Successful Onboarding keeps Organizations on right track and helps avoid drifting from goals

Easing new hires into their positions as quickly and efficiently as possible so they are comfortable in their job responsibilities is an important business practice that organizations can not afford to ignore. A manager can easily assume successful on-boarding is being accomplished, but employees can fall through the cracks without an appropriate process in place that is properly executed. While on-boarding programs are becoming more common in the workplace, companies need to implement a standard practice for the programs to reach their full potential. If employees can sense when beginning a new position that the company cares about them and wants them to succeed, the organization reaps the benefits through improved job performance. Demonstrations of appreciation and showing employees how they add value to the organization can give them their purpose in the company, and can directly attribute to employee loyalty for years after the transition.

In addition to clarifying the new employee’s roles and goals, it is important to communicate the overall company goals, philosophy, and culture in a consistent manner. In the past this has been accomplished with a standard company manual, however this practice is now outdated, boring, uninteresting and not interactive. This method also does not guarantee that the material will ever reach the new hire. Online training and Elearning solutions provide an intriguing an interactive way to introduce new employees to their job positions and the company as a whole. Elearning also gives managers the ability to track an employee’s movement through the material and how much information was retained by including knowledge checks and quizzes. Successful on-boarding will also involve gaining feedback from new hires to better understand where they are coming from and receive their opinions on the employee transition. Gaining participation through these channels is a great measure of performance and success.

Managers may want to see a comparison of the ROI for the Elearning On-boarding course compared with the standard classroom training and training manual. A better measure of ROI can be calculated by comparing the development cost of the Elearning with a measurement of increased productivity or contribution to the company bottom-line after the On-boarding process is complete. An Elearning program is a cost-effective on-boarding tool that not only can provide employees with a consistent way to get important information as they start their new positions, but can also provide managers with information about the employee and confirmation the employee has received and understands company rules and culture. In these unsure economic times, companies can’t afford to take the risk that employees are unprepared for new positions nor can they afford the costs associated with high turnover. Successful organizations will make sure every employee is on-boarded in a systematic and dynamic way through trackable Elearning programs.