Onboarding processes have an impact on employee satisfaction and company success. The disadvantage: they are time-consuming and cost-intensive. But there is a solution: customized e-learning onboarding.

If you belong to the older generation, you may be familiar with such situations: you have changed jobs and are starting your first working day at the new company. A colleague will give you a short training session and show you your workstation. Then he has to move on; after all, he has a lot to do himself. The other colleagues also seem engrossed in their work and don’t really have time to answer questions. They are left to their own devices and have to laboriously ask for everything and work it out for themselves. Only slowly do you become familiar with the corporate culture and values.
The younger ones among you will now think we are describing a working day from the Stone Age. But no, two or three decades ago such first working days were not at all unusual. Onboarding processes were not a given back then. Structured onboarding has only really taken off in the last decade – and that’s a good thing. After all, new employees have a right to be well received and integrated into a company. Companies also benefit from this. After all, onboarding has benefits for both sides: study data shows that companies that have invested time and money in onboarding processes have been able to increase revenue and improve KPIs. Employees who go through onboarding processes feel more comfortable, build a stronger bond with the company, and are more likely to stay in the position for a longer period of time. So much for the advantages. Unfortunately, onboarding also has a disadvantage – at least for companies – that should not be underestimated: it is very time-consuming and cost-intensive. Of course, employees are worth investing time and money in. But there is a way to provide accurate onboarding and still save resources in the long run: e-learning onboarding.

Although onboarding processes are something very personal, part of it can be easily moved to digital. e-Learning Onboarding takes advantage of e-learning and allows companies to integrate new employees accurately. Now let’s look at the benefits of e-learning onboarding in more detail:

e-Learning Onboarding Relieves the Load on Companies

Onboarding costs – time and money. Experienced employees, HR experts or trainers have to be recalled for onboarding processes or brought into the company separately. With the help of e-learning onboarding, some of these face-to-face conversations (in the form of videos, for example) can be digitized. This saves time and valuable human resources.

e-Learning onboarding is independent of time and location

In the best case, the training of new employees does not begin on the first day of work, but before they actually join the company. e-learning onboarding offers the best conditions for this. Employees have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with company values and work steps independently and on their own responsibility even before they start work. This gives security and takes pressure off.

e-Learning onboarding is a permanent companion

In the first few days of work, an incredible number of impressions hit new employees. This can lead to actually important details being lost or questions not being asked. This disadvantage can be eliminated by e-learning onboarding: videos or exercises are permanently available and can be repeated in case of doubt. This ensures that important content does not go to waste.

e-Learning onboarding is an employer branding tool

By means of e-learning onboarding, companies can present themselves as attractive employers and strengthen the bond with their employees. Corporate values and information about the corporate culture can be integrated accurately into e-learning onboarding .

e-Learning onboarding promotes learner engagement

e-Learning onboarding helps employees to develop acceptance for e-learning right from the start and to understand digital training and further education as something natural. Learner engagement is encouraged from the start.

With all these benefits, one question arises: should e-learning onboarding completely replace the in-person onboarding process? Our clear answer: No. Especially when it comes to integrating new employees, personal contact is indispensable. e-learning onboarding is not a complete replacement for classic onboarding, but a valuable addition and relief for companies. So, when you get right down to it, we should be talking about blended onboarding, a combination of face-to-face and e-learning onboarding.

We show what contemporary e-learning onboarding can look like in our e-learning formats and our best practices. Our e-learning format skillstart gives new employees the opportunity to acquire the knowledge they need for their new job before they start work. Lengthy onboarding processes are replaced by interactive task packages that introduce employees to work steps and company values in a fun and stress-free way. We show how this can work in practice with our Best Practice Digital Onboarding for Bakeries. There we explain step by step how e-learning onboarding can relieve bakeries and take pressure off employees.