THE OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER FOR MEMBERS OF CONTENT AND CONNECTIVITY HUMAN RESOURCES

Breaking Down Silos to Build a Better New Hire Experience

By Becca Baier, Director of People Development, Paramount Global

Becca Baier was honored as a 2025 HR Game Changer for her efforts to reimagine the onboarding process for new hires at Paramount Global. To tackle the challenge, Becca launched a cross-functional New Hire Experience Core Group that deconstructed the existing program and transformed how an individual transitions from a job candidate to a productive and engaged member of the team.

Becca Baier

If you’ve ever mapped your end-to-end onboarding process, you know it’s not a straight line. It’s a web.

Data collection flows through HR operations. Account provisioning runs through IT. Hardware and software requests move through multiple tech teams. Security manages badges and access. Facilities assigns seating. HRBPs coordinate orientation. Benefits supports policy and enrollment education. The onboarding team handles communications. And that’s just for a “standard” new hire—not a confidential search, a contractor, a conversion, or an executive.

Individually, each team has a defined role. Collectively, the experience can feel fragmented. Handoffs are implied rather than documented. Timelines are assumed rather than aligned. When everything works, it works. When it doesn’t, it can be difficult to pinpoint where the breakdown occurred—or even who owns the fix.

As HR professionals, we live in this complexity every day. But living in it doesn’t mean we fully see it. That realization is what led me to create the New Hire Experience Core Group—a cross-functional forum designed to break down silos, clarify handoffs, and strengthen the employee experience well before the individual’s start date.

Why a Core Group?

Our onboarding processes weren’t failing. But they weren’t fully optimized either. Like many organizations, we had strong teams doing good work within their respective lanes. What we lacked was a consistent, shared view of the entire experience.

We asked ourselves a few critical questions:

• Do we truly understand how each phase connects to the next?
• Where are our most common breakdowns—and why?
• Are downstream impacts considered when upstream changes occur?
• Do the people doing the work have visibility into how their piece affects others?

The honest answer: not consistently. We needed a structured way to bring the right people together—not only to troubleshoot issues, but to proactively design a better experience.

Building the Group

We identified the key stakeholders who directly influence or inform the new hire experience. In total, 12 functional groups were represented, spanning HR, technology, benefits, and many others.

Then we committed.

We established a weekly, one-hour meeting. We held a formal kickoff to define:

• The purpose of the group
• Expectations for participation
• Shared goals and success metrics
• The commitment required

And then we met. Every week. For six months.

At its peak, more than 40 individuals joined those Zoom sessions. On paper, that might sound unwieldy. In practice, it became one of the most energizing and productive forums I’ve been part of.

What Happened in the Room

What happened was synergy—but not in the abstract, buzzword sense.

Real-time problem solving replaced long email chains.
Cross-functional clarity replaced assumptions.
Shared ownership replaced isolated accountability.

Questions that had lingered within individual teams were surfaced and answered collectively:

• “What happens if the start date changes after provisioning has begun?”
• “Why are badge requests sometimes delayed?”
• “Where does data accuracy most frequently break down?”
• “Who needs to be notified when X changes?”

For the first time, the full ecosystem of onboarding was visible in one space. Instead of reacting to issues in isolation, we began identifying patterns. Instead of escalating problems upward, we solved them laterally.

The Power of Process Mapping

One of our most impactful outcomes was comprehensive process mapping. Not the high-level, five-box flow that looks good in a slide deck. The real map. We documented:

• Every intake point
• Every system interaction
• Every approval
• Every data transfer
• Every handoff
• Every dependency
• Every timing assumption

We built detailed process maps that captured the full end-to-end new hire experience. And we built many of them, across different hire types and scenarios.

Why does this matter?

Because institutional knowledge is fragile. Too often, critical understanding of a process lives in someone’s head. Or worse, it lives partially in many heads. When roles change, when systems evolve, when policies shift, that knowledge can be lost or misapplied. By documenting the full flow, we created:

• Transparency across functions
• A shared language for discussing improvements
• A training resource for new team members
• A foundation for continuous optimization

We also uncovered something equally important: downstream impact. A small upstream change—such as altering a data field or shifting a timeline—can have cascading effects across provisioning, benefits enrollment, or access control. With the full process visible, those impacts became easier to anticipate and manage.

From Discussion to Action

The Core Group wasn’t a discussion forum. It was a working group.

Each meeting resulted in:

• Clear action items
• Named owners
• Defined timelines
• Follow-up accountability

We launched ad hoc projects to address systemic pain points. We refined communication templates. We adjusted timelines to better align across teams. We clarified ownership where ambiguity existed. We simplified where possible.

And importantly, we built relationships.

When you’ve spent months problem-solving with colleagues across departments, escalation becomes collaboration. Questions become conversations. Trust accelerates solutions.

The “So What?” for HR Leaders

So why share this experience with other HR professionals?

Because the challenges we addressed are not unique.

Most organizations have onboarding processes that “work”—until they don’t. Most teams operate effectively within their domains—but without full visibility into the broader ecosystem. Most breakdowns occur not because of incompetence, but because of misaligned handoffs.

If there’s one lesson I would emphasize, it’s this: Someone must own the connective tissue. That person—or team—must be willing to:

• Enter different functional spaces with curiosity
• Ask foundational questions about handoffs
• Translate technical language into shared understanding
• Identify pain points without assigning blame
• Document the process in detail
• Stay engaged as systems and policies evolve

In our case, I stepped into that role. But this is not about individual ownership as much as it is about intentional leadership. Cross-functional excellence does not happen organically. It requires structure.

A Continuing Journey

The New Hire Experience Core Group was not a six-month project. It was the beginning of a more connected way of working. We moved from fragmented execution to shared visibility. From reactive fixes to proactive design. From siloed expertise to collective accountability. Most importantly, we improved the experience of the people at the center of it all: our new hires.

When employees join an organization, their onboarding experience sends a powerful message. Is this place coordinated? Is it thoughtful? Do teams communicate? Are details handled with care?

Behind every smooth Day One is an extraordinary amount of invisible alignment. As HR professionals, we are uniquely positioned to champion that alignment.

If you see silos, step into the space between them. If you sense ambiguity, map it. If you notice recurring friction, convene the right voices.

The work is ongoing. The collaboration is continuous. And the impact—on efficiency, on engagement, on trust—is well worth it.

Sometimes, breaking down silos starts with one meeting invite.

Thank You, 2026 Sponsors!

If your company would like to further C2HR’s efforts in 2026, please contact 
Parthavi Das at parthavi@frontlineco.com or visit C2hr.org/events/event-sponsorships.

CHAMPION