How e-learning makes onboarding easy
Companies are increasingly looking to the power of e-learning programs to aid in the onboarding of new employees. But why is the e-learning experience such an effective vehicle for employee orientation?
Most companies use passive onboarding procedures. New hires are either subjected to a long PowerPoint presentation in a boardroom, or provided with a manual that you hope they’ll read. Certainly, this age-old method of onboarding new hires can be time and cost-consuming, without offering any way of knowing whether your recruits have understood the information provided.
The increased trend towards online and hybrid work environments has introduced many companies to the amazing benefits that e-learning onboarding programs can unlock, in terms of engagement, learning, and tracking progress.
“…the increased trend towards online and hybrid work environments…introduced many companies to the amazing benefits that e-learning onboarding programs can unlock, in terms of engagement, learning, and tracking progress.”
Many companies are already tapping into the power of online learning. In fact, according to research, 72% of organizations believe that e-learning puts them at a competitive advantage. Here at Laragh Courseware, we’ve certainly heard a lot of positive feedback from clients after they opted to have their training documents converted into interactive courses. But what are the benefits of using e-learning for the onboarding process specifically?
An exciting start
When orienting employees, you want them to excited about embarking on a new career. But, as Forbes notes, new recruits entering the workforce are from a generation that is accustomed to the interactive and immersive qualities of online spaces. This makes short e-learning courses – in lieu of a PowerPoint presentation or a stack of documents – a much more welcoming and stimulating experience. It may be time to convert those PPT files into an interactive course!
Increased engagement
It’s easy for new hires to become overwhelmed by the amount of information they receive during the onboarding process – SOPs, guidelines, awareness training, best practices, privacy considerations…the list goes on. An e-learning onboarding course offers the opportunity to break down that stack of information, and convert it in a way that is not only logical, but easier to digest and engage with in a meaningful way — a process called microlearning. Additionally, the interactive nature of e-learning has great benefits. According to the Cone of Learning model developed by the National Training Laboratory, retention of information is increased through interacting with the material. No wonder then, that studies by Brandon Hall found that e-learning may boost knowledge retention by an impressive 25-60%.
Trackable progress
In order to know whether employees are actually given the necessary training and information, onboarding needs to be trackable. And while leaders want to assume the best of their staff, there’s no guarantee your employees are actually reading the material they’re provided in document form. Once documents are converted into an e-learning course, however, it allows for an employee’s progress to be easily tracked through an organization’s Learning Management System (LMS). Tracking is also a great way to highlight which areas are of interest to employees, as well as where information is insufficient.
Testable outcomes
While there is no way of knowing how much information was retained after a PowerPoint presentation, conversion of the PPTs into an e-learning course will offer the benefit of interactive quizzes and knowledge checks throughout. This allows companies to gauge whether the employees understood the information provided and is a great way to identify gaps in knowledge.
Savings on cost and time
A lot of time and money is spent on training and onboarding new employees during their first few weeks on the job, such as the high cost of printing onboarding material – for instance PDFs or Word documents. In fact, Training magazine estimates that 80% of print costs go toward in-house distribution of information. Converting your PDF documents into e-learning courses offers the opportunity to streamline and optimize this process. The fact that online content is accessible via a range of digital devices can also potentially be a great time-saver, since employees can opt to go through onboarding materials outside work hours. Additionally, the same onboarding courses can be re-used across multiple departments, eliminating the need for duplication of effort.
With so many benefits to implementing a digital onboarding program, it seems the main reason for organizational hesitance is a lack of knowledge around operating e-learning platform software. Luckily, there are some e-learning companies that offer cost-effective services to do that job for you. At Laragh Courseware, we can easily take your existing onboarding documents (whether in PPT, PDF, or document format) and convert it into an impactful e-learning experience via our service. With decades of experience in the field on organizational e-learning development, Laragh can easily convert your existing onboarding material into interactive and easy-to-use e-learning courses. The only question left to ask, then, is what are you waiting for?
