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How to Do Onboarding Training That Employees Love

The onboarding process can be a make-or-break moment for new team members: Will you successfully welcome new hires into your organization, or will they become one of the 33% of new employees who quit within the first three months of employment?

The traditional onboarding process draws a line between onboarding and job training, but more and more organizations are discovering that combining the two into a single onboarding program can make for a better employee experience.

Here’s how an effective onboarding training program can help new hires adapt to their new role faster and improve your employee retention rate.

What Is Onboarding Training?

Onboarding training is the practice of combining your new hire training and workplace orientation into a single onboarding experience. The main benefit to this approach is that you can orient new hires to your organization’s culture and their new role at the same time, rather than having two separate but related experiences.

Typically, the employee onboarding process involves filling out onboarding documents, learning about company policies, and getting a tour of the work environment. New hire training involves learning job-specific skills like how to use your internal systems and how to perform day-to-day responsibilities.

An effective onboarding program starts before an employee’s first day on the job and continues through their first month or even their first year of employment. Employee training, on the other hand, is an ongoing process that can happen more than once, especially if an employee needs to learn a new skill or business process.

Benefits of Onboarding Training

Why create an onboarding training program? In short, because you can provide a more personalized experience than you can with a traditional employee onboarding program. Instead of a following one-size-fits-all process, you can create an onboarding checklist for each employee that’s directly related to their job description.

Here are three key benefits of onboarding training:

Faster Integration

A successful onboarding plan ensures your new employee feels a sense of belonging from Day One. Team building activities are just as important as training modules and skill assessments when it comes to making a good first impression.

By providing a combination of job training and in-person interactions during the first week, you’ll help employees get settled into their new job faster.

Increased Productivity

Workplace productivity is a team effort, and even fast learners can slow things down if you haven’t provided enough on-the-job training. This can be especially true if you’re onboarding remote employees who won’t meet their colleagues in person.

You’ll spend less time micromanaging employees when you take the time to onboard new hires thoroughly and ensure they know what’s expected of them.

Retention of New Employees

An effective onboarding training process can increase job satisfaction and employee engagement. If employees don’t feel welcome or supported in their new role, they’re more likely to quit prematurely or consider other job offers.

Onboarding new employees shows that you want them to succeed and helps reduce turnover and increase employee satisfaction.

Key Elements of Onboarding Training

Onboarding training: co-workers using a laptop

Onboarding training has several components that all have to fit together seamlessly to give your new hire the best chance of success. Here are four key components to keep in mind when putting together an onboarding training plan:

Job-Specific Training

First, consider the core skills that your new employee needs to learn in order to perform their job successfully. Don’t assume they know how to use your equipment or computer programs, even if they’ve performed a similar role in the past.

Job shadowing can be a great way to pick up hands-on skills by observing someone in a similar role and following them around the workplace.

You can also use onboarding automation software like Pulpstream to deliver training modules and generate new user accounts automatically.

Immersion in Company Culture

One of the most important parts of an onboarding training program is to communicate your organization’s values and company culture. An employee handbook and code of conduct are great resources, but you may also want to provide training modules that cover topics like employee misconduct in more depth.

If you’re onboarding a large group of new hires, consider team-building activities to introduce your new team members to their colleagues all at once.

Mentorship Opportunities

Modern HR technology can allow you to automate the onboarding process with ease — but don’t forget to provide a human touch. An onboarding buddy can serve as a point of contact if your new hire has any questions or needs support along the way.

This is also an opportunity to learn more about your new employees’ own career goals so you can identify areas for additional training and development.

Ongoing Support

The bulk of the onboarding process happens in the first month, but the entire process can last a year or more. Monthly check-ins with a manager can go a long way toward making sure your new employee is settling into their role without any issues.

Training, however, never really comes to an end. Even if a new hire completes all their training modules successfully, they may need to renew their professional certifications or complete workplace safety training on a regular basis in order to stay compliant.

You can use an HR automation platform like Pulpstream to standardize your training programs and send out reminders when a credential is expiring.

Onboarding Best Practices for HR Professionals

Delivering an onboarding training program involves a collaboration between your human resources team and your hiring managers. Every organization will have a different set of onboarding needs, but follow these best practices to ensure the best results.

Use Onboarding Automation

Automating the employee onboarding process saves teams time and reduces the risk of human error along the way. By digitizing paperwork and standardizing training modules, you’ll make it easier for new team members to fill out onboarding documents, enroll in payroll and employee benefits, and get to know other members of your team.

Pulpstream’s cloud-based tools simplify the onboarding experience for both in-person and remote workers. Not only can you use it to generate documents and pre-fill forms automatically, you can also enable desktop, tablet, and mobile access so employees can begin the onboarding process from the comfort of their home.

Resolve Employee Relations Issues

The smoother your onboarding process, the more likely it is that employees will stay at your company. If employees find it difficult to enroll in employee benefits, access ADA accommodations, or update their address or bank account details, they may start to have second thoughts about whether this is the right workplace for them.

Resolve common employee relations issues promptly to show employees that you’re on their side and to provide a positive employee experience.

RapidBee, Pulpstream’s AI-fueled employee service center, does exactly that, providing a centralized resource for company policies and documents. Set up custom chatbots to answer questions about healthcare, personal leave, and other important matters, and route complex requests to the appropriate HR team member.

Practice Continuous Performance Management

After the initial onboarding process has come to an end, continue to track employee performance metrics and provide guidance and support when needed. By practicing continuous performance management, you’ll keep the lines of communication open, empowering employees to take charge of their own professional development.

With Pulpstream, you can standardize and automate the performance management process, sending out performance review templates on a recurring basis, and using performance improvement plans to coach underperforming employees.

Accelerate Onboarding Training with Pulpstream

Entrepreneurs shaking hands

Onboarding training merges the onboarding process with job-specific training so that new hires can get settled into their new role more quickly. Instead of a one-size-fits-all program, you can personalize the onboarding process to ensure that new employees understand how your company values and their day-to-day responsibilities align.

Pulpstream’s HR automation platform allows you to streamline the onboarding process and resolve other employee relations issues. With RapidBee, our AI-fueled employee service center, employees can access training materials, certification renewals, and onboarding documents all in one place, providing a better employee experience.

Request a demo today to see how Pulpstream can make a difference!