Organizations have employee onboarding processes in place to make their transition from the old company to the new ones easier. This process helps the new hires to familiarize themselves with the new surrounding and environment. It is vital to have an efficient onboarding process because it can make or break the first impression that an employee will have of the company.
Having proper Onboarding Software is of utmost importance in the organization. The onboarding process is the first step a new hire takes in the company. Employee onboarding helps in managing, developing, measuring, and streamlining the company’s onboarding process and training of the new hires.
The right employee onboarding LMS enable your organization to create a robust culture that will show the way to better employee retention and more effective employee onboarding. It is very difficult to retain young talent, thus, using such robust tools has become crucial for companies. For the millennials, the culture and the purpose of the organization is the most important reason to work there.
Learning Management System (LMS) that is specifically designed for employee onboarding is perhaps the best software to provide a great onboarding experience to the new hires joining the firm. You can use this tool to deploy training that will enable the candidates to start performing on the job quickly and efficiently.
An LMS lets you create, manage, and store the online learning courses, while also helping you make the overall enrollment process hassle-free, and lessens the time taken. LMS for onboarding enables you to automate the employee onboarding process which in turn helps in saving a lot of time, energy, and money.
Below, we have mentioned how you can use an LMS for employee onboarding:
1) Prepare your onboarding training
The first step will always be planning. Start by drawing a map and identifying what all do you need to cover in yoru onboarding training. In fact, you can use this to create a step by step process of how the entire onboarding system will take place. Then, collect the online training material and other resources that you deem to be necessary for your onboarding practices.
In the online course material, including topics that covers key policies, terms of your company, procedures regarding your IT system, Code of Conduct that needs to be followed, company HR processes, work culture, and the most important is the key responsibilities of the newly hired employee is absolutely necessary. Alternatively, you can design a completely different course where you define the roles and responsibilities of the new employee in elaboration.
2) Create your onboarding training material on an LMS
LMS allows you to create, develop, manage, and upload content for employee onboarding. Now, when it comes to the training material, you have plenty of options to choose from. You can maybe invest in an LMS that comes with an in-built authoring too. This will help you create the online training material using those authoring tools.
Or, you can choose to import content from the existing data files that you might have been using before getting an LMS. Lastly, you can attempt to build custom online training content with the help of standalone authoring tools. This means that you will have to invest in both an LMS and an authoring tool.
Whatever method you choose, just keep in mind that it is highly recommended to create the course material using multimedia, which will help in keeping the new employees engaged and interested throughout the onboarding process. From text PDFs to videos, audios to graphics, you must consider using a mix of media.
Also, you can create the content according to different learning paths of different new hires. This lets you offer tailored onboarding experiences to different employees. This process will help the new hires get a clear picture of their progress and what they need to do to attain the goal.
3) Adding and enrolling new employees
Now that you have your course ready, it is time to start enrolling your new hires. There are three ways you can add and enroll your new hires on the onboarding LMS.
Automatic Enrollment – Once you add new employee record into the tool (their basic details and other relevant information), onboarding LMS automatically enrolls the new hire in the next available session of the onboarding training.
Manual Enrollment – LMS administrator, HR Manager, or a designated team member can manually enroll the new employee on a scheduled onboarding session as per their role and responsibilities.
Self-Enrollment – Once the HR Manager or a designated team member adds the new employee, the new hire receives a notification to enroll for an onboarding session. This method is helpful for large organizations having a high staff as employees can onboard themselves at the time they find convenient and the team managers can focus on other important tasks at hand.
4) Check results and metrics
If you don’t analyze how your onboarding efforts are performing, it will completely dissolve the purpose of using a digital tool. The reporting and analytics feature of an LMS helps in tracking course completion, checking of program results, time taken to complete the course, points earned, etc. This will also help in tracking the learners’ progress.
In turn, all the insights help you identify and understand the effectiveness of your course material.
5) Review and Revise the Course Content
You can review the online course content created for the employee onboarding program annually or bi-annually. You can check the course performance and revise the content based on the reports generated.
6) Course Completion Certificates
LMS reduces the burden on the members of the HR department, as the tool lets you give course completion certificates by certification management feature. With the help of the gamification feature, you can give points, rewards, or badges, which encourage the employees to perform better and remain engaged with the course content.
Conclusion
With the use of the right LMS and engaging learning material, the employee onboarding process becomes trouble-free and the new hires acquire the required skills and knowledge to perform better. We recommend using the LMS for simple employee onboarding and taking the onboarding experience to a next level.
