This article will explain the following:
- How can the onboarding process be improved and how can a Learning Management System help?
- How can a company benefit from an e-learning platform?
- What tools and statistics should be used to measure the effectiveness of onboarding and what is NPS?
How to improve the onboarding process?
Due to the complexity of onboarding, introducing a checklist should be one of the first steps on the way to designing an effective onboarding process. Keeping its complexity in mind, it is extremely important to list and control the introduction of an employee to the subsequent stages. Preparing a set of competences that a new person in the organization must possess – knowledge, hard skills and soft skills (e.g. establishing relationships) – might be beneficial for the company. This solution allows the company to introduce a standardized path for new employees and make sure that no onboarding aspect is omitted.
The multitude of stages and areas of onboarding means that the people who coordinate this process (usually HR) face a difficult challenge. It is so engaging that a separate position is increasingly more often assigned to it, and consequently an onboarding specialist appears in the company’s structure. The task of such a person is to ensure that new employees acquire the necessary knowledge and adapt to the organization.
There is a growing trend to apply specialized tools to facilitate onboarding or even conduct the whole process, depending on the size of the company. Among these solutions, there is onboarding software and a specialized learning management system (LMS). The latter solution seems especially useful in terms of possible improvements. When looking at the possibilities of such a system, four aspects should be discussed in detail.
Better management of the knowledge transfer process and the employee
While the main purpose of an LMS is to facilitate education, onboarding is primarily learning and adapting to new conditions. Applying the use of an LMS in onboarding takes a barely manageable Excel check-list to a completely new level. A dedicated tool makes it possible to automate employee progress tracking, for example. Consequently, no aspect of the training is overlooked. An LMS also allows HR departments to easily transfer the responsibility for interaction with the system to the employee, instead of inevitably becoming the so-called bottleneck of the process. A digital learning platform also reduces the level of insecurity of employees, who have access to the next steps of training at any time. They receive tasks to be performed, a list of training courses, a schedule of activities, the information about the company, all the necessary documents, and their contact person details. As a result, the onboarding process is measurable, which strengthens the position of HR, allows supervisors to examine the strengths and weaknesses of the organization, and builds the employer’s image more effectively.
Successful acquisition of knowledge
Training course effectiveness is one of the many problems of onboarding instructors. An LMS introduces tests to check the learned competencies and confirm whether the knowledge has been successfully acquired by new members of the company. This is valuable information for both the employee and the HR team. In addition, in the event of potential knowledge gaps, some learning management systems available on the market offer the help of a virtual assistant. This bot, armed with artificial intelligence algorithms, refers the user to the database. As a result, eliminating employee knowledge gaps becomes trivial, does not require additional time, and does not cause frustration resulting from incomprehension or stress. Consequently, fewer errors are made and greater efficiency is accomplished from the beginning of work.
A digital learning platform is always available
Another function of such a system is the company knowledge database. It can take the form of a digital learning platform or a classic list of articles. A learning management platform allows trainers to publish attractive content which will encourage employees to return to it, even after the onboarding stage. As a result, the acquired knowledge, even if initially unused, will be constantly available.
This method of learning management in the company relieves the people responsible for knowledge transfer. It also makes employees more independent.
E-learning training courses have one more advantage: they eliminate the risk caused by the human factor in the onboarding process. In other words – everyone in the company has access to the same information and knowledge transfer doesn’t depend on any single person. This, in turn, allows companies to build uniform standards.
Fun and gamification
A long-term learning process can be associated with monotony and boredom. The use of dedicated platforms solves this problem by introducing an element of fun and rivalry. Earning points for the right results, competing with other people, and gaining awards and recognition for a proactive approach – these are just a few of the possibilities offered by an LMS. One of the popular approaches to competitiveness is collecting points during the subsequent onboarding stages. These points can then be exchanged at the end of the day for one of the available welcome packs. It is also worth remembering that unattractive content simply does not sell – visually interesting content is much more effective.
Ways to measure the effectiveness of employee onboarding
Measuring onboarding effectiveness concludes the process and is necessary for achieving strategic goals. As a result of effectiveness analyses, the process can be evaluated and continuously improved. Three ways to measure the effectiveness of employee onboarding are listed below.
0-10 score and NPS
The former is the evaluation of the process on a 0-10 scale and the latter is an NPS (Net Promoter Score) survey. In principle, NSP verifies to what extent the user would recommend a given service to his or her friends, and it can be similarly used in the case of onboarding. It is not an exhaustive study, but it can effectively outline how the process is perceived.
Both of these studies categorize recipients into the three following groups: critics (answers from 0 to 6), passive recipients (answers 7 and 8) and promoters (answers 9 and 10). The latter are enthusiastic people who will promote the brand and can become the company’s ambassadors.
Both the score on the scale and the NPS are calculated by subtracting the percentage of critics from the promoters. Accordingly, the result can range from -100% to 100%. Although in theory anything above zero is a good result, the best companies reach the level of about 70%, while no company is said to have reached 100%.[1]
Reports
The analysis of reports is a much more accurate method of analyzing the quality of onboarding, and it is used in the case of dedicated learning platforms. Digital learning platforms provide exact statistics, which is extremely valuable, especially in terms of the duration of courses, their syllabuses, and the results of tests. Thanks to this function, onboarding can be finely tuned, so that the acquisition of an effective employee takes place in the shortest possible time, and the adaptation costs themselves become lower.
Company results
Onboarding, as it has already been emphasized, is about achieving the company’s strategic goals. In the long term, it translates into the level of employee rotation, the perceived satisfaction, and the commitment to the company. Implementing a high-quality onboarding process should be clearly reflected in other company results. Such data is also worth following.
Onboarding is a key aspect of functioning and it influences the long-term relationship between employees and the company. A careful approach to this subject is therefore extremely important. Companies which intend to improve this process should consider a dedicated platform or learning management system. These tools will certainly not solve all the problems, but they can significantly contribute to achieving many strategic goals and streamlining existing processes. Combined with a thorough research of end-user needs, they can result in a well-designed process which will bring huge profits to the company.
