A Blended Onboarding Plan For A Remote Workforce: A New Solution For A New Era
Having a remote workforce go through a blended onboarding plan is a complex process, so why go through it? Let us see the bigger picture.
Imagine: Opening the heavy glass doors of the skyscraper. Getting into an elevator and pressing the button for the 24th floor. Smoothing your hair in the elevator mirror. Meeting your boss and walking through the open space straight to your new cubicle. Feeling the looks, returning the smiles. Sweating a little. Exciting, yes?
As the world turns, markets become global, internet speeds faster—and a virus wreaks havoc worldwide. One of the consequences: the palpable energy of the physical, in-person first day at work may be a thing of the past for many.
The initial adjustment is a hard one, with a multitude of implications: the cost of disconnect, the difficulties that come with virtual onboarding, the cultural implications associated with lack of understanding and experience of the culture itself. Human beings are social animals, and the value of human interaction, networking, physical proximity, teamwork, and sharing as elements of the onboarding experience are only being fully appreciated in their absence.
But as time marches on, a prolonged virtual experience is looking more and more like a grim reality for new employees. And we must and can develop strategies to deal with this new normal—and find ways to make it much less grim.
As learning, development, and human resource professionals, the field is ours. And the remedy is relatively simple: developing a blended onboarding plan or program for remote workers is key.
But Why Blended?
Think of your regular, in-person, physical onboarding program. If it’s already a top-notch program, you convey the information a new employee needs to review, learn, fill out, print out, sign, etc., in a simple and intuitive way. A good portion of your assets—perhaps an introduction to the organization, your health, and safety information, all of the necessary administrative paperwork—might already exist in digital, on-line form. And if that’s the case, you’re a step ahead of the curve and we can leverage all of those assets. If not, creating or recreating such deliverables is one of the more easily accomplished tasks in terms of blended learning development.
The greatest challenge is to create viable substitutes for the personal interactions that your new employees are most decidedly not getting while sitting in a home office and clicking through a presentation on the history of your organization.
Blended learning describes a learning experience that can be adapted toward a specific audience which is not constrained by space or time [1]. With this in mind, a broader definition could be "learning in which the audience learns at least part of the time in a classical educational space and the other part of the time with the help of an online environment, controlling their own time, place, path and/or rhythm."
Blended learning implies a variety (or a blend) of learning methods such as lectures, web-based pieces of training, learning videos, animations, microlearning, quick reference guides, checklists, etc. It also incorporates elements of social learning. It is this last characteristic that makes blended learning particularly suitable for contemporary virtual onboarding plans and programs. Social learning provides ample opportunities for interaction among new hires, their peers, and management in both formal and informal settings.
What are the concrete benefits of blended onboarding plans and programs?
Benefit Number 1: Clarity And Transparency
One of the greatest benefits of a fully virtual onboarding program for remote workers is the clarity that can be provided by a simple, intuitive layout and organization of the facts, tasks, and deadlines that are usually required of each new hire on their journey toward becoming a productive employee.
There are two critical elements in regards to the clarity of your blended virtual onboarding program:
- Location
Having your onboarding learning deliverables scattered in different locations is certainly an option. However, in a virtual setting, your new employees may not feel particularly empowered to ask clarifying questions. The onboarding experience can quickly become a source of frustration for them and complicated for your HR department when deadlines are missed and the information you receive is missing or inaccurate. Gathering all resources in a single location—whether a website, onboarding application or a simply structured onboarding folder on your company’s public drive—will simplify the process for all those involved.
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- Structure
In the absence of a single designated point of contact or only virtual contact with an HR representative or colleague, a clear structure and rational organization of onboarding tasks is essential for both the new employee and the person in charge of successful virtual onboarding. The structure should be exceedingly simple and should highlight expected milestones for new hires. A chronological listing of onboarding tasks makes the most sense.
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The transparency aspect of this benefit is inherent in the design of most blended onboarding plans and virtual programs. Ease of accessibility implies ease of review, ease of providing feedback, and ease of providing comments. As one cog in the wheel of a continuous improvement loop, user input on your program is invaluable.
Benefit Number 2: Efficiency And Consistency
One of the strongest arguments in favor of virtual onboarding programs is their consistent nature. Consistency allows tremendous efficiency, though this is not achieved without difficulty, and is characterized by a two-pronged effort:
- Design
Designing an effective blended virtual onboarding program not only sets the tone of the experience but it also underlies the success of the program itself. Your design should include all the elements of a classic onboarding program in addition to the adaptations for social learning and interaction. Organization and structure also come into play here, as both are impacted by the conceptual design. - Execution
Onboarding is a unique stage of an employee’s professional lifecycle; it sets the tone for their future at the organization. From a consistency standpoint, a well-crafted blended learning onboarding program should be executed as it was designed and should be visually (look and feel) and structurally (dedicated website, onboarding app) distinct from the day-to-day job tasks of the new employee.
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Benefit Number 3: Ongoing Improvement
Employing the principles of blended learning and creating a series of fairly short learning experiences to achieve your onboarding objectives serves you as a learning professional in more ways than one. One of the key benefits is the fact that it’s easier to improve relatively short learning assets as opposed to revamping a two-hour-long web-based training.
To take full advantage of this benefit, you should:
- Focus on microlearning
Diminishing attention spans have contributed to the longevity of what was once a novelty in Learning and Development. Long-winded courses and mind-numbing seminars are no longer the strategies of choice, as it’s more widely understood that they don’t achieve much beyond ticking the “completed” box. Short format learning pieces allow your new employee more time to process and apply their new skills, with the added benefit of the learning experience being more directly integrated with the actual work. In terms of education and human development, this is a great leap forward. - Allow for feedback. It can be scary to ask, “How would you rate this learning experience?” particularly if you’re asking the question at the conclusion of a two-hour online page-turner. Many learning professionals don’t even dare. The generation entering today’s workforce, however, is adept at providing constructive feedback, and if you don’t provide opportunities for it, they will find other avenues (something along the lines of a negative Yelp review). Formalizing the evaluation of your onboarding efforts cannot only make you and your stakeholders more accountable, but it will also ultimately serve the organization you represent.
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Why You Should Use A Blended Onboarding Plan For Your Remote Workforce
It’s essential for companies to be prepared to provide virtual onboarding programs for their new hires, at least for the foreseeable future. While it might initially seem a daunting task, designing and implementing a blended virtual onboarding program can have unexpected benefits. Taking every opportunity to integrate social elements is crucial to getting your employees off on the right foot, and to make them feel the sense of kinship that develops when working toward common objectives. A blended virtual learning program will go a long way toward achieving that goal. If you are interested in learning more, be sure to download How To Ace Virtual Employee Onboarding Programs For Your Remote Workforce to discover why it’s imperative for organizations to offer remote onboarding programs that will fully integrate new hires. Also, join the webinar Onboarding, Reboarding, And Upskilling: A Manager’s Guide To Leveraging Your Virtual Onboarding Programs to learn how to evaluate and boost your organization's performance.
References:
[1] Blended Learning: A Proven Approach To Learning Development
