According to a study, a strong onboarding process improves new hire retention by 82%. In this article, we discover how onboarding new hires is a strategic process and not just a mere traditional orientation. Let’s talk about John who has just joined his dream organization.
John has joined ABC Corp. With glitter in the eye and skip of excitement in his pace, he walked into the 3-day orientation program. What ensued was a bombardment of successive corporate presentations with myriad information to digest on the very first day. In the end, it all became too overwhelming for John. At the end of the day, he walked out disgruntled and tired. This continued for the next 3-days of orientation, post which he was sent off to the wild blue yonder of his job.
Surely many of us can relate to such kinds of traditional onboarding practices by several organizations. With the accelerated pace of change and competitions, getting a new hire up-to-speed and job-ready are becoming more crucial than ever. The Onboarding is not only limited to ‘Wield The Welcome Wagon’ but is expanding and merging with the learning programs in the following 5 ways.
Interactive Learning
Onboarding is the process of integrating new hires into the firm. However, it is so much more than merely transferring guidelines, policies and knowledge! The new hires should feel connected, excited and energized to start their career with the firm. It is about instilling a feeling of pride to be associated with the organization. To accomplish this the Experience Creators should curate leadership-driven onboarding modules. The direct communication from the top management can clearly align organizational values and vision. The understanding of the bigger picture and emotional connect with the leadership engages the modern-day white-collar employee. With the presence of omnichannel platforms, it is now much easier to connect with the leadership irrespective of their widespread offices and different time zones. Such communications in helping new hires feel at home & valued. The feeling of being valued can influence an employee’s decision to stay for the long term.
Personalized Learning
The intention to create “high-impact learning organizations” is on the rise and radically shifting the paradigm of onboarding. The last decade has seen an overabundance of learning offerings with a shortage of influence during onboarding programs. The ubiquitous and agile ecosystem calls for new tailor-made learning strategies in growth and innovation-focused organizations. An evolution from internally- focused, generic, corporate-centric programs to learner’s profile- centric and specific learning experience will increase the retention of the content in participants.
Personalized learning during onboarding will help employees to “hit the ground running” in their respective job roles.
Social Learning
Leading organizations in the vanguard of re-inventing onboarding experience are emphasizing on Social Learning. The era of the hyper-connected millennial generation and the advent of technology are breaking the learning silos and enabling colleagues of diverse teams to collaborate and share knowledge using channels like discussion forums, videos, blogs, etc. Providing access to such organizational social platforms to new hires entice higher and effective employee engagement. Social learning enables Gen Z to create communities of practice and bring together the collective knowledge, talents, and experiences of employees to drive innovation and growth.
Guided Learning
The transition journey from onboarding to workplace learning culture is often disjointed. A massive wave of re-designing and upgrade of corporate socialization programs is sweeping the HR function. The seamless intertwining of the onboarding process to long-term employee development programs depicts a positive impact on employee engagement. Clear and well-defined career advancement journey at the very beginning stage i.e. during onboarding can reinstate the confidence of the new employee in the organization. The onboarding program blended with learning programs helps in fostering the Employee-pull learning culture.
A significant percentage of new hires decide whether to stay at the company during the first six months.
Constructive learning
The traditional onboarding processes are monotonous, one way and ineffective. With the advent of HR innovative technologies, all processes of human resources are getting revolutionized. The modern onboarding process is busting the “mind-numbing” experience of one way-communication. Platforms and Processes to provide multidirectional feedback can significantly improve employee engagement and productivity. Alt Learning was employed by a telecom-infrastructure company to remodel their learning management to bring down their training costs. The hyperactive generation tries to understand and improve with the help of peers, superiors and subordinates’ feedback. A collaborative environment where every employee can participate in both learning and disseminating knowledge can help push the organization towards a culture of constructive and effective learning of employees from the very beginning of their journey with the firm.
PeopleStrong offers ‘Alt Learning’ as a single platform to bring all the 5 ways of learning into the re-designed onboarding program.
Also, read 5 ways of how retail companies are improving the performance of frontline employees.
