Most of us have come across our fair share of bullies throughout our lives. Whether we see it happening in the school yard, in political campaigns on TV, or experienced it in our own personal relationships, bullying is always a form of abuse – a way of intimidating and dominating others, through physical, emotional or psychological control.

Unfortunately, many of us run into bullying behaviour in our place of work, as adults. Have you ever been made to feel uncomfortable while trying to carry out your everyday work tasks? It’s very hard to keep performing well in your job when a manager or colleague sets out to make life difficult for you.

Workplace bullying can be particularly difficult to deal with, as many bullies tend to know how to operate within social boundaries, often using nonverbal tactics or subtle humiliation to make a targeted individual feel continually excluded, uncomfortable and anxious. In this way, they aren’t seen to be crossing any organisational lines, or throwing any actual punches, while still managing to wear down their victim’s sense of self-worth and resilience. 

In many cases, the person being bullied will eventually resign from their jobs. Sadly, even at this point, there are managers who are aware of what’s happening in their teams yet choose to ignore it, allowing the bully to simply move onto their next target. 

This is why it’s so important for employers to take a strong stance on workplace bullying.

As an employer, it’s important to show your commitment to providing a safe and positive work environment for your employees, through strong anti-bullying and harassment policies.

 If you’ve read our previous article on the importance of having a good bullying and harassment policy, you’ll know that when bullying becomes a problem in the workplace, it doesn’t just affect the person or people being harassed and targeted – it can very quickly become a problem for the whole organisation.

Workplace bullying has significant negative impacts for both individuals and the companies they work for.

In an organisation where bullying is not being managed – or worse, is tolerated – you can expect to see:

high levels of absenteeism and sick leave

For employers, this leads to a loss in reputation and brand name for their business, as well as financial losses from lower profits and the cost of hiring and training new staff. Bullying can also result in significant fines for your company, as in the recent case of an Australian employer.

Employee Awarded $1 Million After Workplace Bullying

This recent case has seen a NSW worker awarded more than $1 million in damages after suffering intense workplace bullying by her bosses.

Lucinda Gunning, of Carroll & O’Dea Lawyers, said her client’s $1 million payout was the largest amount she had witnessed for workplace bullying. The payout is made up of a payment for total and permanent disablement, as well as worker’s compensation.

The former NSW government employee, a middle-level manager herself, experienced constant bullying from two of her managers, to the point where she was “doubled over sobbing” and would sit in the bathroom for six hours without anyone noticing. 

Make Sure You Have an Anti-Bullying Policy in Place 

Want to avoid this situation from occurring in your workplace? Make sure your business has a strong policy in place around bullying and harassment.

As an employer, you’re responsible for preventing bullying in the workplace, and a strong policy in this area will ensure your organisation is compliant and reflecting its legal obligations. While bullies will continue to exist in every workplace, school and social circle, you can make a difference by promoting a safe and positive work environment for the people in your own organisation.

For more advice on how to handle bullying, you may like to look at this free online course – Bullying in the Workplace. It covers useful information about the most common forms of bullying in the workplace and the costs this has for both victims and organisations. You’ll also learn practical strategies for dealing with workplace bullies.

If you’re a manager or team leader, remember to review our previous post on Why You Need a Good Bullying and Harassment Policy, with links to e-learning resources such as Bullying: The Manager’s Role and Workplace Harassment for Managers. And please don’t turn a blind eye to any bullying or harassment that’s occurring in your team.

False

We recently talked about why it’s so important for organizations to develop an effective onboarding program, to increase employee engagement, allow new hires to reach their full productivity faster and reduce staff turnover rates.

A good onboarding program should provide a new staff member with practical, easy-to-use tools and training to transition smoothly into their new job. Research has shown that an actively followed onboarding plan will allow an individual to reach proficiency in their new position up to 30% faster than the typical transitioning manager.

The way that you bring new team members on board also says a lot about your organization as a whole. It’s not just new hires who are keen to nail that critical first impression – today’s companies are realising the importance of welcoming new hires in an engaging, productive and creative way.

If you’re interested in developing an effective new onboarding program, or making positive changes to improve your existing processes, we have some simple guidelines to help you out. Read on for our top tips for creating a successful onboarding program.

We all know that first impressions really do count. 

Have you ever started at a new job, excited for your first day, only to find yourself without a desk, or without a computer even, and feeling more than a little lost? It’s not a good feeling and will most likely make you want to turn around and walk right back out the door.

