Digital onboarding has become a tried-and-tested method of not only informing new employees about their new employer, but also integrating them into the team in the long term. In this article, you'll find out what makes virtual onboarding so efficient, why it's more than just PDFs and PowerPoint slides – and how to make it so successful that new colleagues say: “This is the right place for me!”
What Is Digital Onboarding?
Digital onboarding comprises the induction of new employees using digital tools to welcome new colleagues to the team, communicate company values and cover specialist training. It begins in the pre-boarding phase and ends with successful integration.
The goals of digital onboarding – just as with analog induction – are to ensure a smooth start to the new working environment, strengthen employee loyalty at an early stage and ensure that new colleagues are productive as quickly as possible.
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Favored by HR and Newbies: 6 Advantages of Digital Onboarding
First impressions count! This is especially true for the onboarding experience. Because if you don't feel welcome, you won't stay very long.
This makes onboarding all the more important: it has to be positive and efficient – for new team members and the HR department!
Here are six good reasons to digitize the onboarding process:
1. Cost-Efficient Workflow
For the HR department, digital onboarding means: less paper and printing, fewer travel costs, fewer invoices for external trainers – and leaving a positive and lasting impression on the newcomers!
2. Time-Saving Setup
Assign faster, update with just a few clicks and organize smarter: Digitalized and (partially) automated onboarding reduces the administrative workload and relieves the HR department considerably. Conversely, this means more time for strategically important projects.
3. Scalable Processes
From local start-ups to global corporations: Digital onboarding grows with you. HR departments can reuse content, translate it and share it with global teams – and design each induction flexibly and individually!
4. Consistent Induction
New starters receive the same standardized content on corporate values, processes and culture. Changes and additions are also updated in real time at specialist level. So everyone is on the same page right from the start!
5. Automated Monitoring
No induction without compliance, occupational safety and data protection training. And no digital onboarding without automated performance reviews, reports and completion overviews. Manual tracking? Is passé!
6. Modern Onboarding Experience
Structured, digital onboarding conveys innovation and professionalism. Interactive content, flexible learning formats and a seamless start promote employee retention – and reduce staff turnover thanks to a positive induction experience.
Step by Step: How the Digital Onboarding Process Works
Digital onboarding also involves introducing newcomers to the new working environment in a structured way. And this is done in three steps: prepare, welcome, integrate.
1. Prepare: Before the First Working Day
Digital onboarding is predestined to prepare employees for their new job even before their first day. Initial welcome videos, important documents to sign and information on the induction plan can be shared by email.
Does the company offer digital products or services? Enabling access gives newcomers the opportunity to explore and get to know the offering themselves. Invitations to online meetings with the team are also a good option for initial points of contact before the start.
Important: To avoid creating pressure, all onboarding measures should be offered on a voluntary basis during pre-boarding.
2. Welcome: The First Working Day
To ensure that new team members can get started with digital onboarding on day one, they need their technical equipment.
In the office, handing out laptops and the like should be one of the first things they do; for new remote colleagues, all devices should be delivered in advance, fully set up and with activated access.
At least as important: provide orientation without overwhelming, for example in initial meetups with the team. The first day in the new working environment should not be crammed with (too many) technically informative presentations, but should give new colleagues the opportunity to arrive and settle in.
3. Integrate: The First Weeks and Months
For the days, weeks and months that follow, it's all about immersing yourself in the tasks, processes and corporate culture.
Before newbies take on their first projects, suitable e-learning courses can cover all mandatory and specialist training and provide the necessary knowledge about processes.
During this time, questions can be clarified directly via digital channels, contacts can be made and a strong sense of belonging can be established. For most roles, integration is complete after three or six months, but sometimes only after twelve months.
Tips and Best Practices: How Digital Onboarding Works
Converting the printed welcome folder into PowerPoint presentations and making all documents available online as PDFs does not make a digital onboarding that leaves an impression.
To generate enthusiasm for the new tasks in the first few days and strengthen team cohesion, onboarding must be a varied experience.
It’s All About the Mix: Asynchronous and Synchronous Modules
Despite all the necessary structure, anyone who starts their job with a packed calendar is usually overwhelmed by a flood of information in the first few days.
