There’s never been a better time to embrace online learning for onboarding and beyond, says Gemma Hart.

Hiring new employees, especially during a pandemic, can be a tricky process. After all, there are things they need to know, training they need to complete, and onboarding processes they need to go through – and that’s all before they even start working. Therefore, having an efficient onboarding process has fast become more important than ever before.

To make onboarding easier, hundreds of companies are now taking the process online. From incredible adult training courses to entire career change guidance, online learning has made new careers more accessible and professional development easier. 

In this article, let’s look at the five key reasons how, highlighting exactly why online learning should be a part of your company’s onboarding process.

Standardise your message

Delivering training in-person is great for your onboarding process, particularly if it includes a mixture of human interaction and self-paced learning. However, over time, work personnel can change, time limitations can add stress and, somewhere along the way, your message can get lost.

Switching to online learning allows you to keep control; it’ll be up to you to determine the message, write the script, and ensure that every new employee receives the same information. 

With the help of online learning, employers can set goals and future learning aspirations for their employees to help encourage growth. 

With online learning, it doesn’t matter whether you have personnel changes over the years or a really busy week of meetings, all new employees will still receive the same quality of training.

Reduce training costs

If you are a big company, it’s pretty likely that you need to run onboarding processes on a regular basis. And, while you may not have considered it before, that will account for a lot of training time. In other words, running onboarding processes can take up a lot of your schedule’s precious work time, only for you to then repeat the same things over and over again.

So, by moving your onboarding process online instead, you could actually end up saving your company both time and money.

“Studies indicate that elearning has the potential to reduce overall training time by 40% to 60%. This helps businesses cut down on various expenses and also increase productivity, which in turn leads to greater profitability.” – eLearning Brothers.

Include remote workers 

Let’s face it, it’s all too easy to forget who works at your company when the majority of them are working remotely. As a result, those individuals can feel isolated rather than part of a team, leaving them to feel like they are missing out.

In many cases, those working remotely are doing so because they live far away from the office or they have other additional commitments, such as family or part-time jobs. As such, requesting they come in for a couple of days to complete the onboarding process can be very off-putting. 

So, rather than losing valuable employees this way, put your training online instead. Not only will this make it easier for everyone to feel part of it, but it will also cater perfectly to the needs of your remote staff. 

“Technology is making online coaching more and more straightforward.” says business coach, Rob Da Costa, “I use webinar software for our coaching sessions which enables us to communicate easily, share screens, documents and whiteboard ideas.”

Keeping pace with the learner

It’s pretty well known that everyone learns at a different pace; while some people can pick up new policies or ways of working very quickly, others can take some time to adjust. As such, online learning is a great way to cater to the individual learner.

Many online processes allow the employer to work through the content at their own pace, for example. Not only does this make for a more effective learning process, but it also means a higher number of employees finish the course having taken in far more of what they have just learned.

Online learning is scalable

You might assume that online learning is best applied to large companies with hundreds of employees. While it can certainly save time and money for big companies, it can also add significant value to smaller businesses, since all companies – both big and small – have a responsibility to support self-learning and progression. 

With the help of online learning, employers can set goals and future learning aspirations for their employees to help encourage growth. This, in turn, can help individuals set the foundations they need to develop their own learning plans in line with your business’s objectives. 

Likewise, online learning can be a great way to retain employees as it provides initiatives to keep them on board for longer whilst developing their skills.

In summary

Online learning allows you to give new employees all the information they need both helpfully and succinctly. Following a step-by-step process, the new hire can work through the material at their own pace, learning everything they need to in a way that works best for them.

So, if you haven’t incorporated online learning into your company’s onboarding process yet, what’s stopping you? The benefits are hard to deny. 

About the author

Gemma Hart is an education and career consultant and can be contacted at gemmahart1recruitment@gmail.com