Make sure you have a clear workspace set up for your new team member before they arrive, with basic stationery items and any other tools that could help them in their role, such as copies of organisational charts, relevant contact details, corporate style guidelines and so forth. And while it may sound less important, small thoughtful gestures such as providing new hires with their own company coffee cup, branded water bottle or T-shirt show that you’ve taken the time to warmly welcome them into your team. People notice and appreciate these kind actions and attention to detail. 

If you’re a manager or supervisor, always take the time to greet new employees in person and introduce them to the entire team—whether or not they’ll be working with each directly—so they can feel part of the group and more at ease in their work environment.

Also, have HR and payroll communicate with your new team member before you welcome your new team member on board. According to Aberdeen Group, 69% of best-in-class organizations begin the onboarding process before day one. This way, new employees are able to better focus on the job at hand, rather than wonder about how and when they’ll be getting paid.

There’s a lot more you can do to help new employees learn about their position and the organization than just sending them to a one-day orientation course to read over corporate documents.

As iCIMS suggests, “teambuilding activities such as office-wide scavenger hunts, group creative exercises and new hire breakfasts all contribute to the overall onboarding experience and aid in the assimilation process.” As well as serving to welcome new staff to the group, managers and team leaders will also be able to observe how their new employee communicates and engages with other staff, while participating in group activities. This can be useful when managers are deciding which projects or tasks to assign new team members and can even impact potential promotions or relief opportunities. 

You can also make onboarding more engaging for individuals by making sure you tailor the process to each new staff member. Personalize and customize the onboarding process by including details that are specific to each person’s job description and team.

When developing your new onboarding program, ask your current employees what they like about working for the organization. These are things you want to make sure new hires know about – even the ‘small’ sounding factors are important in contributing to a positive organizational culture, so make sure

Leaving new hires to fend for themselves is an approach taken by many companies. Unfortunately, this approach, with its ‘sink or swim’ mentality, can have negative impacts for the organization, resulting in high staff turnover rates and poor organizational culture.

Quality training, conversely, can greatly improve job satisfaction and productivity in new recruits. Make sure your onboarding program includes relevant and effective training methods for new employees to learn their jobs. Provide information on how you plan to train and develop staff throughout their employment with your company, so new team members know the importance you place on their professional development.

It’s also a good idea to assign a company mentor for each new employee, to provide on-the-job training and support. Choosing a mentor from outside the new employee’s department can help them to “further develop interpersonal relationships and give them a different perspective on the various components of the organization and how they work collectively to achieve success.” 

Use an LMS to Create Your Onboarding Program Online

As Lisa Sterling, chief people officer and executive vice president at Ceridian, says, “as everything goes digital, so should your employee onboarding.”

Using a Learning Management System such as Go1's online training platform for your onboarding program is an effective choice for organizations because of the convenience and ease of use. It’s also a more cost-effective solution, allowing you to save money on in-class trainers, as well as any facilities hire and travel expenses. Using a good LMS for online training can reduce training expenses by more than 50%, saving your organization both time and money.

With the Go1 platform, you can use your own onboarding content to create a perfectly customized onboarding program for your new hires to complete online. 

If you’d like to know more about successful onboarding, Go1 also has a number of e-learning courses which you can easily enroll in and complete at your convenience.

The online course Employee Onboarding is ideal for HR professionals, business owners and anyone involved in hiring employees. It will provide you with the knowledge and tools necessary to design a successful employee onboarding program to train new employees effectively and efficiently, setting them up for higher success and performance in their new roles.

Tips for creating a successful onboarding program

With concerns about mental health continually rising in Australia, it’s never been more important for organisations to know how to support their employees.

In a recent article about the risks of burning out at work, we looked at the dangers of suffering from physical and mental exhaustion and the serious health consequences this can lead to. Following on from this, it’s important to talk more about the impact of mental health issues on Australian workers and the responsibility of employers in creating a positive work culture for their staff.

The fact is, at any given time 1 in 5 Australian employees are likely to be experiencing a mental health condition. With so many people suffering in silence from the effects of anxiety, panic and depression – possibly even that person you sit next to every day who always seems fine – why is there still such a stigma attached to talking about mental health?

And what is your organisation doing to support employees with mental health issues at work?

The impacts of mental health on Australian workplaces

Aside from the distressing impact that conditions such as anxiety, OCD and depression have on an individual, mental health also has negative effects for organisations as a whole.

As reported by Beyond Blue, “untreated mental health conditions are costing Australian organisations around $10.9 billion per year through absenteeism, presenteeism (when the employee is at work but is less productive) and compensation.”

The issue also contributes significantly to high absenteeism and sick leave rates, with over 6 million working days lost each year in Australia due to mental health.

