Ongoing Trends in Employee Onboarding

It is tempting to look at 2020 and assume that many of the workforce changes resulted solely from the pandemic. However, some factors involving onboarding employees, such as working from home and working remotely were already becoming a concern for employees due to globalization and digitization. And interestingly, certain aspects of onboarding have not changed even with the advent of increased globalization and remote workers. There is still a need for culture, connection and community.
However, although these needs may not be new, there has been more interest in understanding the role onboarding has in instilling company values and culture and helping people feel more connected to the organization and its mission. Organizations show a renewed interest in leveraging recruitment and onboarding as key areas for expressing company culture and values, and see that as a major value proposition instead of a minor one.
Community, and the sense of togetherness it implies, has been brought to the forefront in surprising ways, such as re-examining the ways we use data and insights from the onboarding process. Organizations are taking a more humanistic approach to onboarding, resulting in a change in evaluating metrics. Instead of pure productivity numbers, it is now diversity, engagement and connections/communication. Although productivity still matters, the long-term effects of these other metrics are being considered more heavily.
Organizations are doing a better job being more transparent in how and why data is collected and used and giving more access and agency to new employees to connect to others in the organization. This includes possible mentors or coaches, with an additional positive effect of creating more of a sense of community and taking a “show instead of tell” approach to education about the company culture.
Collaborative learning platforms are an emerging technology that are able to fulfil those needs by making those connections and allowing new employees to find their own path for success. Giving new employees the data, tools and access they need so they can make their own decisions is part of a self-service philosophy that has long been promoted by HR professionals and given additional weight from the events of 2020.
If this is a topic that interests you, I suggest viewing this on-demand webinar featuring myself and my co-host Rebecca Castro of NovoEd, as we present Virtual Onboarding with a Human Touch – Creating Connection, Culture and Community.
Onboarding Best Practices, Challenges of Onboarding, Employee Onboarding
Blog
With functions and industries evolving so rapidly due to the role of AI, hundreds of millions of workers will need to be reskilled with future-oriented abilities. We asked more than 500 professionals about the expectations for today’s learning experience and their thoughts on the future. Here are 5 key findings of the primary insights gleaned from our research.
Blog
Cohort-based programs provide better learning outcomes in difficult-to-teach domains like management and leadership, but are difficult to scale. Here are some practical tips on using a cohort-based learning platform to impart capabilities to a large and distributed team.
Blog
Discover why having a trusted innovation training partner and the right technology helps organizations embrace design thinking.
Blog
Learn about the differences between Agile and Design Thinking, and how they complement each other in creating customer-centric and innovative solutions. From our partners at ExperiencePoint.
Blog
In an ongoing series, we will explore onboarding initiatives centered around the six key pillars of learning on NovoEd: Practice & Application, Discussion & Feedback, Mentors & Managers, Effective Facilitation, Team-Based Learning, and Curated & Goal-Aligned Content.
Blog
In an ongoing series, we will explore onboarding initiatives centered around the six key pillars of learning on NovoEd: Practice & Application, Discussion & Feedback, Mentors & Managers, Effective Facilitation, Team-Based Learning, and Curated & Goal-Aligned Content.