As staff shortage in intensive care medicine increases, sustainable recruitment and retention of qualified professionals becomes increasingly crucial. Current surveys indicate that sufficient onboarding is a key element to success in this context. The recommendations outlined in the position paper "Onboarding in intensive care medicine" aim to address this issue by guiding towards comprehensive, structured onboarding of professionals. The primary goal of providing such structured onboarding is to increase employee satisfaction, ensure the well-being and safety of both care providers and patients, and guarantee long-term supply of intensive care medicine for the population. This paper was developed under the leadership of the Junge DIVI, a multidisciplinary and multiprofessional initiative of young professionals, within the German Interdisciplinary Association of Critical Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI). It was based on a systematic literature research and consensus-building among various professional groups and disciplines, offering - for the first time - uniform, standardized, practical guidance for implementing structured onboarding for different professionals in intensive care units in Germany.