Help staff deal with mental health concerns

It’s really important for managers and team leaders to support any employee who appears to be struggling. If you’re in a leadership role, you need to make sure that mental health is considered as part of your organisation’s work health and safety strategy.

In Australia, workplace health and safety legislation requires employers to ensure that workplaces are both physically and mentally healthy for all employees. This means steps must be taken to ensure that the working environment does not harm an individual’s mental wellbeing or aggravate an existing condition.

Let all staff know that there are HR policies in place that protect their privacy, as well as protecting them from discrimination in the workplace due to any mental health issues. Under Australian law, there is a requirement for policies that spell out the organisation’s position on mental health and the support structures they have in place for those experiencing mental health symptoms.

Build a work culture of respect and compassion

In addition to these legal requirements and policy matters, there are things you can do to make the workplace environment more comfortable for individuals living with these conditions.

Create a safe space where employees can feel secure and comfortable in discussing their mental health. By being flexible, providing support and creating this safe environment, people can feel more comfortable raising their concerns and reaching out when they need it.

If an employee does open up to you about their depression, OCD, anxiety or panic attacks, help them through these difficult discussions in a respectful and compassionate way. You should also encourage team members to look out for and care for their colleagues – a mentally healthy workplace is everyone’s responsibility.

Learn more about creating a mentally healthy workplace

As a manager, you may want to invest in some more learning, so you feel equipped and ready to help staff who may be experiencing the problems of anxiety, panic disorder or depression. By taking the time to understand more about this topic, you’ll be able to provide greater assistance for employees and help them to feel safe and secure in their workplace environment.  

The online course Mental Health at Work is a really good introduction to the topic. You’ll learn about some common mental health problems and explore ways individuals experiencing issues can seek help and talk about their concerns. The course also covers areas such as your workplace’s legal position and how to talk about this sometimes difficult topic.

For managers and HR teams, Positive Mental Health provides an excellent e-learning resource equivalent to a full one-day workshop. It offers a foundation for understanding the various components of mental health and wellbeing, with different approaches to addressing the important issues involved and particular tools or methods that can prove helpful in promoting positive mental health. As the course outline says, this course will benefit leaders committed to good mental health in the workplace, who are interested in supporting others to meet their mental health needs.

How to talk about mental health in the workplace

Every day, we are confronted with ongoing media coverage of news events as they’re unfolding around the world. 

Unfortunately, amongst the good news stories of cute baby pandas and great sporting wins, many of today’s news stories deal with far more distressing subject matter, with a constant stream of natural disasters and humanitarian crises across our screens. Other events, such as terrorist attacks, bombings or mass shootings, can bring the whole world to a shocked halt in seconds.

When certain news stories or political events become a topic of national or global conversation, it’s likely that employees will bring these conversations into the workplace. This can give rise to discussions on traditionally controversial subject matters involving religion, politics and race – subjects that can be confronting and difficult to navigate in the workplace. 

How do we have respectful discussions at work about these controversial subjects? And what can managers do when talk in the office turns to difficult topics?

The Role of Managers During Difficult Times 

When the world is being rocked by a particularly shocking news story in the media, workplaces can become more nervous and tense, as employees process the events and their emotions towards it. The events are most likely on your employees’ minds, whether they’re talking about them around the water cooler or whether you raise them in discussion or not.

It’s in these difficult times that managers must demonstrate more composure and leadership than ever before, helping staff to stay engaged, focused and motivated while also feeling safe and secure. Just as we can learn how to deal with difficult people, we can learn how to have respectful conversations about controversial subjects or events – discussing difficult topics in the workplace is a skill that can be learned and developed.

Foster a Work Culture of Respect and Compassion

Ingrid Fredeen, specialist in ethics and legal compliance training, says it’s important that organisations make sure they are showing their commitment to a healthy corporate culture and fostering an environment of ethics and respect in the workplace – no matter what’s going on in the world around them.

It’s important to acknowledge what is happening and create a safe space where employees can feel secure and comfortable in discussing the events. Being proactive in this way shows good leadership and respect for the emotional wellbeing of your employees.

As consultant Michelle Kedem says in her article Discussing Difficult Topics of Race and Equity at Work, “when an organization’s leadership fails to acknowledge what its team may be going through after a traumatic event – from terrorism to acts of racial injustice to the wide range of other events impacting people's lives – it misses an opportunity to engage its team and make progress toward real change.”

Many of today’s organisations pride themselves on being committed to diversity, equality and inclusion. Be aware that your staff may need to engage in conversations about complex topics, and help them navigate those discussions in a respectful and compassionate way.

