Onboarding is an important process that significantly impacts the productivity of your business. If done correctly, your onboarding program can increase employee retention rates and productivity. Organizations that have a strong onboarding process have been found to improve their employee retention rates by as much as 82%.(1)
What’s even more interesting is that 25% of companies reported that they do not include any training in their onboarding process, which leads to high turnover.(2) Companies with the most successful onboarding programs not only provide training opportunities, but they also use a blended approach to increase learners’ engagement. This is where they use multiple formats to train their employees. This often includes eLearning, which is a modern but incredibly useful way to engage and train employees if used correctly.
There are six tips you should know about when leveraging eLearning to train new employees –
1.Customize Your Content
eLearning is the most effective when you tailor your content for a specific audience. The more specific, the better. For companies with many branches and locations, this is even more important. Customizations make the content more relatable and engaging for your employees. This will not only help new hires learn, but it will also build a sense of belonging and help better understand their role at the company. Some helpful customizations you can make are languages, content specific to a job role or department.
2.Provide Resource Materials on Your Online Platform
The most frustrating part of the onboarding process for employees is often the sheer amount of information they learn in the first week at a new job. You can help alleviate this frustration by using your eLearning platform as a place for new hires to go for reference materials they might need. This will help them find the answers they need quickly without having to disrupt workflow.
3.Make Learning Modules Short and Easy to Remember
There are many benefits to make learning modules short. One of the main reasons shorter is better is that it makes the information easier to retain, which is essential for new employees who are already mugging up a lot of new information. Another important reason is that there is often a limited amount of time available for training. Shorter modules and simulations make it easier to squeeze in time for training into busy schedules.
4.Create Interactive Simulations
When you are creating eLearning content, simulations are a great way to keep the content engaging. Simulations are an excellent way to walk new employees through potential scenarios they may face on the job. Interactive learning allows employees to apply the skills they are learning in a risk-free environment making it easier to learn from their mistakes. They will receive unbiased feedback regarding their decisions in real-time, speeding up the learning process.
5.eLearning Allows Learn at Your Own Pace
eLearning is an efficient way to provide training that allows employees to learn at their own pace. This is especially useful if new employees can review training content more than once. In this way, they can learn when it is convenient and not have to rush through the material. Giving them time to complete the necessary training and without feeling rushed will help them absorb the information more easily.
6.Track Employee Progress
Another benefit of using eLearning platforms to train new hires is that it becomes easy to track their progress. You can use this information to determine if and when a new employee is struggling with an idea or concept or even to track whether or not they completed assigned tasks. Any onboarding training content that is not being instrumental during the process can be removed from the curriculum by tracking new employee’s progress.
Key Points
Your onboarding program is a crucial part of training and retaining new talent. eLearning can be an incredibly useful onboarding tool if appropriately leveraged.
- Customizing content to better suit the onboarding needs of a particular job or department
- Your eLearning platform can be used as a resource for reference information
- Short learning modules are the easiest to remember
- Interactive simulations are a great way to practice real-life scenarios without risk
- eLearning is a good format to let employees learn at their own pace
- eLearning makes it easy to track the progress of a single employee or an entire department
Read this latest case study on how to develop a successful onboarding program, where we’ve helped an industry leader by blending 8 different training modalities to increase learner engagement and reduce training cost by 58%. Infopro Learning helped the organization to improve business performance and speed up the overall training process.
