Exploring Innovative Solutions: Rethinking Onboarding in the Corporate Sphere21.11.2023

Exploring Innovative Solutions: Rethinking Onboarding in the Corporate Sphere

Onboarding remains crucial to an organization because of its direct effect on how employees feel about their jobs and, therefore, success and satisfaction with the company in the short term and over time.

Delayed productivity of traditional onboarding methods comes with the time employees need to adjust to their roles and responsibilities as they make friends and become familiar with the organization's culture. The failure to apply personal touches or interactive elements may also diminish engagement potential over time. Organizations are also increasingly aware that their onboarding process should meet today's employee needs and tastes as they continue changing the corporate environment.

In this article, we shall discuss the innovative ways of onboarding and how we at Games for Business do it. For example, onboarding can be engaging for more than just new colleagues. Read on to find out what it's all about.

Onboarding Solutions

Organizations have realized they need a differentiator to be an employer of choice in today's competitive job market. One should start by providing a unique and exciting welcome that helps integrate workers smoothly into the organization while reflecting its ethos and dedication towards training. Innovative employee onboarding aims to improve conventional methods' inadequacies by inputting newness, technology, and individuality as part of the onboarding journey.

Notably, the emergence of remote and hybrid work models has also intensified the requirement for creative onboarding mechanisms geared toward onboarding personnel even when they operate away from their physical workplace.

Gamified Onboarding: A New Approach

The new method of gamified onboarding differs from the traditional one by involving game elements, such as quizzes, battles, levels, competition, and more during the onboarding process. It is possible to use the gamification approach to make the onboarding process exciting, enjoyable, and memorable for recruits and improve their participation. While this approach speeds up the learning curve, it also creates a feeling of achieving goals and progress as one goes through the pathway of onboarding. In addition, the provision of gamified onboarding can also be designed based on the same ideals used to shape the company's brand and values. Consequently, it will enable the new personnel to develop a sense of cultural attachment while gaining essential competencies and expertise.

How does it work in practice? During the first year of the project, 434 new Generali Austria recruits in 35 Austrian regions started their enrolment with the company through our innovative learning method, which helped them integrate into the company and provided them with solid agent training right away.

In the digital world, recruits follow two closely linked learning processes: induction and focused sales training. Learning is enjoyable for employees thanks to the microlearning method and gamified elements such as quizzes, leaderboards, knowledge points, prizes, etc. Users can learn at their own pace, whenever and wherever they wish.

HQ Onboarding: Redefining the Corporate Onboarding Experience

Adjusting to a new work environment can be stressful for many. A playful digital experience, in which users become motivated to discover the unique setting and prepare themselves for the transition, can significantly reduce fear and resistance towards the inevitable change. Engaging employees through gamified learning systems, as demonstrated in the MOL Campus project, can enhance their commitment and ease the transition.

On December 9, 2022, 2,500 colleagues occupied their brand new workplaces in the 143-meter office building, one of the greenest office buildings in Budapest. It also represents the highest energy saving and environmental awareness level and won the "Headquarters of the Year 2022" award. This emphasizes the importance of providing employees with a secure and connected workspace, especially when the lines between work and home are blurred.

Beyond First Impressions: Why New Customer/Partner Onboarding is Crucial for Business Success

While much of the spotlight is on employee onboarding, new customer/partner onboarding is vital to boost collaboration efforts and a fruitful alliance between businesses and their customers.

The benefits go beyond creating a good impression; it helps reduce the chance of losing a customer/partner by giving them a better understanding of all the product features. Companies should spend as much of their budget on onboarding partners and customers as on sales.

AI in Onboarding: Leveraging Technology for a Seamless Onboarding Experience

The use of artificial intelligence in onboarding could transform how organizations recruit new people into the workplace. Through machine learning and natural language processing, AI-based onboarding platforms generate personalized and agile onboarding pathways tailored to each trainee's needs and style. AI in onboarding can ensure that new employees receive real-time support, guidance, and feedback throughout their onboarding journey through intelligent chatbots, virtual assistants, and predictive analytics.

In addition, AI-powered onboarding platforms could also handle everyday tasks such as processing documents, setting training schedules, and tracking performance, saving HR or managers valuable minutes on more important onboarding-related tasks. Furthermore, insights gained by AI during onboarding could allow organizations to fine-tune the onboarding process over time and provide employees with an up-to-date experience that considers changing workforce needs.

One example of such an onboarding effort is GreenHouse. Greenhouse an all-inclusive hiring platform that makes it easy to incorporate during onboarding while seamlessly connecting to other internal HR systems to create efficiencies in managing new hires. Onboarding tasks such as sending a welcome email, assigning roles, and tracking progress are automated through this platform. It also features smooth integrations with other HR systems, such as payroll and learning management systems, besides allowing personalized onboarding plans that are tailor-made for a specific role, responsibility, or level of experience the newly hired employee has.

Best Examples for Implementing Innovative Employee Onboarding Solutions

Vodafone:

Unlike most organizations that depend on complex structures and handbook manuals, Vodafone has produced its employee onboarding application, MyVodafone.

When starting at the company, every new hire obtains an entry pass for the Vodafone app that acts as a map during onboarding. This application focuses on making onboarding more accessible for new hires and providing them a platform to submit their unique needs. It plays a dual part; it gives employees essential data about the company and helps ease the work of welcoming Vodafone.

Google:

While onboarding at Google, the emphasis is placed on the managers. Within 24 hours before a new hire's start date, their managers receive an automated notification containing five specific tasks:

  • Assign each of them a friend or a buddy.
  • Discuss their role and responsibilities.
  • Help introduce them to fellow workers.
  • Schedule monthly meetings with the employee for six months.

Because the onboarding procedure focuses on managers, new employees get a more practical view of what they will do.

Apple:

The company developed an iBuddy system to connect new hires with employees who knew Apple’s culture well. This system matches new employees with senior team members outside their primary group. They do this to obtain advice on how they fit into the firm, understand work practices and the company’s culture, and get acquainted with different workplaces. iBuddy’s benefit is its ability to facilitate the adaptation process.

After the formation of the buddy thirty years ago, the system is as important today and has been adopted by other corporations such as Microsoft.

Conclusion

Onboarding is changing in several ways, such as gamified onboarding, integrating HQ experiences, customer-centric approaches, and artificial intelligence to deliver a new level of understanding for employees and customers. Future trends in onboarding in the corporate sphere will include artificial intelligence, gamification, and personalized design.

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Source:

https://actus.co.uk/onboarding-the-five-types-your-organisation-should-be-doing/

https://clickup.com/blog/client-onboarding/

https://leena.ai/blog/ai-employee-onboarding/

https://www.zavvy.io/blog/employee-onboarding-examples

https://omnihr.co/blog/employee-onboarding-ai/

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