Helping Staff Discuss Difficult Events and Topics

As a manager, you can help open the lines of communication on difficult topics. It’s best to acknowledge the challenging circumstances of the events and these subsequent conversations, before introducing your discussion as a safe space for all employees to share their thoughts and feelings about the topic.

Let staff know that the organisation’s goal is to provide all employees with a dignified and respectful workplace, and that personal beliefs on certain issues or events can often be considered controversial. You might like to take the time to remind employees about HR policies you have in place around code of conduct, harassment and discrimination.

Kedem suggests making these discussions optional, with an “invite everyone; require attendance of no one” approach. Team members will react in different ways and want different levels of support and/or privacy at work. Don’t spring these sensitive discussions on staff – by scheduling them properly, you’ll allow team members the time to consider whether they want to participate, and what they want to say or not say in front in a group setting.

It’s really important for managers and team leaders to step in and address any conversations that have become offensive, aggressive or overly heated, as they can do significant damage to the workplace dynamics and culture. Encourage staff to take time to debrief and cool down after the discussion, instead of returning quickly to their normal tasks. Some team members may prefer to talk in a one-on-one environment after the general group discussion. Keep your door open. Keep your own mental attitude positive.

Learn More About Developing a Respectful Workplace

Remember, in your role as manager, it’s your responsibility to help staff navigate these difficult discussions, while feeling safe and secure in their workplace environment.

There are many online courses and resources available to help team leaders learn more about these topics, such as these modules on how to handle difficult conversations and developing a respectful workplace.

It’s a good idea to develop your own skills in this area before any challenging events or conversations arise, so you’ll feel more confident and better equipped to lead by example.

Staff turnover is inevitable. Unfortunately, it’s also very costly for your business.

One of the easiest ways to prevent turnover is by cultivating a committed employer-to-employee relationship at the outset. Making new staff members feel as comfortable and as well informed as possible from day one helps set expectations  If you’re trying to avoid having your personnel abandon ship, you might want to start by taking a long, hard look at your onboarding program.

Approximately 45% of companies reportedly estimate their total turnover costs (i.e., costs necessary to replace and train a lost employee) to be more than $25,000 per person – a shockingly significant amount. From advertising to interviewing candidates and educating new hires, filling an empty position can add up to an enormous expense. And, when so much time, effort and money are devoted to the process of hiring new staff members, it can be quite distressing to see an employee give notice after a short period of time. Unfortunately, however, it appears as though large numbers of people within the business world are doing just that; half of all employees who left their job in the past year allegedly did so within the first twelve months of their new position. 

This lightning-fast turnaround is just one of the many reasons why it’s so crucial for organisations to develop a good onboarding program. After all, your staff retention rate is only as good as the first impression you make. With an effective onboarding process, you can reduce turnover, increase employee engagement and allow staff members to reach their full potential in a faster, more efficient manner.

Let’s take a look at a few key ideas that can revolutionise your onboarding culture and start you on the road to securing a loyal business team—a team that you’ll be able to depend upon for years to come.

Initial impressions of a new position are formulated during those all-important first few days on the job. These early assessments are based on a variety of factors, each of which has the power to make or break the employer/employee bond. This “early days” period is a critical time for both employer and employee as it allows each party to consider whether the partnership is an ideal fit. This is where onboarding comes in.

The purpose of onboarding is to help new team members become acclimatised to their working environment and to welcome them into the fold—all while providing them with the information and resources they’ll need to do their job and do it well.

Consider this: The way in which an organisation brings new team members on board says a lot about the company as a whole. As such, it’s essential to view onboarding as being separate from orientation. While orientation may involve little more than a few hours spent signing some paperwork and reading over company policies, onboarding is a long-term process that encompasses elements of both administrative induction and ongoing training.

  Friendly, informative one-on-one meetings

  Hands-on exercises that simulate real-world experiences

  A complete online learning management system for comprehensive training (see below)

Pledge to support professional development

Think of onboarding not only as an overall training system, but also as a chance for you to show how well you engage with your staff and how much energy you’re willing to invest in your employees’ professional development. Make sure your staff members know that you want them to succeed and that you’d like to see them go far. Let them know their training is just the first step in a long and prosperous journey. This type of active involvement on your part will foster a healthy work environment and provide your employees with an added incentive to stay by your side.

Engage in an online learning management system

A learning management system (LMS) can be used very effectively as part of your onboarding program. These systems enable new hires to access educational training materials from the comfort of their own desk. A carefully prepared LMS can also allow new employees to work through their training at their own pace with the help of a mobile device. In addition, online onboarding can be far more interactive, particularly as many online courses can be customised according to your company’s specific needs. And—at the risk of stating the obvious—a smoother, more enjoyable onboarding program means fewer turnovers and the ultimate improvement of your bottom line.

