Good onboarding is essential for new employees – but how is onboarding supposed to work despite social distancing? We offer five tips for onboarding in the home office:
For many companies, intensive onboarding is already a challenge in normal everyday life: Often, there is a lack of a plan or simply the human resource capacity for comprehensive support of new employees. In the current crisis, where social distancing is a top priority, you as an HR manager might also be facing a double problem: Good onboarding, and that without personal contact.
Digital onboarding can also be relevant in other situations, for example, when your company hires remote employees or you need to onboard employees at other locations.
In the following, we want to answer the two most important questions: Why is comprehensive and well-thought-out onboarding so important in the first place? And how do you implement the onboarding process completely digitally?
Why onboarding is so important for new employees
1. Your new employees are more satisfied
Particularly in the initial phase, it is important to give new team members a sense of belonging. If the first few weeks are well prepared, the "newbie" feels directly like they belong and can focus on the important things: working and settling into the team.
2. Employees stay with the company longer
According to the LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report 2019, 94% of employees would stay with a company longer if it invested more in the continuing education of its own employees.
Reading tip: We have already summarized the four most important learnings from the Workplace Learning Report 2019 for you.
3. Employees can perform better
Employees who are well trained can work independently and efficiently more quickly. To make individual support in onboarding easier for you, you should look at the individual skills of your new employee and consider which ones are particularly important for the new position – and promote these in a targeted manner.
4. The learning transfer is sustainably better
If you plan the onboarding of your new employees over a longer period of time (for us it is usually 3 - 4 weeks), the learning effect is significantly higher and the newly acquired skills and content are directly applied.
5. Constant further training is established immediately
If you promote the skills of new employees from the very beginning, they immediately feel well prepared for the newly gained responsibility. Make it clear from the start that learning and professional development are part of the general company culture.
Reading tip: On the blog, we have already reported on how you can make your company's learning culture visible.
Save time through Blended Onboarding
Onboarding therefore has many benefits. However, onboarding new employees is often associated with a high investment of time and means additional costs due to the extra work of colleagues or the provision of documents for the new employee.
There is a simple solution for this, which we have developed and established in the blink.it team: Blended Onboarding! With this method, you convey your most important content on the one hand in an online course and on the other hand in personal sessions. Take our free guide and start planning your Blended Onboarding directly.
Blended Onboarding despite social distancing
Blended onboarding does not necessarily have to take place on-site; it also works wonderfully completely remote. Similar to Blended Learning, you can easily move the face-to-face part to a digital space and implement it there as usual.
We made this experience ourselves: Our new Blinkie Sandra has been with our team since the beginning of March. Shortly thereafter, we went into voluntary home office due to Corona, and her onboarding consequently had to take place digitally. Of course, that was planned differently, but it works wonderfully completely digitally too!
Structuring the onboarding of new employees completely online also has some advantages after the Corona period. As mentioned earlier: Not every new employee will work at the same location as you or is in the same office every day. In cases where no personal contact is possible, you can easily hold many of your onboarding sessions online. You will see that your onboarding works effectively even completely digitally!
If you want to design the next onboarding based on the principle of Blended Onboarding, you should keep the following five tips in mind:
5 tips for completely digital Blended Onboarding
1. Use suitable software or an app to deliver your content
For new employees, it is particularly important to have a central place with all relevant info – ideally in the form of a corresponding app like blink.it. There, you can upload information about daily work and company culture before the first day. This is also how you structure the task packages for the first few weeks, and it's best to release them step by step.
2. Establish communication tools directly for the new employees as well
Many companies already use communication tools like Google Teams or Slack today. Therefore, invite new employees directly to all team or chat tools and motivate other employees in advance to approach new employees directly. Questions can then also be directed to the entire staff.
3. Define a contact person for your new employees
Whether onboarding at the workplace, "blended," or fully digital: you should definitely plan for a fixed contact person. Ideally, this person is from the same department as your new employee. This gives the "newbie" the opportunity to ask questions directly.
4. Enable regular employee appraisals and feedback
Here too, communication is the key to success, especially if your onboarding takes place completely digitally: schedule regular meetings, listen to the experiences of the new employees, and try to solve problems as quickly as possible. Ask the other employees about this too! At the same time, you can give direct feedback, even without being physically present. For example, our favorite tool "Zoom" is suitable for online meetings and feedback.
5. Let new employees keep their own video diary
A video diary is an integral part of Blended Onboarding so that new and existing employees can get to know each other better. For the new employee, it is also a good opportunity to reflect on the day's experiences themselves. Ideally, you upload the videos centrally so that your other employees can view them online and provide feedback themselves!
Conclusion
Digital onboarding enables structured and personal orientation even when new employees and colleagues do not work in the same place.
The key is not to completely replace personal guidance. A central place for learning content, dedicated contact persons, regular meetings, and digital exchange opportunities together create the necessary structure. In this way, Blended Onboarding can also be implemented fully remotely and used long-term for employees at different locations.
Frequently Asked Questions and Answers
What is digital onboarding?
Digital onboarding refers to the training of new employees using digital learning and communication tools. Information, tasks, and learning content can be provided centrally, and personal meetings can be conducted online.
How does onboarding in the home office work?
New employees need central access to important information and tasks, suitable communication tools, a dedicated contact person, as well as regular discussions and feedback. Personal onboarding sessions can be moved to digital meetings for this purpose.
What content is suitable for digital onboarding?
Suitable examples include information on daily work life and company culture, task packages for the first few weeks, as well as recurring basics and processes. The content can be unlocked step-by-step to match the progress of the training.
Why is a dedicated contact person important during digital onboarding?
Particularly without direct personal contact, new employees need a fixed point of contact for questions and problems. A contact person from their own work area can accompany the training and support them with specific tasks.
