term goals and career pathway. A 90-day review covers readiness survey results, competency pass rates, and any remaining gaps.
The key is tying each milestone to observable outcomes and supervisor sign-offs. Use competency rather than time alone to determine when someone is ready to progress.
Competency Checklists and Assessment Tools
Competency checklists transform vague expectations into clear standards.
How to Build a Short Skills Checklist
Pick five to eight core tasks for the role. Write observable steps for each task. Decide who signs off and when. Keep the checklist specific enough that two different assessors would rate the same performance similarly.
Define your validation method:
- “Observed” means the assessor watched the skill performed
- “Demonstrated” means the learner showed the skill on request
- “Verbalized” means the learner explained the steps accurately
Use a simple scoring scale: zero means not yet competent, one means sometimes competent with support, and two means consistently competent independently.
Scoring and Evidence
Use a staged approach. First, observe the new hire performing the skill with coaching available. Then observe them performing independently without prompting. The final sign-off happens only after independent performance meets the standard.
Attach a brief note for each assessment. Store sign-offs in personnel files. Never include client-identifying information on competency checklists. Use redacted examples for any training scenarios.
Quick Templates and Downloadable Assets
Good templates give clinics a starting point.
A one-page role sheet should cover the role title, department, manager, and assigned mentor. Include three success metrics for the first 90 days. Add brief 30/60/90 roadmap bullets. List key stakeholders to meet, required tools and logins, and the first-week schedule with check-in cadence. Include signature lines for the new hire, manager, and mentor with dates.
A competency checklist template should identify the role and skill area, list five to eight observable tasks, define validation codes, include a scoring scale with pass criteria, provide space for corrective feedback notes and re-assessment dates, and end with attestation signatures from both assessor and learner.
A 30/60/90 template should list milestones for each phase, supervisor actions and sign-offs required at each checkpoint, competency gates that must be passed to progress, and spaces for dates and actual completion notes.
Template Usage Notes
Personalize every template with names, dates, and your clinic’s specific policies before using. Never include protected health information in templates. Redact any examples that might identify clients. Treat all templates as starting points that require adaptation, not as legal or clinical advice.
Store completed competency checklists and sign-offs in secure personnel files. Use approved storage systems only.
Common Traps and How to Avoid Them
Even clinics with good intentions fall into predictable traps.
Trap: Treating orientation as the complete onboarding. A single day of paperwork and introductions is not onboarding. Real onboarding spans weeks and includes checkpoints, practice, and measured competency development. Spread learning across the first 90 days with scheduled milestones.
Trap: Relying only on shadowing. Watching someone else do a job is helpful but insufficient. New hires need structured practice with feedback, not just observation. Add role-play, observed sessions, and competency sign-offs.
Trap: Ignoring new-hire feedback. New hires see things experienced staff miss. Run a simple survey at two weeks and at 90 days. Ask what’s working and what’s confusing. Then act on what you learn.
Trap: Assuming experienced hires don’t need onboarding. Even a BCBA with ten years of experience needs to learn your clinic’s systems, documentation standards, and supervision expectations. Adjust the timeline, but don’t skip onboarding entirely.
What to Measure (Ethics-Friendly)
Measurement helps you improve without creating surveillance culture. Focus on a few simple signals.
Competency pass rate tells you whether training is working. What percentage of new hires meet pass criteria at each checkpoint? Tracking this by role and skill area shows where training needs improvement.
Supervisor touchpoints completed tells you whether the supervision system is functioning. Are weekly check-ins happening? Are observed sessions occurring on schedule? When touchpoints slip, problems go undetected.
New-hire readiness surveys capture self-reported confidence and barriers. Ask new hires at 30, 60, and 90 days whether they feel ready for their responsibilities and what’s getting in the way.
Track these at each checkpoint and review trends quarterly. Use what you learn to iterate on your process.
A note on ethics: avoid promising specific retention or productivity gains without evidence. Don’t use these measurements to punish new staff. The goal is continuous improvement, not surveillance. Keep client-identifying information out of any measurement systems.
Ethics, Privacy, and Supervision Safeguards
Client safety comes first. Every onboarding and training system must include these safeguards.
HIPAA and PHI Handling
Require PHI training and a signed acknowledgment before any client contact. This isn’t optional. Use redacted examples when teaching records management. Train staff on secure file handling and approved storage systems. Document that this training occurred and was acknowledged.