You don’t necessarily need to overhaul your entire onboarding process to get started. Begin with one or two courses, incorporate them into your current onboarding program and get a feel for what you and your organisation will need. And remember: It’s never a bad idea to onboard your onboarders. You may wish to enroll your HR managers in an online training course such as Go1’s “Onboarding New Hires” in order to furnish them with more practical information on this vital topic. (This course shows managers how to integrate new hires into their teams and how to prepare these teams for future successes. The class also includes some helpful tips on how to make the first day, week, month or year a positive and productive time for your new employee, which can lead to a long and fruitful partnership with your company.)

Once you’ve made the switch to an LMS, you’ll most likely never look back. The immense convenience and streamlined techniques of these systems will give you sufficient tools to help build and expand your learning programs as your business continues to grow.

Hopefully this article has made you think more about the importance of comprehensive onboarding processes and the benefits they can bring to your organisation as well as to your new staff members.

If you wish to learn more or would like to explore a competitive LMS course catalogue, there are many valuable resources available on the Go1 website. 

Why a good employee onboarding program will reduce staff turnover

Does your organization have a strong policy in place around bullying and harassment?

Bullying and harassment in the workplace is a serious issue for many Australian workers, and one that can have very negative impacts for organizations. To prevent these impacts from occurring, and protect both employees and employers, certain laws have been put in place on a state and national level.

Managers can play a significant role in preventing and addressing workplace harassment. As a HR Manager, it’s important that you’re up-to-date with these bullying and harassment laws. It’s also essential that you have a very good understanding of your company’s stance on these issues and develop solid anti-bullying policies to reflect this.

Today we’ll look at the impacts of harassment for both employees and organizations, and how a good anti-bullying policy can help prevent them.

We all want to work for a company that has a good organizational culture – in a work environment that’s open and positive, with employees who are happy, motivated, focused and productive.

If a team member is suffering bullying or harassment, they’re likely to become the opposite of these things, soon displaying unhappy, unmotivated, distracted and unproductive behaviour. 

As well as showing poor results and performance indicators at work, the effects of bullying or harassment can often also impact on an individual’s personal life and sense of self, manifesting in loss of sleep, physical ailments and serious psychological and emotional distress.

When bullying becomes a problem in the workplace, it doesn’t just affect the person or people being harassed and targeted. It can very quickly become a problem for the whole organization.

The effects of suffering inappropriate or unreasonable behaviour can result in high levels of absenteeism, sick leave and staff turnover for companies. You can also expect to see low morale, poor performance rates, reduced productivity and a negative work culture.  

This leads to poor reputation and brand name for companies, loss of profits, and the financial stresses of hiring and training new staff. 

What Does an Anti-Bullying and Harassment Policy Do?

A good anti-bullying policy can mitigate the risk of these events occurring, and works to protect both employees and the employer.

Employers are responsible for preventing bullying and harassment in the workplace, and a strong policy in this area will ensure your organization is compliant and reflecting its legal obligations. By developing a good bullying and harassment policy, you’re also showing your commitment to providing a safe and productive environment for your employees, while promoting a positive work culture for all.

For employees, a HR policy around bullying and harassment allows individuals to accurately recognize and define unacceptable behaviour in the workplace, as well as directing them to the appropriate resources and contacts for assistance.

 When you develop a bullying and harassment policy, it will apply to all individuals within your organization – from your CEO to contracted cleaners – making your workplace a more equal and fair environment.

Learn More About Preventing Bullying in the Workplace

As a HR Manager, you’ll no doubt want to make sure each person in your HR team is aware of the definitions and implications of bullying and harassment, so they can provide accurate guidance and advice to organizational staff. It’s also very important that you feel confident yourself, in developing and implementing policies and distributing the right information on this topic.

There are many great courses available online, created specifically for HR Managers and teams, that you can access to learn more about addressing bullying in the workplace. For HR Managers, Bullying: The Manager’s Role explores the role of managers in preventing bullying and abusive conduct in the workplace.

Similarly, Workplace Harassment for Managers explores the negative impact harassment can have on an organization's work environment and looks at the role of Managers in preventing and responding to all forms of workplace harassment. Both courses aim to assist you in preventing and effectively responding to incidents of workplace bullying and harassment.

You can also use online training courses to make sure employees in other teams are well-informed of the organization’s stance and policies on bullying, and know exactly where to go for information and who to contact in the event of bullying or harassment. Staff can simply enroll and complete training modules online, using the Go1 platform. With a Learning Management System like Go1, you can also upload and store all of your organization’s compliance training materials in one easy place, making it easier to access HR documents and policies quickly and conveniently.

