A good onboarding process is essential for new employees – but how can onboarding work despite social distancing? We provide five tips for onboarding in the home office:

An intensive onboarding is a challenge for many companies even in normal everyday life: Often there is a lack of a plan or simply the personnel capacity for comprehensive support of new employees. In the current crisis, where social distancing has top priority, you as an HR professional may also face the double problem: Good onboarding, without personal contact.

Digital onboarding can also be relevant in other situations, for example, when your company hires remote workers or you need to onboard employees in other locations.

Therefore, we want to answer the two most important questions: Why is a comprehensive and well-thought-out onboarding so important? And how can you realize the onboarding completely digitally?

That's why onboarding is so important for new employees

1. Your new employees are more satisfied

Especially in the initial phase, it is important to instill a sense of belonging in new team members. If the first weeks are well-prepared, the “newcomer” feels immediately part of the team and can focus on the important things: working and settling in with the team.

2. Employees stay longer with the company

According to the LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report 2019, 94% of employees would stay longer with a company if it invested more in the training of its 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 onboarded can work more independently and efficiently. To make individual support in onboarding easier for you, you should look at the individual skills of your new employee and consider which are particularly important for the new position – and promote these specifically.

4. The transfer of learning is sustainably better

If you plan the onboarding of your new employees over a longer period (for us it is usually 3 - 4 weeks), the learning effect is significantly higher, and the newly acquired competencies and content are applied immediately.

5. Continuous training is established right away

If you promote the skills of new employees from the very beginning, they immediately feel well prepared for the new responsibilities. Make it clear from the start that learning and training are part of the overall company culture.

Reading Tip: We have already reported in the blog on how to make the learning culture of your company visible.

Save time with blended onboarding

Onboarding has many benefits. However, onboarding new employees is often associated with a high time expenditure 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 in an online course on one hand and in personal sessions on the other. Take our free guide and start planning your blended onboarding right away:

Free guide

Blended onboarding for companies

Create your first blended onboarding in just 3 weeks – how to do this is explained in our free guide.

Blended onboarding despite social distancing

Blended onboarding does not necessarily have to take place on-site; it works wonderfully completely remotely as well. Similar to blended learning, you can easily transfer the in-person part to a digital space and implement it as usual.

We have experienced this ourselves: Our new Blinkie, Sandra, joined our team at the beginning of March. Shortly thereafter, we went into voluntary home office due to COVID-19, and her onboarding had to take place digitally. Of course, this was planned differently, but it works wonderfully completely digitally!

Designing the onboarding of new employees completely online also has some advantages after the COVID-19 period. As already mentioned: Not every new employee will work at the same location as you or be in the same office every day. In cases where personal contact is not possible, you can hold many of your onboarding sessions online. You will see that your onboarding can also work effectively completely digitally!

If you want to design the next onboarding based on the principle of blended onboarding, you should pay attention to the following five tips:

5 Tips for completely digital blended onboarding

1. Use appropriate software or apps to provide your content

For new employees, it is especially important to have a central place with all relevant information – ideally in the form of an app like blink.it. There, you can upload information about daily work and company culture before the first day. Structure the task packages for the first weeks as well and best release them gradually.

2. Establish communication tools directly for new employees

Many companies already use communication tools like Google Teams or Slack today. Therefore, invite new employees directly to all team or chat tools and encourage the other employees in advance to approach new employees directly. Questions can thus be directed to the entire team.

3. Designate a contact person for your new employees

Whether onboarding at the workplace, “blended” or fully digital: you should definitely plan a fixed contact person. Ideally, this person is from the same department as your new employee. This way, you offer the “newcomers” the opportunity to ask direct questions.

4. Enable regular employee conversations and feedback

Here, too, communication is the key to success, especially when your onboarding takes place completely digitally: Schedule regular meetings, listen to the experiences of the new employees, and try to resolve issues as quickly as possible. Also, ask the other employees! At the same time, you can provide direct feedback, even without personal presence. Our favorite tool for online conversations and feedback is “Zoom.”

5. Let new employees keep a video diary

A video diary is a fixed part of blended onboarding, allowing new and existing employees to get to know each other better. For the new employee, it is also a good opportunity to reflect on the day’s experiences. Ideally, you upload the videos centrally so that your other employees can view them online and provide their own feedback!

With these tips, your onboarding can also take place without personal contact. Keep in mind especially the first tip: The ideal online tool! When your technical foundation is right, the rest of your onboarding will succeed. We, along with many other companies, swear by blink.it. – with this platform, you create the basis for a successful onboarding.

Do you want to test this platform? Then book your free admin demo with blink.it now and convince yourself of the comprehensive features of our platform.