Online onboarding: Attention is everything!

In this age of corona, many organisations face this question: how can we arrange a good online onboarding? For those who have previously arranged successful ‘live’ onboardings, you’ll know that this requires lots of thinking and adapting, and the challenge is even greater for organisations that don’t yet have an onboarding process in place, because how can you possibly make newcomers feel welcome without receiving them in person. How can you train employees if they cannot watch and physically interact with their colleagues? How can newcomers get to know the organizational culture if they are not physically present, and how can they get to know their colleagues within and outside of their departments, colleagues who are crucial for developing a good network? And how can we provide warmth, enthusiasm and fun?

Onboarding at home also has advantages: you get to know your colleagues quicker in informal ways, because everyone’s working from home and you can see for instance their home’s interior and the children and pets that happen to come into view. And no serious energy is wasted commuting, which is good because onboarding is strenuous enough. But still…online onboarding is ultimately about making do with what you have.

Onboarding entails the complete integration process when new employees join the organisation, which is more than simply ‘induction’.

When onboarding, organisations pursue the following five goals:

Enhance employee engagement from the first day when the contract is signed, because people do feel more committed to organisations where they feel welcome.
Get employees to be productive faster. A good onboarding saves crucial time spent on training.
Prevent new employees from becoming disappointed and giving up and leaving the organisation prematurely.
Improve the integration of new employees, because they quickly get to know the organizational culture and standards and values.
Build networks faster. To get something done in an organisation, you must know who you need.

Attention is everything

It is of course vital that practical matters are properly arranged. Ensure that the hardware is delivered on time to the remote working address. However, for online boarding, of even greater importance is that newcomers feel good about the organisation and maintain that feeling. Engagement is something that must grow among employees; it is not something that already comes as standard on the day the contract is signed. Research revealed that 89% of newcomers felt no real commitment during the initial stage of their new job. Sometimes the hiring process is also held online and newcomers have a great need for more engagement. What helps newcomers feel more engaged is lots of personal attention, daily online check-ins, empathy and understanding.

Organisational culture: delving deeper into onboarding

In times when remote working has created physical distance, employees also experience greater mental distance. It used to be easier to experience the organizational culture, but nowadays it’s much more difficult. There are few opportunities to be physically introduced to the culture and even fewer casual encounters and insights.

Many organisations are currently wondering how they can maintain their culture, standards and values at a distance, and how they can introduce them to newcomers. The answer is that more than ever before, an organisation must immerse itself even more in its own organizational culture and discover new ways to introduce newcomers to the culture.

How can we tell newcomers about our purpose? How do we involve newcomers in our goals? Which behavior is part of our core values and how is that exhibited online? What standards of decency do we all share? How can we ensure that successes are celebrated, employees feel valued and the sense of mutual trust deepened? How do we create a growing sense of community? How can we successfully communicate about our culture, top-down and bottom-up? The more explicitly an organisation can identify these issues, the easier it is to convert them into online actions and communication.

Deliver customisation

No one employee is the same, which also applies to a newcomer. Invest the time needed to get to know them better, so they can respond immediately. How well is the newcomer able to handle working remotely? How easily does the newcomer make personal contact? What does the newcomer need to become and remain engaged and inspired? Work these insights into the onboarding program.

Preboarding

The pre-boarding stage runs from day the contract is signed to the first working day, a period when it’s important to keep the fire burning, albeit at a distance. At this stage the newcomer will have more doubts and questions than at other times, because online onboarding demands much from the employee and organisation. Consequently, it is crucial to give newcomers extra attention before their first workday, as this helps maintain mutual trust and dispel any doubts. Allow the initiative to come mainly from the organisation and do not expect the newcomers to be quick to raise any alarms.

In addition to keeping in touch by the occasional telephone call, other examples include:

sending a welcome box or flowers to the employee’s home;
sending an invitation for an online meeting with a manager, the team or personal buddy;
adding the new colleague to the team’s WhatsApp groups in advance;
sending a video from the team welcoming the new colleague;
connecting on LinkedIn.

Onboarding app

Many organisations – and smaller ones as well – have recently invested in good onboarding apps, which allow you to immediately welcome new employees after they sign their contracts and to keep them enthusiastic about the organisation. The onboarding app can be filled with various videos, like a tour of the head office, an introduction to the organisation and a welcome message from the CEO. You can disseminate standards and values, include e-learning modules and introduce employees to one another.

Wortell, an IT company, gives newcomers access to an onboarding app even before they sign their contracts, allowing them to already find information about employment terms and contracts, content of conversations and practical information about location and parking. Onboarding app require investments of time but are well worth it in our online times.

First day: make it a house party

Although we cannot receive people at our office, we can indeed make the newcomer’s first workday special and welcoming in other ways. Examples of how to do this include:

sending a cake, balloons or card to the employee’s home on behalf of their colleagues;
organizing an online coffee get-together to get to know the team;
not discussing work-related matters on this day, but instead focusing on speed dates with colleagues.

Onboarding plan

To make an online induction successful, the induction program must be planned well in advance of the employee’s first day. According to Sapling’s research, the average newcomer must complete some 54 activities during the induction period. Consequently, it’s good to have an overview and keep the effort required at acceptable levels. Sending newcomers the induction program in advance will give them confidence, and to provide the requisite guidance, the program should be planned for their first two weeks on the job.

Realize that training online is more exhausting than ‘live’.
Alternate online and offline activities to reduce video fatigue.
Have the newcomer stop working at 16:00 for example.
Many organisations also provide physical interaction at the office or by scheduling walking appointments.
As a manager, plan a moment every working day to check on the newcomer and see how the onboarding is going.
Ensure that there is enough variety in the online introduction day or days in order to maintain them. Appoint a colleague with a large network and experience as a buddy for the newcomer and plan sufficient interaction between them.
Visualize the induction program as a roadmap to journey through; this gives the newcomer insight into where they stand in the process.
Let the manager plan the 30-60-90-day milestones as online evaluation moments.
Make compelling videos and training manuals available to facilitate the training.
Also use ‘screen sharing’ to transfer knowledge online.

Team effort

A good onboarding scenario is necessary, but feeling welcome among your colleagues is even more important. Because “bumping’ into each other and saying good day is not an option with working online, you can stimulate this in other ways, like for example with a coffee break for the newcomer that colleagues join. Remind the whole team that onboarding is a team effort. Brainstorm with each other about what the team and each team member can contribute to the process. Above all, come up with something playful and fun. Ensure there is an extensive written/video introduction of the newcomer and other team members, including not only professional career information, but also information about life outside of work, such as hobbies, interests and family life. The more colleagues know about each other the better the chance they will find common ground, even outside of work.

Encourage newcomers to engage in online social activities, as this is a quick way to start feeling at home in the organisation, and if the organisation is not yet doing much in this line, this is precisely the reason to start. You can also ask the newcomer to contribute to social activities by organizing an activity.

Measure

By measuring how satisfied newcomers are with the onboarding, the organisation can gauge whether the onboarding process is running smoothly, and if not there’s time to intervene when satisfaction levels are running low or receding and take quick action. Measurements also reveal which parts of the onboarding were well received and which less enthusiastically. Especially now, in these times, it’s crucial not lose newcomers faster than necessary due to a poorly received onboarding.

Author: Heleen Mes