We hope this has given you a greater understanding of the importance of strong anti-bullying policies for companies, as well as some insight into the potential of online training for HR needs.

Why you need a good bullying and harassment policy

When should learning start for a new employee? Unless you have a thing for watching employees sit around being unproductive (and bored), the correct answer is as soon as humanly possible.

Traditionally, this is usually done from Day 1, because you've got to organise a sit-down course, rope in an instructor, book a place to run the course, prepare assessments to make sure that the material has sunk in and at the end of it all, get some feedback on how your new hire found the whole ordeal.

Luckily, you don't have to be traditional any more. You're the modern HR pro, and you have access to technology.

Here's why you absolutely need to use some form of learning technology in your onboarding process.

No more preparation time or paperwork filing

For those who don't know HROnboard, we're the employee onboarding software guys & gals. Our customers commonly use us to kill their reliance on manually preparing job offers, contracts and policies in the offer process, which saves a bunch of time, reduces the chance of manual errors and makes the whole process much faster and more transparent.

By including learning in the employee onboarding process, you can similarly remove all the learning documents, paperwork and filing by placing it online. By using a tool like Go1, you'll always have access to all records and courses online, which is much easier to manage and maintain.

Forget the instructors, forget the paperwork, and forget the traditional, boring office education environment.
By giving employees access to their courses online, you no longer need them to be with you to complete their training courses.

Not only is this great for you (new employees will already be ready to get stuck into work on Day 1), but it also gives new employees the flexibility to complete courses at their own pace, on their own device, in a more comfortable environment.

Create, update and improve your courses on the fly

Need to add in a few new bits of information to your course? Instead of re-drafting, printing and distributing courses, you can make a few clicks online and be done with it.

One effective way to manage your courses is to develop basic programs, then add additional elements or courses for specific roles and departments. That way, setting up courses will just involve selecting the role type and automatically sending the correct, up-to-date course materials for each new hire to complete.

Online courses are always much more engaging. You can make them fun, entertaining and a direct reflection of who you are as an employer.

Even if you don't have a dedicated course creator in your team, you can still configure an online course to match your branding, include all of your content in a dynamic and modern way and make the learning experience a positive one for each new hire.

Setting up your own employee onboarding & learning technology

You don't necessarily need to overhaul your entire onboarding process to get started. Start small - one or two courses, setup some links throughout your current onboarding process and get a feel for what you need.

Once you've made the switch, you'll never look back. Having a faster time to productivity and more engaged employees will be all the incentive you need to keep building and expanding your learning programs into the future!

HROnboard is cloud based employee onboarding software that helps organizations manage the job offer and new hire process. We now integrate with Go1 to provide an even more comprehensive employee onboarding experience, covering everything from learning to offer acceptance to tax forms.

Anne van der Wal is a HR Technology & Employee Onboarding Specialist at HROnboard

Why learning technology should be a part of employee onboarding

In a previous article, I wrote about how to create the basis of a culture of innovation in organizations. Here, I will put a few management concepts and practices that are effective in actually fostering that culture. 

The first one is Empowerment. A buzzword from decades ago, but still vital for an innovative organization. People must be given space and authority for testing and implementing their ideas without many hoops to go through. Empowerment is based on the idea that giving employees training, resources, authority, opportunity, motivation, as well holding them responsible and accountable for outcomes of their actions, will contribute to their competence, satisfaction and contribution. A good example of empowerment is Google's famous 20% time. Although the actual implementation of 20% time at Google is open for interpretation, people there are indeed free to create personal projects, gather contributors and team members from other departments and are encouraged to present it to other people for support and possible approval. It is said that Google News, Google’s autocomplete system, Gmail and AdSense, the advertising engine developed to support Gmail financially - now producing roughly a quarter of Google’s revenue - are examples of projects that span out of the empowerment that the 20% time policy gives to employees.

Related to the Empowerment concept, having a Project-based Approach to initiatives in the organization makes a big difference. Innovative organisations allow for every person, no matter their position, background or term of employment, to be a project leader. They allow for these people, when they present an idea, to lead their projects and assemble a team of interested people from any department in the company. When an initiative needs to be implemented, good leaders often select people who had the idea, or who will be impacted the most by the initiative, as the project leader. The organisational leaders then coach the project leaders into developing themselves, working in teams, being accountable and having them learn how to implement an initiative. This creates a culture of people wanting to implement improvements as a way to be noticed and grow in the organisation. It also opens interdepartmental communication. A project-based approach needs to be coupled with a proper structure for accountability, such as weekly or monthly project progress meetings. 

