The onboarding of employees is important as it plays an important role in determining how their overall experience while working for the company is like. Providing your new hires with an effective onboarding experience can positively impact retention, productivity, as well as the organizational culture. The problem is that the inductive approach taken by most organizations is very traditional, and because of this new hires feel disengaged and demotivated.
For this reason, organizations are moving from traditional methods to creative onboarding approaches that help to engage new employees. In this article, we will discuss and elaborate on 7 engaging onboarding ideas that help with enhancing the onboarding experience for new employees for achieving greater employee satisfaction and business success.
One of the best ways to implement onboarding activities for employees is to gamify them as much as possible. Rather than stuffing new employees with pages of documentation, consider providing some healthy competition alongside achieving certain goals.
Onboarding Missions: Structure onboarding the way that employees complete tasks which count as missions and earn them rewards or unlock levels.
Points and Badges: Give points for every task completed like creating an email, intro meeting, or learning new modules.
Leaderboard & Rewards: Use gamification to make the onboarding process more motivating, such as offering gift cards or an additional break during the day to the so-called “games champions”.
By embedding game elements into the onboarding process, you make it more interesting and ensure active engagement in the onboarding process.
Suggested Read: Best Practices for Onboarding New Employees: A Guide for HR
A welcome kit that includes company products is good, but a traditional sorely lacks engagement. A welcome kit that both engages and informs the new hire would do wonders. Curate a package that depicts the company culture and promotes the ethos in a fun way.
Self-Writing Welcome Note: Note from the chief containing the company’s mission and a warm welcome from the whole team.
Company Values Illustrated: An illustrated guidebook that reveals success stories, shows the team, and offices, and sets office norms.
The New Joiners Checklist: A checklist to help new employees familiarize themselves with the company tools and colleagues by completing simple tasks.
New Joiners Playlist: A series of videos introducing employees, the history of the organization, and various teams.
This approach guarantees that new employees feel welcome, knowledgeable, and energized on their first day on the job.
Starting a new job can indeed be overwhelming, but having an onboarding buddy for new employees helps ease the transition. This technique makes onboarding a new employee less stressful and more enjoyable.
Select a Host Employee: Pick a host employee to help the new hire during their initial few weeks at work.
Design a Managed Framework: Plan informal check-ins, coffee-break chats, and a FAQ session.
Promote Networking: Provide opportunity to the new employee to seek help from both work and non-work related queries.
This is one of the most creative onboarding ideas fosters a sense of acceptance, increases retention of information, and makes the whole employee onboarding experience more human and nurturing.
Instead of dealing with policy presentations and tedious paperwork, make the onboarding process more lively by introducing daily themes during the first week.
Meet The Team Monday: Start with a team lunch or an online meet and greet.
Tech Tuesday: Present the company programs and tools with engaging challenges.
Wellness Wednesday: Rest and encourage wellness by assisting with stress relief techniques, guided meditations, or fitness challenges.
Video Thursday: Share the company’s history and growth journey through storytelling videos or trivia games.
Fun Friday: Wind down the week with an office scavenger hunt, happy hour, or something more action-packed like a team building game.
There is merit in adding a dash of imagination to the new employee onboarding experience as it helps in creating a lasting impact in the minds of the new hires.
If your company is forward-thinking, incorporating VR or AR can completely change the way employees are onboarded. This approach works wonders for remote workers or for positions that need some form of practical training.
Virtual Office Tour: Employees who work remotely can check out the office by taking a virtual tour.
Faux Work Situations: Assist employees in getting ready for their position by having them practice with problem situations that they will later encounter on the job.
Interactive Training Modules: Have users complete various tasks with the help of AR visors on their first-day-to make it more interesting and entertaining.
Companies can offer new employees onboarding programs integrated with VR/AR enabling them to onboard in a captivating way.
Letting new employees interact with a company’s social media can be a fun way to market the company.
Photo Challenge: Have employees post a picture of their home office, team lunch, or workspace and share it with a unique hashtag.
Let’s Try: Have new employees develop a short video introducing themselves and their associated role in the organization.
Social Media Awareness: Assign them a list of social media related tasks that contain hints about the company’s history for them to find and share.
These innovative concepts not only enhance interactivity during onboarding sessions, but also promote the company brand.
Establishing connections from the beginning can make a huge difference for employees’ happiness and retention. A trivia game is an interesting activity for new employees to meet their co-workers and makes the onboarding process more fun.
Make a Fun Quiz: Add some interesting trivia questions about the team members.
Utilize a Game Tool: Try Kahoot! or Quizizz to make your trivia more exciting and engaging.
Give Small Prizes: Give the winners fun rewards, such as coffee gift cards or brand merchandise.
This method creates an open atmosphere and allows new hires to feel more involved during onboarding.
New employees have queries, but they might be anxious or embarrassed to voice them. An “Ask Me Anything” ('AMA') meeting with company leaders provides a casual environment for employees to interact with the company’s executives, and take off any formalities they usually follow.
Host a Live Q & A: Create a virtual or face-to-face session where newly employed personnel get the opportunity to ask the leadership questions pertaining to the organizational culture, vision, and growth opportunities.
Utilize Anonymous Question Inputs: Encourage participants to send in questions in the form of submissions that do not correspond to their names so that everyone can fully participate without fear.
Establish it as a Habitual Function: AMAs done on a regular basis can work towards improving the communication flow and relationship dynamics between the leadership personnel and the subordinates.
This helps in building trust, increasing engagement, and bettering the new employee onboarding experience in terms of being welcoming and less rigid.
Must Check: Effective Employee Communication Strategies for Engagement
Every employee holds a special skill, and a specialized learning path can be designed to enable them to evolve with the company, right from the first day they step into the organization.
Pre Onboarding Questionnaire: This is a document that you share with employees prior to them signing a contract. This is given to new employees to assess their capabilities, interests, and career aspirations.
Role focused Training Content: Develop customized training material to suit the needs of these trainees based on their job function.
Free Online Courses and Mentorship: Provide access to Linkedin Learning, and Coursera, or even create your own in-house mentorship programs.
Companies that onboard new employees are better off if they spend money from the outset because it helps integrate a comprehensive approach to continual learning and health growth.
An employee onboarding process that is multifaceted in its structure and dynamic can greatly help employees succeed from the get-go. With these unique ideas for onboarding, businesses are able to improve retention rates, elevate staff morale, and ensure that new employees feel integrated within the team right from the start.
Onboarding a new staff member doesn’t have to be dull. It can, in fact, be thrilling, exciting, and unforgettable, as demonstrated by gamification, themed onboarding weeks, VR training, and social media challenges.
Looking to enhance your employee onboarding process? Integrating these cutting edge suggestions will undoubtedly improve your workplace culture for the better.
This content was created by AI