COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we all connect and communicate.
Since the lockdown started, telecommunications have increased exponentially not only in the private sphere but also in business with a significant boom of calls and videoconferences. Nonetheless, the work-from-home shift also caused an emotional employee burnout, especially in virtual environments based on technology. A recent UK study revealed that about a third of the country’s currently remote workforce feels disconnected, acknowledging the lack of emotional support from employers as one of the main reasons. With about 74% of companies worldwide intending to shift to more remote work post-COVID-19 (Gartner, April 2020), and millions of people returning to offices, all the recent changes we have gone through will ultimately have a high impact on the future of work and employee experience.
The new challenges of onboarding
As we enter the new normality, businesses and particularly HR departments face many challenges, namely:
- how to ensure employees follow companies’ norms,
- how to immerse employees into company culture in the era of virtual teams,
- how to reboard their workforce successfully and keep employees highly engaged.
Applying the 5 C’s of Onboarding
One way to tackle the current challenges is by implementing successful onboarding processes during the whole employee journey, comprising new starts, internal transfers, and promotions. By doing so, organizations can decrease time-to-productivity while developing employee engagement and retention. But how can you ensure your organization meets these goals? The answer is easy: start by applying the 5 C’s of onboarding to your onboarding processes, and the reward will not take long.
Compliance
Use the onboarding process to educate your employees about the organization’s policies and procedures, such as rules, regulatory requirements, or organizational practices.
Clarification
Ensure that, from the beginning, employees understand their roles, responsibilities, duties, and job expectations with the respective KPIs, providing the specific information and training so that they know what their managers expect from them and how they will assess their work.
Culture
Immerse new employees into the culture of the organization, making them aware of the company vision, values, norms, language, and beliefs to give them context and facilitate the understanding of organizational culture. Onboarding employees successfully depends on proper immersion into the company culture. However, when done incorrectly, it increases employee turnover.
Connection
Ensure new team members have the chance to build social relationships with other co-workers so that they lose their anxiety and fears and feel integrated into the company faster. In this C, new employees should be allowed to connect and communicate with their managers, HR, their team members, and other co-workers, and mentors such as a buddy since all these connections are relevant for new team members’ orientation and success in the company. In this way, new hires will not only learn the organization hierarchy but also be able to communicate with different departments within the company. Plus, to keep employees connected, if they are not able to interact face to face, consider offering them spaces like chat/channel platforms, where they can connect digitally and communicate with their peers, managers, and other co-workers.
Check back
Give ongoing relevant feedback on specific tasks, discuss performance and goals, and get employee feedback about their onboarding process, integration to the company, and the support provided by their buddy. Allow regular 1:1 meetings between employees and managers/HR departments.
Social technology is the answer
Adopting technologies that facilitate social interactions and enable communication is the first step to do if you want to promote a culture of continuous learning, ongoing feedback, and collaboration within your workforce.
According to Forbes, employees who are engaged are more likely to stay longer working for their employer. Thus, companies have no option than to implement employee engagement programs to increase employee satisfaction, and by doing so, meet business goals and improve productivity. Offering a great onboarding experience is part of the journey of keeping employees engaged.
Save time and money with niikiis, the onboarding software specially designed to automate engaging onboarding programs based on ongoing social interactions and communication at the workplace. Use features such as the people directory to list your workforce skills as well as interests and hobbies so that getting to know everyone is effortless or channels/groups to keep your employees always updated on the latest news according to their preferences. niikiis is the ideal tool to advocate company culture and better employee engagement and performance in your organization. Contact us now for more details or to request a demo.