All initiatives, no matter how small they are, can benefit from a project-based approach, with a leader, team involved, and proper accountability. Some care must be taken not to stiff everything with long project plans in MS Project or other time-hungry practices for small projects. Things must be practical, especially for small projects or initiatives.

An innovative organization must be often reassessing its situation and be willing to see reality as it is so they can change and implement improvements sooner rather than later. There are several management tools that help leaders and managers to reassess their organisation. A favourite and very effective one is the SWOT analysis. The Organisational Culture and Climate Survey is another tool. So as Strategic meetings, especially if they include the participation of people from different departments and levels of the organisation. Inviting different employees to strategic meetings is something that promotes inclusion and transparency, as well as incentivizing new ideas and suggestions. Very transparent companies post in their internal social networks or intranets what they have been discussing in strategic meetings and encourage their employees to comment on it. Another tool to get a good pulse of the state of the organization, as well as new ideas, is to have an anonymous suggestion/feedback box (online and/or offline). Your employees, clients, suppliers and partners need to have an open channel to say what they want without the fear of retaliation. 

Having an open mindset and recognizing your shortfalls is also vital for an innovative organization. For many times, I have seen leaders simply not willing to accept their shortfalls or unable to accept problems in their companies. Recognising problems is the first step in fixing them. Some leaders reason that by recognising their problems they will spread negativity or show weakness to their employees, and thus will lose support or their leadership leverage. That is wrong. HOW you recognise your problems is what makes the difference. Yes, if you recognise a problem and show yourself defeated, you will lose leadership points. However, if a leader does not recognise a shortfall that is obvious to many people in the company, the leader will come out as unrealistic and sometimes arrogant. This also closes avenues for discussion of the problem and blocks innovation. Openly discussing problems allow for more people to suggest ideas on how to fix them. The most appropriate response to a real problem, especially one backed by data or understood by many people in the organisation, is for the leader to recognise it, prioritise it and create initiatives for overcoming it, always keeping an optmist outlook on things. Honest recognition is of utmost importance and so is the follow up with initiatives, with optimism, until it is fixed.

Another important practice is to promote inter-departmental or inter-team interactions. As per Steven Johnson's TED talk, Where good ideas come from, good ideas come from interaction of people from different backgrounds and experiences, in an environment that promotes free flow of information and ideas. Some very innovative companies go to the point of designing their office buildings in a way that will promote frequent informal meetings and gatherings of people from different teams in a manner that they can expose their challenges and data and others can help out with comments. Having a central meal place with long tables is something that can spark some conversations. Frequent company parties or happy hours is another example. Company getaways have the added benefit to promote team building as well as the exchange of ideas. Formal meetings are also beneficial, as long as these are properly facilitated and people from different teams are present and encouraged to participate and to contribute.

Another concept that needs to be placed here is the fact that people need to rest to be able to have good ideas. "Stress is a well known creativity killer" says psychologist Robert Epstein, PhD, in the American Psychological Association magazine. It is common in our days to reward extended hours of hard work. However, we often forget that time off is essential to finding better solutions to hard problems. Well deserved rest and leave time often not only charge people's internal batteries but also create sparks of many new ideas. They allows people to rest and observe the work situations and challenges from a higher, broader point of view. People often have game-changing ideas when they are on a leave and come back with the energy to implement them.

The next concept that has proved to foster innovation in organizations is the application of the lean startup concept into the workplace. This, however, deserves in its own article, that you will find here soon.

Management practices that foster innovation

Starting a new job can be a traumatic experience, even for the most experienced campaigners. It's everything from a new office location, to new responsibilities, and not to mention stepping outside of your comfort zone and having to prove yourself to an entire new group of people. While these might sound like horrible things, they are actually some of the best things for people to experience.

A new job is a fresh start and a chance to develop your career in an exciting new way! So it always amazes me when companies don't seize the opportunity to harness this energy and put their new hires through dragged out and boring onboarding programs that can last weeks. This is a surefire way to slowly suck all of that positive energy out of new team members and you will notices a shift in their attitude within a matter of days.

We've all been there before. Day one of your new job, you arrive at the office where you are promptly introduced to a handful of your new teammates, a few whose names you manage to remember, then it's off to HR where you will spend the day reading through document after document to learn more about your role and the company. But it doesn't need to be like this.

The days of having weighty documents printed out to read through are over!

Onboarding new staff is one of the most critical aspects during the first few weeks of a new employee joining your team. During this period your new hires are exposed to everything from company history, structure, expectations, as well as being trained on how to use new programs that will let then work to the company standards. Ensuring that this step is done well is crucial to the the success of your team. If you can't engage your new team members during this process, you are setting yourself up for months, if not years of problems in the future. This is where personalized onboarding becomes so important.

