Onboarding is a very crucial process in an organization. During this time, new hires form impressions that will shape their relationships with coworkers, hiring managers, and the organization.
However, this process can be extremely time-consuming and tedious.
Learn how you can leverage the power of the internet to create an effective online onboarding process that will help your team get off to a great start.
What Is Employee Onboarding?
Employee onboarding is the important final step in the recruitment life cycle. It is a process in which an organization integrates new employees into their new roles in the organization. This process includes formal training on everything from company procedures to what they'll be doing daily.
The Employee Onboarding Process
The onboarding process takes place in phases that allow new hires to reach employee productivity fast as part of a positive experience. It is important to ensure that your onboarding process is effective and engaging for new employees.
Pre-Onboarding Time Phase
You expose prospective employees to your business through advertising, word-of-mouth, or other marketing activities during pre-onboarding. The goal is to create awareness and spark interest.
Welcoming New Hires
Once prospective hires accept your offer, it's time to welcome them aboard and provide them with training materials to start their new hire experience. They're now part of your team, and you need to make sure they feel welcome and appreciated.
Role-Specific Training
Creating role-specific training means that you'll be teaching your new employee how to complete tasks independently with little supervision.
Easing the Transition to Their New Role
Transitioning to a new company or team can be an overwhelming but positive onboarding experience for many people. To help ease these transitions, provide support in any way possible.
Why Employee Onboarding Is Essential to a Business
Employees need to go through onboarding programs because onboarding brings the following benefits:
Familiarizes Employees with Their Work Environment
Before new employees can be effective, they have to feel comfortable in their surroundings. This onboarding phase helps people get acclimated and ready for what's next.
Keeps Employees Motivated
By keeping track of progress in your employees' goals, you can let them know what they need to do to raise productivity levels.
Reduces Employee Attrition Rate
An effective onboarding process should help new hires feel welcome, with a clear direction for what they need to do to succeed. This feeling will make it more likely for them to stay with your company and uphold company values long-term. It is important to keep the rate of attrition down as hiring and onboarding new employees is an expensive process.
Engages Employees
The onboarding process is essential to ensure that your new hires are engaged in their work and feel supported by their colleagues. Engaging them might go a long way in the complex process of motivating success.
Why Should You Make Your Employee Onboarding Process Online?
Taking your onboarding process online can streamline and make it easier to get new customers more quickly and easily. Read on to learn more.
Remote Working Is Becoming Increasingly Common
Employees are now more familiar with remote working than ever before. Many feel that it improves their performance and promotes a better work-life balance.
Advancements in technology are a significant factor in the increased number of remote employees.
Since remote working seems to be the new norm, companies need to ensure an effective online onboarding and online training process.
You will attract talented employees who would otherwise be reluctant to relocate with an online onboarding process. The onboarding time is crucial for retaining new hires and boosting the productivity levels of team members.
Increased Personalization
When the onboarding process is online, companies can collect a lot of information about their new hires.
You can create a personalized experience that fits each individual's needs and preferences.
You can learn more about what motivated them to join your company, where they see themselves in five years, and what opportunities they want to pursue. A more personalized experience is much more likely to keep them engaged with your company in the long run.
Faster, Painfree Onboarding
An online onboarding process is a much easier and faster way to bring employees up to speed. It provides real-time access to resources and your operations to the new hires.
Self-paced training allows new hires more control over how employees get up and running on day one at your company. Employees can learn what they need when they need it without waiting for orientation.
Easily Track Onboarding Process
You can easily track, learn, and record employee data with your online employee onboarding system. This way, you will be able to get feedback on areas where they need more training.
Efficiency is significant for an organization because it creates structure and accountability around the onboarding process. It has a huge impact and allows everyone on your team to get more done.
More Organized Knowledge Base
A solid knowledge base helps you reduce costly support tickets and help you better manage requests. Taking your onboarding process online allows you to give new hires an interactive experience that also includes resources for you to track who has completed which training modules.
By pulling all these resources together, you can ensure that new hires have every possible resource at their fingertips as they navigate their first days in your organization. It will also encourage users to get in touch with support for all their needs.
