Things To Consider For Hybrid Employee Onboarding
A hybrid workforce refers to a hybrid working model where some employees work on-site while others prefer to work from home. Many companies allow employees to work from home for certain days a month. While the debate between on-site work versus work from home is an ongoing one, it is certain that a hybrid or blended workforce is here to stay and will make inroads into the future as well.
With employees working from home for various reasons, how can the new recruits be amalgamated into the company's culture? Also, the new employees need to be explained their roles and responsibilities, code of conduct, rules, and policies, organizational structure, etc., in order to accelerate their onboarding process.
There are five main goals of onboarding: impression, introduction, integration, immersion, and independence. An onboarding process is phased out in the following way: orientation, role training, and ongoing development. I have spoken about them in detail in another article describing how an LMS can help provide an amazing onboarding experience.
Beyond the paperwork, eLearning can take your onboarding process to a new level. Here are some elements of an effective onboarding program for a hybrid workforce.
Hybrid Employee Onboarding Journey
An onboarding eLearning journey may include most of the following:
- Welcome kit
- Icebreaker activities
- Address by top management
- Company's mission, vision, formats, organization structure, etc.
- Individual courses or resources of compliance, policies, code of conduct, etc.
- Motivational snippets
- Team-based games
- Forum that allows new recruits to ask questions to seniors
- Live webinar from management or seniors
- Employee's feedback
- Facilitator support
Let's see how these elements contribute to metamorphosing a boring and routine onboarding experience.
Hit The Ground Running
As soon as the offer letter is given, the new hire can be introduced to the welcome section of the learning path. This welcome module can include the company's mission, vision, formats, organization structure, and handbook on roles and responsibilities. These could be divided into short modules that the new employee can go through at convenient times. For the recruit, it starts the process of knowing the company and connecting with it.
So Far, Yet So Near
An effective onboarding program makes distance an inconsequential factor, whether the new employee is working in remote branches or from home. It is an opportunity to bond from day one. Give a walkthrough of the head office, factory, warehouse, and other workplaces.
Whether it is a new customer or a new hire, one tends to connect with the face of the company. The values, integrity, and culture of the people in management reflect the perception of the company. Therefore, the address by top management and motivational quotes play an important role in making the employee feel comfortable in the workplace. Live sessions with the immediate or senior leaders can have a tremendous effect.
Also, the first few days are crucial to apprise the new employees about policies related to compliance, code of conduct, diversity, equity and inclusivity (DEI), and so on. This not only defines the standards of the company that the employee needs to follow, but it also tells them what kind of place they are in.
The initial part of the learning path takes care of two major goals of the onboarding journey: impression and introduction.
Collaborative Spaces
Solitude and collaboration are two learning behaviors, and each of us has shades of both. Work happens in teams even if one is working independently on their respective tasks. Integration with your team members is best achieved through icebreaker activities and team games moderated by a facilitator. These can be punctuated between courses on policies, compliance, company profiles, and management messages.
A Virtual Reality environment is best suited for an onboarding process interspersed with games and interactions.
These elements go a long way toward advancing the third onboarding goal, integration.
Interactions
In addition to live sessions with the leaders, there can be Q&A sessions through an official forum. The new employees get to ask relevant questions. It also gives them a chance to share feedback regarding the training program and any other.
Role And Skill Training
Onboarding goals of integration, immersion, and independence are supported by skill-based training. Once the roles and responsibilities are explained, the resources of samples and reference materials can be added to the learning path.
It is said that, by teaching, one learns and understands. An authoring tool allows the new employee to create courses on various new topics. This promotes collaborative learning.
Onboarding is not limited to admin tasks or initial introduction. It culminates in helping the new employee perform the task independently with minimum supervision. Include task-specific learning capsules to complete the onboarding process.
Conclusion
The onboarding process for the hybrid workforce can have a learning path stretching across a few weeks or even months.
Employees who have exceptional onboarding experiences are more likely to feel satisfied with their workplace. An agile onboarding training program is a necessity, as it is a powerful tool to keep the team spread across the globe together. This in turn will lead to enhanced productivity, engagement, and thus the company's bottom line.
Create an unparalleled onboarding experience for your hybrid workforce with customized eLearning courses, LMS, and/or LXP.
At Tesseract Learning, we are leveraging our powerful learning platform, KREDO, to create efficiencies across the training life cycle and to deliver optimal learning experiences. We provide end-to-end execution of the complete Learning and Development cycle and learning consultation. Our authoring tool, Prodient.io is one of the best eLearning authoring tools that personifies ease, effectiveness, and efficiency in the development of eLearning courses.
Contact me or leave a comment below to learn more about our services and how we can help you.