We live in an age where technology rules everything around us. So why should on boarding be any different. With the use of a learning management system, a new employee can now work through their onboarding program from the comfort of their new desk, and at their own pace. Not only that, the content that they are working through can be completely personalized to suit that person’s role and avoid wasting time and energy absorbing information that is not a part of their responsibilities.
With the use of an online learning system, the employer also has a chance to make the experience more interactive. Courses are no longer only written material, the modern onboarding program contains a range of media including everything from video, photos, interactive exercises and workshops where the information is often presented in a a story format with a number of gamification elements included.

When do you think that you are you the most engaged? 

The average employee spends the majority of their day looking at a screen and reading, so do you really want to add more reading to their day? Video is a great way to give your team members a 'break' from their daily grind to learn some new information. While we say this is a 'break', this is more of a mindset. It allows them to sit back and absorb the information rather than having to read through documents. The use of a learning management system will also allow for the you to break up the video to include a number of interactive tests as the user is watching the video, creating an relaxed yet engaging environment.

The next advantage to an online system is being able to complete the program at your own pace while still meeting a deadline. This allows your new employees to break down the program into smaller parcels, letting them start to settle into their new role without being overwhelmed with training material. By allowing new employees to begin work in their role at an early stage, they are going to be able to harness their positive energy and excitement, and direct that into the business and in the process reinvigorating the team around them.

Some of the key takeaways that we have covered in how to improve your onboarding are:

Avoid text based documents and look for an learning management system.

Use a range of educational media (Video, Photos, Interactive Assessments)

Only specify information relevant to the new employees  role

Break the program into smaller segments that can be completed over a longer time frame

Allow the new hire to start taking charge of their role as soon as possible

Make it fun! It will keep the energy levels high, and happiness is contagious

How personalized onboarding will ignite your new staff

As you all know, in 2014, the world gifted us with perhaps the greatest movie ever made about the HR world and its inherent challenges. And that movie, obviously, is Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar.

But for those of you who happen to think that seems like a stretch, it’s because you’re right, no, let me reiterate this is a giant stretch, but bear with me. Since there aren’t really any blockbuster HR movies, we’ve got to claim what we can. The good news is that there’s some actual overlap.

Think about it—as the dust storms of your day settle in on your planet of ever dwindling resources, you end up having to time travel through the unknown to save your employees from the knowledge gaps that will lead to their sure demise. But the movie does a fantastic job at predicting our plausible future.

Much like our hero stumbles into a space that lets him transcend time and the reach of our limitations, current trends in online learning are letting us do the same. Gosh, re-reading this I seem ridiculous. You’ll see what I mean in our three takeaways below.

What Is Online Learning Allowing Us to Do?

Online learning has become far more than just watching peaceful videos about learning to paint a garden that looks pretty good when you squint from far away. Making training or lessons available online gives employees and students the ability to personalize their curriculum. Effectually meeting them right where they are today. Which is hopefully at their desk or they’re totally fired, right?

But when your employees can watch interactive and involved videos on their own time, they can stop and repeat any sentence or concept as much as they need. And the ability to make presentations more modular means employees can skip over sections they might already understand, instead spending their time learning more relevant skills.

In addition to personalization, online learning gives you the ability to accurately measure any trends in knowledge gaps—and any lingering blind spots. No matter how aware of your surroundings you feel, blind spots will always exist for even the most skilled of drivers.

When you can see the progress employees are making in real time, and the specific areas where people are getting confused, you can use more of your time to respond to those blind spots with more efficient and tailored insight. It’s like finally breaking up with one-sided lectures in favour of more interpersonal guidance. And that interpersonal guidance is really smart and likes to rock climb... and rides a motorcycle to work.

Perhaps most importantly, online learning tears down the walls that can exist between collaborative communities—just without the unnecessary help of David Hasselhoff. Being able to learn from experts on a subject in a global community means standing on the shoulders of giants that have already done the heavier lifting for you.

If you give employees the time to learn something new and relevant every day, the value they add to the company will follow the same trajectory of their happiness with the company. And that usually translates to employees sticking around a little longer. Which is going to look pretty good in your quarterly review. And, you know, they’ll look pretty good themselves.

Three reasons Interstellar was the HR blockbuster of 2014

Helping you reach your training goals with the latest insights, trends, and advancements in L&D

Blog

petrol_green

Have you caught the latest episode of L&D in 20? Don't miss an episode. Subscribe now!