From Onboarding to Everboarding: Redefining Employee Development

Strengthen Your Acquisition and Retention Efforts Through Everboarding

Traditional onboarding is a relic of the past. That frantic sprint to get new hires “up to speed,” followed by a deafening silence, often falls short. What if, instead, you could create a seamless, ongoing journey of growth and development from the day an employee starts and throughout their tenure—an everboarding experience?

Employees say they need to develop new skills to be successful at their jobs, and many will look for another job if not offered development opportunities. In this book, leading HR talent strategy and everboarding expert Amber Watts offers solutions to help you shift your organization’s mindset that onboarding has an exit day and embrace a culture of continuous learning. It guides you through building a dynamic everboarding strategy that fosters long-term employee engagement, accelerates performance, and strengthens your talent acquisition and retention efforts.

Inside, you’ll discover how to personalize and elevate the onboarding experience, move beyond generic checklists, and create customized journeys that resonate with individual needs, jobs, and roles. Smooth the transition out of onboarding by defining clear expectations and creating a seamless handoff process to ensure ongoing support. Equip managers to be continuous development partners and provide them with the tools and resources they need to effectively coach, mentor, and guide their employees throughout their careers. Cultivate a growth mindset, encouraging new hires and existing employees to embrace lifelong learning and growth. This book also includes three case studies that explore how an everboarding strategy solves key challenges and delivers business results, while offering ideas for how to implement it yourself.

Perfect for HR and L&D leaders seeking to transform their onboarding and employee development programs, this first-ever book on everboarding provides actionable strategies and practical advice you can apply immediately. Stop treating onboarding like a graduation and start building an everlasting culture of growth and success.

Amber Watts has more than a decade of experience in talent development and sales enablement, specializing in everboarding, change management, and talent strategy. She is currently the founder and CEO of Radical GrowthWorks.

Passionate about empowering people to grow and bridging the gap between strategy and execution, Amber builds scalable systems that drive learning, leadership, and business growth. She challenges conventional thinking, fosters continuous development, and helps organizations create cultures in which employees and businesses thrive.

Amber holds a BS in business management and leadership and certifications in coaching and virtual training design. Her work has earned numerous accolades; she was recognized as an Emerging Training Leader by Training magazine (2019) and awarded a Stevie Award for Sales Training/Coaching Program of the Year (2020) and an Excellence in Learning Leadership from the ATD Nebraska Chapter (2023).