Supervision Boundaries
Clarify what tasks require BCBA oversight. Document supervision sessions including what was discussed and what decisions were made. Create clear escalation paths for clinical concerns. New staff should know exactly when to bring something to a supervisor and how to do it.
AI tools can support clinicians with documentation and efficiency, but they do not replace clinical judgment. Human review is required before anything enters the clinical record. Do not include identifying client information in non-approved tools.
Templates provided in this article are guidance, not legal or clinical orders. Adapt them to your clinic’s policies and have them reviewed by appropriate professionals before use.
Short Clinic Vignette (Illustrative, Anonymized)
Here’s what applying these principles looks like in practice.
Before: A small ABA clinic relied on orientation-day training. New RBTs received the employee handbook, shadowed for a week, then went on the schedule. Supervisors rarely observed sessions after the first few days. Competency issues surfaced late, usually when a parent complained or data looked wrong. Turnover was high, and supervisors felt constantly behind.
After: The clinic implemented several changes. Every new hire received a one-page role sheet before their start date. PHI training with signed acknowledgment happened before any client contact. Each new RBT was assigned a mentor for daily questions and a supervisor for weekly check-ins. A 30/60/90 roadmap spelled out milestones, and competency checklists with observed-session sign-offs replaced the shadowing-only approach.
Within three months, supervisors reported clearer role expectations and faster detection of training gaps. New hires described feeling more supported and confident. The changes didn’t eliminate all turnover, but they created a foundation for improvement.
This vignette is illustrative and anonymized. Outcomes are descriptive, not guaranteed.
Next Steps and Implementation Checklist
You don’t need to overhaul everything at once. Start with these five actions:
- Run a 15-minute onboarding audit with your team. Compare your current process to the role-sheet and competency-checklist standards described here. Identify the biggest gaps.
- Assign a mentor for each new hire before their start date. Make sure someone is designated for day-to-day questions and that the new hire knows who this person is before they arrive.
- Publish 30/60/90 milestones for each open role. Tie each milestone to a supervisor action and sign-off. Share these with candidates during hiring so expectations are clear from the start.
- Adopt a short competency checklist for first observed sessions. Pick five to eight core tasks, define observable steps, and require sign-off before independent practice.
- Schedule the 90-day onboarding review now. Put it on the calendar before the new hire starts. This creates accountability and ensures the conversation happens.
These changes aren’t complicated. They’re specific, actionable, and implementable this week.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between onboarding and training?
Onboarding is the holistic process of integrating someone into your organization—paperwork, culture, schedules, and social connection during the first days and weeks. Training is the teach-to-competency work that builds specific job skills. Both matter and should be planned separately but linked through shared milestones.
What are the most common onboarding and training mistakes in ABA clinics?
The most common mistakes include having no written role expectations, skipping competency checks before independent work, overwhelming new hires on day one, maintaining weak supervision cadence, and missing ethics and PHI training. These mistakes compound over time and contribute to turnover and clinical risk.
How long should onboarding last for RBTs and BCBAs?
Use a 30/60/90 framework as a guide, not a rigid rule. RBTs often need close hands-on practice during the first 30 to 60 days. BCBAs need faster alignment on supervision systems and case priorities. Adjust timing based on prior experience and competency checks rather than time alone.
How do I know if onboarding worked?
Track competency pass rates, completed supervisor touchpoints, and new-hire readiness surveys. Check these at 30, 60, and 90 days. Review gaps and use what you learn to improve the process for future hires.
Can I use the templates as legal or clinical advice?
No. Templates are starting points for clinic use, not substitutes for legal, clinical, or regulatory advice. Add your clinic’s policies and complete appropriate compliance reviews before using any template.
How should we protect client privacy during training?
Teach PHI handling before any client contact. Use redacted cases and simulated examples for practice. Store training materials and completed assessments in secure, approved systems only. Never include client-identifying information in shared templates or training documents.
Moving Forward
Onboarding and training mistakes are common because clinics are busy and systems take time to build. But these mistakes have real costs—they affect client safety, staff confidence, supervisor workload, and ultimately turnover.
The fixes aren’t complicated: clear role expectations in writing, competency verification before independent practice, staged onboarding instead of day-one overload, consistent supervision cadence, ethics and PHI training before client contact, role-specific training, measurable milestones, practice with feedback, simple measurement.
Start where you are. Pick one improvement and implement it this week. Then pick another. Over time, these small changes compound into a system that sets new hires up for success.
The goal isn’t perfect onboarding. The goal is onboarding that protects clients, supports staff, and creates the conditions for people to do their best work. That’s worth building.