Facilitates Collaborative Learning
Offering a digitally based onboarding process gives you control over what your employees are learning and when they're learning.
Your team members will collaborate, share knowledge, and learn from each other.
An online process results in a streamlined learning experience that everyone can access at any time. Digital onboarding strategies increase knowledge while empowering your new employees.
By seeing how teams handle similar situations, you'll also be able to identify training needs that may lead to long-term development opportunities for your company. It's not just about getting them up to speed but also creating a sense of belonging within your organization.
Increased Employee Engagement
You can engage new hires by providing valuable information online in a fun and easy-to-digest format. This kind of instruction helps retain critical employees through thorough training and educational content.
Your new employees feel more valued and are more committed to their work. They're also more likely to understand what to do to succeed at your company.
This breakthrough means you'll have a higher employee retention rate. When people know what you stand for as a company, they become advocates for your brand.
Saves Valuable Resources
The traditional onboarding process limits you to one-on-one interactions with your new hires. However, you can handle several of these interactions with an online onboarding solution, including online paperwork.
You can add new employees to your online onboarding platform instead of hiring expensive contractors to complete tasks. Such tasks include providing intake forms, employee handbooks, and background checks.
These tasks require an investment in resources which may prove costly in the long run. Taking your onboarding process online will save you valuable resources you can use elsewhere to boost company success.
Make the Life of Your HR Department Easier
A paper-based onboarding process is tedious and often involves a lot of document management. Digitizing your hiring process will make life easier for both your HR department and hiring managers.
With an online platform, you can not only store all employee data in one place but also automate critical parts of the process. An online onboarding process will save both time and money while ensuring that everyone gets off to a great start with your company.
How To Effectively Take Your Onboarding Process Online
If you aren't sure how to have a successful onboarding process online, here are tips to help you get started.
Use the Right Tools
Ensure you're using a user-friendly HR management or onboarding tool that allows your team to quickly and easily onboard new hires. You can even have a tool for electronically signing documents - no more need for printing endless amounts of contracts out.
If you need help on choosing the best onboarding platform, take a look at our Complete Guide to Follow before hiring a Corporate Training Technology.
Maintain the Personal Touch
Try scheduling regular check-ins or having employees fill out surveys after every meeting. It will help keep everyone on track and feel supported.
Offer Incentives
Offer incentives for employees who do well in training programs. It will encourage them to take things seriously, and they'll perform their jobs.
Make the Company Culture Clear
Make sure that your organizational culture and company values are well defined. You want your new employees to know what they are getting into and how things work for an effective employee onboarding program.
Break Down the Onboarding Process with a Schedule
Identify all of your steps, create an onboarding checklist, and estimate how long each task will take. Then, create a schedule based on that estimation for successful onboarding.
Have a Buddy System
Having a buddy to check in regularly is an excellent way to keep your hires excited and ensure they stay on track.
Keep Communication Lines Open
You must keep communication lines open so that users can contact your support for help with any basic questions quickly and efficiently.
Start Early
You'll want to contact your new hires right away and make sure they know their responsibilities and onboarding tasks. You can even send them a welcome package before their official start date.
Have Online Meetings & Training
It is crucial to set up a platform that allows all employees to be engaged and onboard. Online meetings and training allows employees to ask questions and interact with their fellow employees, no matter where they are. Employee engagement helps with retention rates and productivity.
Parting Shot
The onboarding process should be more than simply sending someone an employee handbook and letting them figure things out independently.
As a direct manager, implementing an effective online employee onboarding system can give new hires access to the resources they need while simultaneously getting acquainted with company policies.
Online onboarding helps your company to be more efficient and allocate spare resources to more important areas of the business.
If you’re still unsure how to proceed with online onboarding, there are plenty of resources available to help you ease your transition. Likewise, a better understanding of onboarding best practices will let you plan your strategies to implement online onboarding.
Want to get more insights on the future of Training & Onboarding? Check out our related resources:
- Employee Training and Development Methods with Examples
- How To Train Employees on New Software
- Which Playbook App is the Best?
