Using Elearning to Onboard New Staff
21st July 2015
Marshall E-Learning has recently created online induction projects for the likes of the University of Hull, Harper Adams University and Kimberley Institute (Australia). But how can you use e-learning to effectively onboard staff?
We thought it would be useful to share our lessons learned for these recent staff onboarding projects, which might help you onboard staff more effectively using e-learning.
1. Focus on interaction and engagement
Any interactive element that regularly compels new staff is great for the staff member and your organisation, so the main focus of the onboarding process should be engagement. Think about how you can use internal social networks, Facebook, Twitter, email or others as e-learning aids to make training an organisation-wide task. This will help new staff get comfortable asking questions and getting help in an easily accessible way.
Find out how you can design engaging elearning courses.
2. Emphasise A Warm Welcome
If there was a common theme to all our recent projects, we would say that the organisation wanted to give a warm welcome to new members of staff.
This has the double benefit of increasing employee effectiveness in the early stages of employment and at the same time build in a compliance aspect to the programme.
3. Keep Compliance In Mind
The compliance training element included with all these modules didn’t need to be at the forefront of onboarding staff, but we needed to make sure that compliance elements were still very much there.
This is especially true when combined with a Learning Management System, which ensures that your organisation has reports on individual usage.
4. Illustrate Your Organisation’ s Culture
Marshall E-Learning recently developed an induction course for current staff and all new starters at the University of London. The challenge the University faced was how it would cope with the logistics of inducting thousands of staff without just being an exercise in compliance.
They wanted a very interactive course that incorporated all of the interesting stories, events, buildings and ethos of the organisation. As a result, the course focuses heavily on the history, culture and prestige of the building in addition to the people within the organisation. There was also a heavy focus on employee welfare and engagement whilst obviously incorporating systems and processes that are in place at the University of London.
5. Meet Your Users’ Learning Needs
The way people learn online is changing rapidly and e-learning technology needs to keep up with these rapid developments. One aspect of this are the devices that people use to access e-learning. To meet this key trend you will want to consider e-learning that is mobile and tablet friendly.
The University of London project that Marshall E-Learning built was the first smartphone enabled induction in Higher Education in the UK. This means that the University can be confident that new staff members will experience an excellent onboarding process, no matter what device they use to access the course – desktop, tablet or mobile.
Marshall E-Learning also recently worked on an induction project for Formica, the laminate and solid surfacing company. Formica wanted an induction tool that their staff could access via smartphones so that they could go through the induction at their own convenience. They also had a big focus on the history and value of their product, as they wanted staff to understand and appreciate the production process in relation to their role and how it fits within the larger organisation.
6. Think About Diversity & Inclusion
When developing staff induction courses – especially within further and higher education environments – you should be conscious of the diverse audience who will be taking those courses. This means being aware of the unconscious biases we all hold and ensuring that these don’ t creep into the induction training material.
As with all Marshall E-Learning products, a strong theme of diversity and inclusion ran through these induction projects. Find out more about our Diversity & Inclusion work.
7. Make Good Use Of Video
Video plays an increasingly vital role in onboarding staff, as video content is more interesting and engaging than text-based content. Video is a great way to showcase the senior management of your organisation or hear from employees who work in similar roles to them. Video content can also be a great way to show how your organisation’s culture and ethos looks in reality and in the everyday work environment.
If you’ d like a free demonstration of Marshall E-Learning’ s Induction Courses or would like to find out more about our other e-learning courses, please get in touch.
Watch our 2-minute video ‘Create an online induction for new staff’
