Widespread labor shortages have made your job tougher as an HR leader.
More than ever, the pressure’s on to ensure your new hires have a shorter ramp to productivity and a longer stay with your company. What can you do to support these goals?
Research has shown that a well-designed and executed onboarding program for new employees makes a big difference in creating a more satisfying work experience. Consider these recent surveys from Gallup:
- 70% of employees who had “exceptional” onboarding experiences say they have “the best possible job.”
- These same respondents are 2.6 times as likely to be “extremely satisfied with their workplace.” Odds are these respondents are far more likely to stay with the company.
On the other hand:
- A mere 12% of U.S. employees say their organization does a good job of onboarding.
- Nearly one in five say their last onboarding experience was “poor” or non-existent.
Adding to your onboarding challenge is the surge in remote work. Many companies now need to onboard remote recruits effectively and cost-efficiently.
That’s where the right learning management system (LMS) can be a valuable ally as you take on these challenges. The LMS’ powerful functions and automation tools enable you to dramatically reduce your administrative burden while also providing your recruits with a convenient, structured and effective learning tool.
Here’s how.
Get your new hires on the same page on day one
Remember, your new hires want to perform well and may be anxious to prove themselves worthy of your hiring decision. So it’s important not to overwhelm them with a fire hose of information.
After all, they have a lot to absorb: your company culture, your organization’s policies and procedures, the language you use (e.g., acronyms, business function names), and job-related knowledge.
Imagine how reassuring it would be to see that their LMS organizes all that they’ll have to do and when to do it, while providing easy access to all the documents (e.g., employee handbooks, regulations, and so on) they’ll need.
Mobile learning delivers employee convenience
Today’s employees expect digital convenience in all aspects of their lives — learning is no exception.
With the right LMS, your employee can conveniently continue their onboarding from any Internet-connected device, anywhere. Furthermore, a mobile-first design of an intuitive LMS interface ensures that your new hires meet no system barriers to their learning.
Personalized learning: because one size does not fit all
Every employee needs to share a base of knowledge about your company. The centralized management of your LMS enables you to program a basic curriculum for all the new hires.
Over and above this foundation, you may want to provide specific instruction for different functions (e.g., sales, customer support) that help accelerate the new hire’s path to productivity. The right LMS has the flexibility to enable personalized learning paths that support your training goals.
Simplify certifications
Sometimes, new employees need to meet compliance requirements before stepping into a role. Count on your LMS’ powerful automation features to reduce or eliminate many of the mundane tasks related to certifications:
- Verification of prerequisites
- Enrollment
- Notifications of different types (e.g., confirmations of enrollment or reminders)
- Control of the time of access to the course and check-ups on progress
- Test correction
- Creation and awarding of certifications
- Recertification notices
Gamification boosts onboarding engagement
Since infanthood, games have been used in learning to enhance motivation and engagement.
Your modern LMS takes advantage of this learning trait to add game-like elements, such as goal-setting, progress-tracking and rewards (e.g., badges and certifications) for achievement. Your new hires can automatically receive badges and certifications from the LMS when specific achievement levels are reached.
Progress-tracking and testing made easy
You and your recruits need to know how well this new knowledge is being acquired. Your handy LMS dashboard allows you to track course completions, time to completion, performance, and other key metrics at a glance.
Using the test tool of your LMS, you can also easily assess your recruits as often as needed.
You can create quizzes with different types of questions that are automatically corrected on the platform. You can even manually assign a grade for open-ended questions within the software.
As a result of testing, you may observe that some recruits need additional help and a timely adjustment to their learning path. Or, a performance may not meet your requirements. In either case, you have data to support your decision.
LMS analytics support insight
In addition to dashboards and assessments, your LMS’ analytics tool can reveal insights about hidden patterns and correlations in your data on individuals, groups, or any other segment of new hires you define.
For example, you may find the compliance course takes the longest to complete or has the least satisfying results among the customer service recruits. With this data in hand, you can make the adjustments needed.
Your LMS also produces detailed reports of these performances should you need to provide documents to support your decisions for compliance or HR purposes.
A well-thought-out onboarding is a wonderful opportunity to create a positive, motivating, and lasting impression among your new hires. Simplify the challenge of it all by working with the right LMS.
If you have any questions about the right LMS for your organization, connect with our team!