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3 onboarding risks and how to prevent them

Blog posts | 01.05.2014

Kineo

Shaping the future of learning

Kineo

Shaping the future of learning

While we've been told to never judge a book by its cover, sometimes first impressions do have a lasting effect. The same can be said for your onboarding programme. This programme plays a critical role in the success of a new hire, and how well you can start implementing job responsibilities, company culture and behaviours from day one. Poor onboarding and induction programmes run serious risks such as low productivity, poor customer service, compliance risks, lost sales and staff turnover. So how can these risks be reduced whilst creating an engaging, flexible resource that benefits these newbies throughout their employment at your organisation?
 

Enabling multi-device onboarding programmes to avoid low productivity

Sometimes a new starter may not be fully productive from anywhere between 6-12 months. But, if induction is done early enough, the time to competency can be reduced if it's delivered at the right time and in the right way. So what's the right way? It's time to start thinking about the future with multi-device onboarding. When you know that your staff quite easily have a laptop, smartphone and/or a tablet in this day and age, you need to bring the learning to them. By making the programme fully accessible not just on laptops, but across tablets and smartphones, you would be giving your new hires the chance to jumpstart their training before they even come into the office on Monday morning. 

Bonus perk: You might work in global, large and complex organisation where time is precious and not everyone works infront of a desktop, or you might know someone who does. Organisations these days are seeing workers across multiple regions and remote offices coming on board. Does BYOD sound familiar? Multi-device is now the way in which people are learning - via their own multi devices and learning from home.  Just remember that especially in onboarding, new starters are the most excitable and hungry in your organisation, and you need to harness that energy when making induction relevant and accessible across multi-devices. By enabling a multi-device approach to your induction training, you're giving them the freedom to access their welcome programmes on their own, without even having a workstation involved. Just see how the Scouts Association reach their 120,000 volunteers across the UK with their multi-device onboarding programme. 
 

On-the-go accessibility prevents poor customer service (and loss of sales)

It's been documented that it costs organisations in the US and UK $37 billion a year when employees don't understand their jobs- that's a huge loss! So let's say you've just created an onboarding programme for your retail staff at your telecomm company. You want to equip them with appropriate information about the company, its cultural values and the expectations of their roles and responsibilities. Often, induction can also include product knowledge training. Lack of knowledge, or even access to this knowledge increase the risks of mistakes or poor customer service when dealing with customers. By giving your newbies access to their onboarding programme via multi-devices, they could be in the lunch room thinking, "I'm not feeling confident about the details of this new groovy tablet that was just launched," - and they could open up their training on their own smartphone to find that reference point, extending their learning  on-the-job. That accessibility to their learning offers a wide variety of resources available at the touch of their fingertips. 

Bonus perk: Connect new employees with each other through an online social learning platform, using multi-channels and platforms. Connecting your multi-device onboarding programme through a compatible LMS with social learning capabilities, gives your new hires a chance to find colleagues and mentors within the organisation who can offer advice or feedback. What's even better is when your LMS is multi-device compatible as well. It's time to think bigger picture with your onboarding. 
 

Break the mould with engaging onboarding to reduce staff turnover

Within the first 90 days of a new job, employees still consider whether they want to jump ship and find elsewhere to work. Building a tech savvy onboarding programme that caters to the sensibility of the new learner's needs, giving them the flexibility to initiate their onboarding programme as they see fit, demonstrates a cutting edge organisation that understands how technology is changing the workplace (and workers). Your organisation's history may expand over decades, but being able to show that forward-thinking approach of implementing a multi-device approach to onboarding learning programmes, suggest you're here for the long haul (and employees will be as well). 

Bonus perk: Think about giving your onboarding and induction training brand and stacks of personality. As much as you're looking at first impressions of your new hire, they need to have first impressions of your organisation too. Multi-device learning built on the Adapt Framework gives the opportunity for onboarding programmes to be designed with maximum impact. Tell stories through vivid imagery, give it an emotional flair by letting your new hires know that you're excited they've joined your organisation, show your passion through scrolling storylines, and make it flexible for easy and early adoption. Your new hires will be thrilled. 

So, three challenges of onboarding and induction training and how a multi-device approach for these programmes can combat these pesky risks. What challenges and risks do you face with onboarding and induction programmes? Let us know in our Kineo elearning professionals group on LinkedIn! 

Kineo

Shaping the future of learning


Kineo helps the world’s leading businesses improve performance through learning and technology. We’re proud of our reputation for being flexible and innovative, and of our award-winning work with clients across the world.