It is more pleasant and more successful to spread out the content of the first few days and give new team members the chance to find their way around the new environment independently and at their own pace.
Asynchronous elements help here. They can be completed flexibly in terms of time and are particularly practical for virtual knowledge transfer. Examples include:
- Welcome videos: Company values and goals can be ideally communicated (by the CEO) in a compact video. In the same way, other team leads can introduce themselves and their departments without having to interrupt their own work.
- Knowledge databases: For factual and process knowledge, it is worth having access to a knowledge library at all times. For example, with an FAQ section that answers questions about vacation requests, absences and the like.
- Learning paths: Mandatory and product training can be mapped in modular video learning paths, designed interactively and completed independently. Deadlines and reminders ensure that the content is completed on time.
Synchronous elements are scheduled or require several people to come together at the same time. They are particularly suitable for social integration and role-specific introductions, for example:
- Virtual introductions: Especially for purely remote teams, getting to know each other via video calls is the basis for successful collaboration. The closer the roles are connected, the more important personal check-ins are.
- Social platforms and tools: Newcomers network early on in the company via introductions in the company-wide communication channels and interactive team building sessions.
- Coffee chats and AMAs: Many connections are made at the coffee machine. In digital onboarding, voluntary offers for virtual coffee chats or ask-me-anything formats can replace a chat in the kitchen.
Direct Communication Is King: From a Personal Hello to Open Feedback
New colleagues should not hide behind their screens and click through their onboarding on their own. The most important element of functioning teams is and remains personal interaction.
That's why direct communication is particularly important for this part of digital onboarding:
- Personal hello: Whether with the team lead or direct colleagues – a casual check-in without a work context is the quickest way to break the ice.
- Buddy introduction: A mentor helps to understand the company better and lowers the inhibition threshold when asking questions.
- Role-specific intro: To prevent misconceptions, goals and milestones for onboarding and the role should be discussed together.
- Feedback loops: Shorter and more tightly paced at first, more detailed towards the end – expectations and experiences should be calibrated regularly.
- Offer to answer questions: To ensure smooth communication, every team member should be available to answer questions and also offer help proactively.
And never forget: Digital onboarding also exists in the office setup. In this case, personal exchanges can (and should) take place in face-to-face meetings and joint lunch or coffee breaks wherever possible.
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Tech Stack: Suitable Tools for Digital Onboarding
Digital onboarding requires, of course, digital solutions.
In addition to the necessary equipment for new employees (laptop, smartphone, etc.), the right software must be available. This is usually the case for communication:
- Knowledge databases or wiki software (Slab, Confluence or similar)
- Tools for video communication (Zoom, Google Meets, etc.)
- Chat or instant messaging services (Microsoft Teams, Slack, etc.)
Learning management systems (LMS) and e-learning platforms are suitable for the structured organization of training and the provision of content:
- allow you to upload your own information (e.g. PDFs or video greetings),
- contain ready-to-use training content (e.g. for mandatory training),
- enable onboarding learning paths with own and external content,
- offer synchronous and asynchronous modules (e.g. as blended learning or social learning),
- create an interactive onboarding experience through gamification elements,
- assign information, training and learning paths on an individualized basis,
- set fixed deadlines and reminders,
- make content accessible from all devices regardless of location and
- document progress and completions in an automated reporting system.
Another advantage in addition to all the organizational plus points: Induction via an e-learning platform sets the standard for a strong learning culture in the company right from the start.
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Is Digital Onboarding the Solution? Yes, but ...
Digital onboarding is the first indicator for new colleagues that they are part of a modern and future-oriented corporate culture and gives them the feeling: “This is the right place for me!”
However, despite all the benefits, personal interaction should not be neglected.
In order to strengthen personal relationships or to demonstrate production processes on the shop floor, hybrid onboarding models may therefore be more suitable, in which individual parts are completed virtually and on demand and other parts are completed live and on site.
How best to combine analog and digital elements, synchronous and asynchronous modules or on-site and online sessions must – how could it be otherwise – always be decided on a role-specific basis.
The bottom line is: It's the mix that counts!
Digital onboarding with Masterplan? We'll show you how!
Stefan Schulze
