Good onboarding is becoming increasingly important for you and your future employees. But how can this induction period be designed even more successfully? We show you how to loosen up the onboarding process with the storytelling method and integrate new employees into your company even faster!
Tell stories!
This describes the core of storytelling very accurately: It's about how you can convey information even better with the help of emotions. Even dry numbers and facts become a lively and captivating topic for your counterpart through a good story. This helps you convince faster, because good stories are simply easier to sell!
You can apply this method in any life situation where you want to pass on information in a relaxed and fun way. That is exactly why it is particularly well-suited for the onboarding phase of new employees. But how does storytelling actually work?
Good stories are the foundation for storytelling
The storyteller Thomas Pyczak has derived a short formula for good stories from this. It is as follows:
Story = Character + Dilemma + Pursuit of escape
Now all that's missing are the ingredients of a good story:
Your mission: What is your goal with this story? What do you want to convey to your employee?
Your agent: Every story needs a hero that your employee can identify with – a person with a name and recognition value.
Your problem: Your hero gets into a conflict, which prevents him/her from achieving the set goal.
Your solution: At the end of every story, there is a resolution of how your hero overcame the conflict.
This results in a rough structure for every good story, which you can also use for the onboarding of your employees.
Tip: The most important factor for convincing storytelling is authenticity – so your stories must be real. Only in this way can you convey emotions and truly captivate your counterpart!
The concept: A good story for your onboarding consists of idea, relevance, and emotions
And how can storytelling be implemented in onboarding?
Basically, onboarding ensures that your new employees slowly find their way into the workflows of your company and get to know the other employees. For this process, some storytelling formats are particularly well-suited – We have three ideas for you that we have already tried out in our onboarding at blink.it:
1. Have your employees create welcome videos.
In particular, personal words of welcome from future colleagues are very motivating at the beginning. As a short video, they make starting in the new working environment easier. They also give new employees the opportunity to get to know the whole team faster.
In terms of the storytelling rule, a colleague can, for example, also talk about challenges from their own early days. This also takes the pressure off the new employee to have to be "perfect" during the onboarding period.
2. Introduce the company history.
Background knowledge about the company's founding and development helps new employees to better understand and internalize processes and rules within the company. Anyone who knows the history understands the dynamics of your company – you shouldn't withhold this knowledge from new employees!
For good storytelling, this company history can, for example, be told directly from the perspective of a leader or even directly by one of the founders. Challenges or small setbacks can also make an exciting story for new employees.
3. Show previous success stories.
Successes already achieved motivate new employees to use them as a guide and make progress themselves. These stories also show what opportunities are available in your company and spur top performance!
Here, too, you can use a hero and hurdles in terms of the storytelling formula: What was the goal? What did "the hero" do to achieve it? What problems did the hero have and how did he solve them?
Onboarding with stories – an experience report:
Finally, completely in the spirit of storytelling, a personal story: At blink.it, storytelling is an integral part of onboarding. During my onboarding phase, I repeatedly received personal video messages from my colleagues, which made me feel at home in the team very quickly. The company history was also brought closer to me in a small group. Little anecdotes made it particularly exciting!
In the first few weeks, I also kept a video diary that my colleagues could watch to get to know me better – with all the successes and minor problems of the early days. In this way, I also became the hero in a story myself.
From my point of view, storytelling is a wonderful method to welcome new employees to the team. This also makes it easier for the new employee to discover their own place in the company – and the little personal stories are also fun! 🙂
Onboarding with storytelling in an online course, sessions with new colleagues, and a video diary: All of these are possible aspects for your "Blended Onboarding" concept. You can find out exactly how this works in the free guide.
Conclusion
Successful onboarding not only conveys information, but also creates a quick entry into the company through personal stories, emotional bonding, and continuous guidance.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is storytelling particularly well-suited for onboarding?
Storytelling makes information more personal, understandable, and emotionally tangible. New employees do not just learn facts about the company, but also understand backgrounds, values, and typical challenges. This makes it easier for them to connect with the team and the company culture.
What stories are suitable for good onboarding?
Particularly suitable are welcome stories from colleagues, the company history, and concrete success stories from within the company. Little anecdotes from the early days of existing employees also help new colleagues reduce uncertainty and find their bearings faster.
How can storytelling be implemented digitally in onboarding?
Digital storytelling works, for example, through welcome videos, short personal messages, recorded company histories, or video diaries of new employees. These formats can be easily integrated into an onboarding course and can be viewed again at any time.
What makes an onboarding story effective?
A good onboarding story needs a clear goal, a relatable main character, a challenge, and a solution. It is also important that the story remains authentic. Real experiences seem more credible than perfectly staged content.
