Why Onboarding Matters More Than Ever
Onboarding isn't a checklist; it's a culture-building opportunity. In today's hybrid work environments, the first learning experience defines how new hires feel about your organization. A strong onboarding program should be intentional, interactive, and inspiring. It should go beyond documents and policies to tell a story…your story, while creating a sense of belonging.
Here's our 8-step guide to building an effective eLearning onboarding program, featuring real examples from our journey.
How To Build A Successful eLearning Onboarding Program
1. Start With Discovery: Involve Stakeholders And Employees
Don't design onboarding in a vacuum. Co-create it. Involve leadership, managers, and, most importantly, employees, both new and seasoned.
Run discovery workshops to uncover emotional and functional pain points. These sessions help you analyze what matters most:
- What confuses new hires in their first weeks?
- Which tasks or processes feel overwhelming?
- Where are the knowledge gaps that slow productivity?
By identifying these challenges upfront, you ensure your onboarding isn't just informative. It's relevant, supportive, and aligned with real needs.
Kashida Example: Co-Creating Onboarding With Our People
Our course was shaped through a discovery process with both long-timers and new Kashiders. Feedback influenced tone (approachable and clear), pacing (two hours self-paced, completed within the first month), and features such as meeting the team, earning badges, and using interactive components, videos, and infographics.
2. Build Around A Narrative And Clear Objectives
Onboarding isn't just about delivering information; it's about guiding new hires through a structured, engaging journey. Think of it as telling a story where the employee is the main character, and every module is a new chapter leading them closer to feeling like a valued member of the team.
A strong onboarding narrative should:
- Flow logically. Avoid a random dump of policies and resources. Instead, organize modules so that each builds on the last, starting from the "big picture" of the company mission, then moving to culture, roles, tools, and growth opportunities.
- Set clear objectives. Every section should start with a short introduction outlining what the learner will gain and why it matters. This helps employees see the purpose behind each activity.
- Offer tangible next steps. Don't leave learners hanging. Each module should end with an action that connects learning to real engagement, like scheduling a meeting, completing a mini-challenge, or exploring a resource.
- Create a sense of progression. Use visual progress indicators or gamification to motivate learners. Seeing advancement—even in small increments—builds momentum and excitement.
Kashida Example: Turning Structure Into An Experience
Our onboarding course isn't just a list of modules; it's a guided journey that feels meaningful and motivating. We focus on three core elements:
- Objectives at every step. Each module starts with a concise overview, so learners know exactly what they'll gain.
- Actionable closures. Modules end with real-world tasks, like connecting with a team member or scheduling a reflection call, ensuring learning translates into action.
- Gamified progression. Playful progress markers like "You're 20% a Kashider!" and milestone celebrations keep the experience engaging and rewarding.
This structure turns onboarding into more than information transfer; it becomes a story of growth.
3. Make It Personal And Fun: Show The Team, Not Just The Rules
Onboarding should feel personal and inviting, not like reading a manual. The goal is to help new hires connect with the company's identity and people from day one. Instead of overwhelming learners with static documents, present your foundations in an interactive way, share your story, show your team dynamics, and highlight the work culture that defines you.
Bring your history to life with key milestones, memorable projects, and achievements, and make it easy for new hires to see the humans behind the brand. When they understand your journey and meet the people who shape it, they feel like they belong, not just to a company, but to a community.
Because onboarding isn't about memorizing rules. It's about understanding the heart of the organization you've just joined and feeling proud to belong.
Kashida Example: Bringing Our Identity To Life Through Storytelling
At Kashida, we don't just tell new hires about our identity; we let them experience it.
- Our name has a story: Early in the course, we share the beautiful meaning of "Kashida." In Arabic script, a Kashida is a simple connector that makes words more elegant and structured. For us, it's a metaphor: we connect content, technology, and people to create impactful learning experiences.
- A journey through time: Through an interactive timeline, learners walk through Kashida's history, our humble beginnings, our move into bigger spaces, and the proud moments when we won awards like Best Learning Technologies Project (Gold) and were shortlisted for Learning Technologies Company of the Year.
- Your adventure, your choices: A virtual office tour lets new Kashiders choose their route. Take the elevator or the stairs? Every choice makes the experience interactive and fun.
