5 Strategic Practices for Onboarding and Training Effectiveness

What is onboarding and training?

When employees join a new workplace, they face certain challenges and struggles in understanding the organization’s nature, culture, and values, the relationship between their colleagues and senior employees, and the type and structure of their work. This makes it crucial to implement onboarding and training when welcoming new employees.

Onboarding refers to the process of ‘familiarizing an employee with an organization’. It begins with the employee accepting the offer to join the organization, continues through the orientation phase where they are introduced to holistic working, and ends with the new hire becoming a full-term employee. Onboarding is highly crucial to be implemented in organizations to enhance the retention of new employees.

According to the research conducted by Brandon Hall Group, ‘88% of organizations say it is critical that employees believe in what the organization stands for as part of the onboarding program and show those employees that the organization sees their personal needs and can create an engaging process in alignment with the organization’s goals.’ Adopting onboarding programs creates in employees an understanding and commitment toward their new organization.

Training refers to the process of guiding and supporting the new employees to understand the technical basis of the work and develop the skills based on the job role. It is often regarded as a subset of the onboarding process. Training is a necessary component for the progress of a new employee as it motivates the individuals to have hands-on experience in the job and provides accurate feedback. Multiple training strategies like formal training sessions, on-the-job training, workshops, etc. serve to improve the performance and productivity of the new hires resulting in them associating with the live projects quickly.

Integrating Onboarding and Training for enhanced productivity

Effective onboarding and training are essential to accommodate new hires to the organization. BambooHR onboarding stats found that ‘Employees who had effective onboarding feel up to 18x more commitment to their workplace.’ This heightened commitment is further increased by integrating onboarding and training to yield high productivity. Combining onboarding and training includes implementing certain practices when hiring new employees.

Provide training from the initial stage

Rather than providing training in the later phase of onboarding, integrating training from the early stage creates in employees a directed and well-oriented mindset towards the roles and responsibilities. This can be done by providing access to the training modules and resources in the initial week of joining and assigning a mentor to explain the organizational culture along with guidance to the job.

Collaboration with the team

Onboarding is engaging when the entire team is being introduced to the new joiner. This early collaboration with the team lets the onboarding blend with the training process. The employee participating in early team meetings feels a sense of belongingness to the workplace and gets an understanding of their role. Moreover, the teammates can contribute to training the employee by providing peer learning.

Integration of Content

Developing modules that include a balanced integration of organizational culture and values along with job-related knowledge and skills ensures a proper balancing of onboarding and training. The training modules can be customized by incorporating mascots, values, and missions to fascinate the employee to be committed to the role and organization.

Allocation of training strategy in onboarding checklist

An onboarding checklist is a checklist that portrays the list of tasks and activities for a new employee from the pre-joining days to the end of onboarding. Incorporating training strategies in the checklist will benefit both the employer and employee in getting introduced to the job. This includes identifying the training requirements, scheduling training sessions, and cohesively scheduling them along with the factors of onboarding.

Adoption of blended techniques

Onboarding and training processes involve adopting certain strategies and techniques for enhanced communication. Introducing techniques that blend both processes is beneficial for the employees. This includes offering mentorship where the mentor guides the new employee in knowing the organizational culture and job knowledge, providing On-the-job training along with orientation, and gamification combining training and organizational content. These techniques equip the employees with skills that promote attaining high productivity.

5 Strategic Practices for Effective Onboarding and Training

Organizations that ensure effectiveness in their onboarding and training programs yield significant positive outcomes. According to Gallup analytics, “70% of employees who had exceptional onboarding experiences say they have best possible jobs” and are “2.6 times as likely to be extremely satisfied with their workplace.” Here are 5 strategic practices to be adopted in onboarding and training.

Utilize the preboarding stage

Preboarding is the phase between the new joiner accepting the offer letter and the first day of joining. Effective utilization of the preboarding stage by offering clear insights into the company culture and practices sets the foundation for smooth integration into the organization. This can ensure the new hires attain core competencies such as product knowledge and soft skills at the early stage of joining. In addition, this gives the employees a clear idea about their expectations contributing to a focused onboarding.

Extend onboarding experience to 365 days

Rather than overloading the new employee with onboarding and training in the initial days and months, extending the process to a year allows for gradual in-depth training and skill enhancement. According to the 2022 Job Seeker Nation Report by Employ, “One in every three new hires leave a job in the first 90 days.” Consistent support and engagement throughout the year prevent early turnover by ensuring new hires feel a deeper connection with the team and a sense of belonging.

Incorporate a mix of training formats

Adopting a mix of training formats such as role-specific eLearning content, on-the-job training, scenario-based learning, in-person workshops, and interactive simulations provides an effective learning environment. This ensures an inclusive and engaging experience, allowing employees to progress at their own pace.

Provide regular feedback

Regular feedback supports continuous improvement by increasing employee engagement. By offering consistent and constructive feedback, employees can focus on their strengths and the specific areas of improvement leading to elevated performance.

Implement long-term employee development plans

Promoting long-term employee development plans is a best practice in onboarding and training encouraging continuous growth, enhanced engagement, and alignment of employee’s career aspirations with organizational objectives. Furthermore, long-term plans foster a continuous learning culture enabling them to adapt to the recent industry trends.

Conclusion

Onboarding and Training are essential to welcome and accommodate a new employee to the organization. It is integral to adopt these programs to let the employee understand the nature of their work and the overall culture of the organization and enhance their retention. For enhanced productivity, proper alignment of onboarding and training is critical.

This can be performed by providing training from the initial stage, collaborating with the team, integrating the contents of onboarding and training, allocating training strategy in the onboarding checklist, and adopting blended strategies and techniques. To ensure the effectiveness of the training programs, it is essential to adopt five strategic practices such as utilizing the preboarding stage, extending onboarding to a year, incorporating a blend of training formats, providing continuous feedback, and implementing long-term employee development programs. Organizations can implement the best onboarding and training strategies to attract new hires and retain existing employees, thereby leading to organizational success.

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Knowledge Check!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is Onboarding?

Onboarding refers to the process of ‘familiarizing an employee with an organization’. It begins with the employee accepting the offer to join the organization, continues through the orientation phase where they are introduced to holistic working, and ends with the new hire becoming a full-term employee.

Why is onboarding necessary?

Onboarding is highly crucial to be implemented in organizations to enhance the retention of new employees. Adopting onboarding programs creates in employees an understanding and commitment toward their new organization.

What are the steps for integrating onboarding with training?

For enhanced productivity, proper alignment of onboarding and training is critical. This can be performed by providing training from the initial stage, collaborating with the team, integrating the contents of onboarding and training, allocating training strategy in the onboarding checklist, and adopting blended strategies and techniques.

What are the  5 best practices for effective onboarding and training?

To ensure the effectiveness of the training programs, it is essential to adopt five strategic practices such as utilizing the preboarding stage, extending onboarding to a year, incorporating a blend of training formats, providing continuous feedback, and implementing long-term employee development programs.