What is onboarding? How does LMS help with employee onboarding?
Jul 30, 2022
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After a lengthy hiring process, it is time to welcome a new colleague to the team, but the hard work is far from over because the onboarding process has just begun! An effective employee onboarding program ensures the short and long-term success of the new hires and the company. How vital is the employee onboarding process? Let us find out.What is onboarding?
Employee onboarding is broadly defined as the process of familiarizing a new employee with the organization's policies, the employee’s role in the organization, the organization's culture, and more. The onboarding process also involves creating an environment in which the employees are made comfortable to establish social relationships in the workplace.
Additionally, it involves getting the employees to complete the necessary paperwork for labor law compliance and equipping them with all the tools they need to do their job well during and after onboarding. Employees learn what the organization expects from them in terms of skills, communication style, attitude, work culture, etc. We read through several research papers and studies to understand what is onboarding and how is it effective. Below are some of the findings that have been summarized for you:
- Hiring is time-consuming and can be costly.
- Retaining employees is difficult, and if they are not onboarded optimally, you may lose them soon, which will result in another expensive hiring cycle.
- The success of an employee onboarding program depends on the efficiency of the onboarding program. The quicker the employees are empowered to do their jobs, the faster they are likely to become valuable and begin contributing to the organization.
- Onboarding is not just an HR job but also the responsibility of the immediate manager. Their job is to introduce the new hires to their roles and responsibilities in the organization, their performance expectations, and the culture of the team they are going to be a part of.
In addition to this, onboarding is not only associated with new employees. Employees move laterally into new roles, known as cross boarding (covered later in this article), and they are also required to be onboarded following a similar process. While they may be familiar with the organization's culture, the new team culture may be different. And while they may be familiar with company policies, they may still need a mentor to guide them through their new role.
Many organizations have been using a learning management system (LMS), which is an online integrated software used for creating, delivering, tracking, and reporting educational courses and outcomes. LMS assists in onboarding the new employees along with easy transition within the organization.
How does an LMS help with onboarding new employees?
Onboarding new employees can be difficult, time-consuming, costly, and sometimes inductive if done without proper planning. When done poorly, it can also demotivate new hires trying to adjust to their jobs.
In industries like hospitality, retail, and construction, an inefficient onboarding process might even be unsafe if new employees aren't taught job-specific guidelines and can't pass their compliance training. This might set a bad tone at the beginning of employment and might also impact employee retention. With the help of an LMS, you can provide consistent training to all your employees.
But if prepared well, a smooth-running onboarding process on an LMS can help new hires start strong. It gives them the knowledge and also the confidence to do their job well. Effective onboarding helps increase productivity, which has a positive impact on the company’s timeline; it also gives the employees a great first impression of the organization and drives them to perform even better at work.
Some features of an employee onboarding LMS include:
- Accessible course
- Content personalization
- Assessment / test / Evaluation
- Training and certification
- Analytics, tracking, and reporting
- Mobile learning support.
- Gamification
- Integration
- It is easily scalable.
As someone in human resources or a leadership position, it should be a priority to make your new employee feel welcome and prepared. If you're looking for a way to revamp your onboarding process and make it more effective for your new hires, LMS is a great solution.
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