Explore how to avoid online onboarding mistakes that organizations make with millennials. Also, their probable solutions for seamless online onboarding.
Organizations invest a substantial amount of time and resources to hire the right candidate for their organization. Hence, it is important to make sure that the onboarding takes place successfully, especially when you are hiring virtually.
A huge part of today’s workforce includes millennials and the majority of the workforce works remotely. Their upbringing includes a lot of digital devices and they have grown up with immediate access to information. With every piece of information at their fingertips, millennials are not an easy generation to engage. As it is truly said that the first impression is the last. The same goes with online onboarding, it is the first impression of an organization on the new hires. If onboarding is seamless, the journey will be successful too. Here is how you can make online onboarding of the millennial workforce seamless.
Want a Seamless Millennial Online Onboarding?
Avoid These 6 Mistakes:
- Not Preparing for a Millennial’s Arrival
- All-in-One-Day Orientation
- Passive Onboarding
- Rigid Training Schedule
- Failing to Build Culture Integration
- Not Having an Online Onboarding Program
Onboarding Millennials? Avoid These 6 Mistakes!
If you plan to use the same old techniques, including black and white PPTs, lengthy manuals, and king-size employee handbooks, let me tell you that it will not help you with your tech-savvy millennial new hires.
1. Not Preparing for a Millennial’s Arrival
Sometimes we miss an important part during online onboarding, which is being well prepared for the arrival of new hires.
Solution: The first day of work for the new hires is their first impression of the organization. The newly hired millennials should feel a sense of belonging and they must feel welcomed. Making new hires feel at ease is not very difficult when they are coming to the office. However, in this case, organizations have to engage them online, which is a task and will require meticulous planning. Here organizations can make use of the technology; an online pre-boarding program or welcome message video recordings can be of great help.
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2. All-in-One-Day Orientation
It is not hidden that they have a short attention span and can get bored easily. Hence, an All-in-one-day orientation is not a good idea when it comes to the millennial workforce.
Solution: Information overload is not something a newly hired employees need. It is advisable not to bombard millennials with information at the time of orientation. Because of their short attention span, breaking the process into small digestible chunks would be an ideal solution. Also, as stated above millennials are a device-friendly generation, and organizations can make use of that. Organizations can give further information about the company through mobile learning, and anywhere-anytime learning options that Millennials love.
3. Passive Onboarding
Passive onboarding is a process that focuses on the first ‘C’ of employee onboarding, Compliance. The clarification also can be followed to an extent However, Culture and Connection are missing. Many organizations are following the passive onboarding process.
Solution: For effective online onboarding, organizations should follow a 4 C principle, Compliance, Clarification, Culture, and Connection as all the 4 elements are very important. Onboarding the employees is the right time to let them connect with the organization and align their goals to that of the organization and consistency is the key. Everyone should be on the same page and it is important because everyone is not at the same location. Organizations should use online training programs to ensure that the same information is given to the entire organization.
4. Rigid Training Schedule
Millennials are not made for outdated and rigid training programs. They are not the generation to sit in one place for hours staring at the screen.
Solution: Millennials are a generation that loves technology and organization should use their knowledge and love for technology to engage them to make the training programs successful. What they need is short, crisp, and to-the-point information. Training programs that are designed for millennials should be well planned, well organized, and flexible. Microlearning is one such option that may apply to the millennial workforce. Microlearning offers flexibility, anytime anywhere learning options, at the same time keeping the information bite-sized.
5. Failing to Build Culture Integration
Sometimes, we are so engrossed in designing learning content and training for online onboarding that we forget about company culture. It is the first thing newly hired employees should be made aware of.
Solution: Strong cultural ethics work as a strong foundation for any organization. The online onboarding program should be planned in such a way that it connects employees with the company’s culture. As a company’s culture will define its objectives, mission, ethics, expectations, values, and work environment. Employees that connect with the company’s culture are more motivated and productive. In the case of onboarding the millennial workforce, organizations can make use of Videos and infographics to train them on the company’s culture and share their brand story.
6. Not Having an Online Onboarding Program
This one right here will be the winner of all the mistakes while hiring the millennial workforce. It is seen that many organizations do not have a proper formal or online onboarding process in place.
Solution: What you need is an onboarding program that is employee-centric. Because everything is virtual, it would be good for newly hired employees to know the organization, managers, and their colleagues better, which is possible if you have a full-proof onboarding program in place. Organizations have an option of Blended-learning to support and enhance the performance of new hires. As they can customize the whole learning and onboarding process through blended learning.
Parting Thoughts
Creating a good millennial online onboarding program will require efforts and resources by the organizations. However, it is beneficial in the long term as the millennial workforce will be able to align their personal goals with the organization’s goals easily. All that needs to be done for that is to make sure to avoid the 6 mistakes stated above. I am sure you want to know more about onboarding the millennial workforce. Grab this eBook to explore more about the millennial onboarding process and how eLearning can be of help for the same.