- Meet the humans behind the brand: Social media links, behind-the-scenes videos, and candid team moments make it clear this isn't a faceless company. It's a group of innovators who genuinely love what they do.
By the time learners finish this module, they don't just know our policies; they know our story, our values, and the people who live with them every day. They feel like they're already part of something bigger.
4. Communicate Culture: Mission, Values, And Core Competencies
Onboarding is your first opportunity to align new hires with your organization's core values. Don't just list them; bring them to life. Use scenario-based activities and branching interactions to demonstrate how values guide real decisions.
This makes values practical, memorable, and actionable from day one.
Kashida Example: Showing Values In Action
We use scenario-based animations to reflect values like honesty, curiosity, simplicity, and fun. Mini games ask, "What would you do?" to reinforce understanding.
5. Clarify Roles, Rights, And Responsibilities
Policies are essential, but they shouldn't overwhelm new hires with walls of text. Present HR guidelines in a way that feels approachable, clear, and even fun. Use visuals to explain organizational structure and entitlements and add interactive elements to test understanding. The goal is to make compliance easy, not intimidating.
Kashida Example: Turning Policy Into Play
At Kashida, we transformed the dreaded "policy dump" into an engaging experience. Instead of handing over a bulky PDF, we created an "Employee Handbook Scavenger Hunt." Learners are given clues that guide them through the handbook to find answers, like an adventure instead of an obligation.
We turned policy learning into an interactive experience with a mix of engaging activities. Instead of overwhelming new hires with static documents, we designed playful challenges that make compliance feel simple and approachable, transforming a mandatory step into a memorable one.
6. Foster Belonging Through Human Touchpoints
Digital onboarding can feel isolating without deliberate human connections. Schedule touchpoints for mentorship, buddy calls, and informal conversations after key learning chunks. Encourage new hires to reach out, ask questions, and build their internal network early on. Relationships make knowledge meaningful.
Kashida Example: Connecting The Dots Between Learning And People
Every module in our onboarding journey ends with a simple but powerful task: "Connect with a team member." Learners are prompted to book a quick call, sometimes with a colleague and sometimes with someone from another department.
Why? Because it bridges theory with reality. After learning about Kashida's values, for example, they might connect with a manager to discuss how those values influence their projects. These conversations normalize curiosity, reduce hesitation to ask questions, and spark friendships that make new Kashiders feel like they belong from day one.
7. Empower With Tools: Provide What They Need, When They Need It
Dumping a long list of tools isn't enough; your onboarding should help employees understand why each tool matters and how it makes their job easier. Highlight tools by function, link to tutorials or templates, and provide access details in a clear, structured way.
The goal is to build confidence, not confusion.
Kashida Example: Interactive Toolkits For Everyday Success
We designed an interactive toolkit that introduces essential tools in a clear and structured way, ensuring new hires understand what each tool is for and how to use it effectively. To make the experience more human, we included guidance and support touchpoints, helping learners feel confident and equipped from day one.
8. Evaluate, Iterate, Celebrate
Onboarding doesn't end when the course does. End with a check-in, not a goodbye. Give learners a clear picture of what's next and invite them to reflect. Their feedback helps you improve the experience for future hires, creating a continuous improvement cycle.
Kashida Example: Making Feedback Part Of The Journey
When our course wraps up, we close with a clear summary and guidance on the next steps. This includes elements that reinforce continuity, growth, and support, ensuring the journey doesn't end with the course but leads into real-world integration.
Next, we prompt a self-assessment, asking learners to rate confidence statements tied to objectives, like "I feel confident in my understanding of the company's mission and values." Responses range from "Agree" to "Disagree," making reflection easy.
Finally, we wrap up a feedback component to capture insights from new hires, helping us refine and improve the onboarding experience while reinforcing our culture of continuous learning.
Conclusion: Human-Centered Onboarding Is Culture-Building
Onboarding is your first chance to create belonging and engagement. Here at Kashida, we combine values, tech, storytelling, and humor to make onboarding simple yet impactful.
Start with people. Tell your story. Help them feel like they belong from day one. And most importantly…help them learn, simply!
Need support creating a human-centered, engaging onboarding experience? Get in touch with Kashida; we're here to help you design learning that works.
Read More:
