What is digital onboarding?
Digital onboarding is remotely onboarding new employees, customers, clients, or others. Most organizations set up onboarding processes for new employees to account for security risks and/or knowledge requirements.
The main purpose of digital employee onboarding is to familiarize new employees with an organization. A digital employee onboarding process normally includes:
A briefing on the company and their role in it.
Orientation and standard operating procedures.
Security information and best practices.
Employee handbook information.
Some training.
Compliance information, where relevant.
The benefits of digital onboarding
Strong digital onboarding strategies offer organizations a competitive edge. You can improve the efficiency of hiring systems with a streamlined onboarding experience that you can deliver over the web.
Cost-efficiency
With the right strategy, taking on new employees becomes easy. Specifically, many tasks normally requiring extensive human labor can now be automated. That means less human time and less money for better outcomes.
Normal onboarding processes can require hours of human attention. With the digital variant, automation can reduce the need for human attention to the point where only indirect oversight and occasional troubleshooting are needed.
Establishing digital onboarding processes requires time and money. But once your system is optimized, it starts doing most of the work for you, completing more onboarding tasks with less money and human labor.
Onboarding is easier
Digital onboarding systems streamline the process for everyone. They allow onboarding to happen anytime, anywhere, and improved security measures like biometric and AI-assisted checks speed up the process and reduce errors that require customer support.
For organizations with remote staff or contractors, it’s an essential tool and a modest investment to access the advantages of a secure global workforce.
Organizing data
Automated onboarding means collecting and organizing the person’s data. Digitally stored data doesn’t take up space on your desk. Instead, you can automatically and securely store necessary information digitally during the onboarding process. Digital onboarding can literally take all the information out of your hands!
Top mistakes to avoid in digital onboarding
Digital onboarding processes can be prone to errors, so it’s worth taking a careful approach. Many of the most common mistakes are straightforward and often the result of simple oversights. Take a moment to pause and check if you might unintentionally make one of these mistakes while setting up your onboarding system.
Long response times
Long response times harm employee onboarding. An onboarding process shouldn’t be completely hands-off, as new employees will likely need some assistance. Your organization needs to be ready to ensure strong connectivity and answer questions that new employees may have.
Too much information
Digital onboarding processes don’t need to be rushed or short. But they should be as concise as possible, covering everything as efficiently as possible. Too much detail or repetition can cause new and promising employees to get confused or frustrated early on.
Incomplete onboarding systems
Implementing a digital onboarding process often requires broader changes within an organization’s HR systems. In some cases, organizations make significant onboarding adjustments only to feel overwhelmed. Common pitfalls that can leave onboarding processes incomplete include:
Relying too much on paper documentation.
Failing to digitize related departments and tasks.
Neglecting robust cybersecurity measures.
Beyond these major challenges, smaller issues should also be addressed before rolling out a digital onboarding plan.
A practical way to ensure a well-structured onboarding process is to map out all the systems and individuals involved. Identifying and accounting for each connection is essential for a seamless onboarding experience.
What are the types of digital employee onboarding?
Digital employee onboarding can take several forms tailored to the position's specific needs. Below are the main types:
Administrative onboarding
Administrative onboarding focuses on completing essential documentation. This digital process allows employees to handle it from any computer. Tasks typically include filling out forms, reviewing company policies, and verifying that these steps have been completed. It's all about ensuring that the administrative side of onboarding is handled efficiently and effectively.
Cultural onboarding
Cultural onboarding introduces new employees to the company’s mission, values, and culture. The content can be delivered in various formats, such as slideshows, documents, videos, or other multimedia. The goal is to help employees understand and align with the company’s ethos from the start.
Training onboarding
Training onboarding goes beyond the basics to equip employees with the skills and knowledge they need to excel in their roles. Depending on the organization's setup, training material can be delivered digitally via learning management systems (LMS) or in-person sessions.
An LMS makes organizing and delivering courses easy, accommodating various media types like videos, PDFs, and interactive modules. It also facilitates evaluations, ensuring employees gain the knowledge necessary to work effectively and safely. For a quick start, check out the Easy LMS course builder, which simplifies the process of creating training materials for digital onboarding.
Social onboarding
Social onboarding plays a key role in roles where teamwork and professional relationships are crucial. It helps new employees integrate smoothly into their teams and build the relationships necessary for success.
Social onboarding can involve activities like team introductions, group sessions, or one-on-one meetups. This might include virtual meetings or group chats using internal communication tools in a digital context.
Each onboarding type serves a specific purpose, ensuring employees are prepared and supported as they join your organization.
How to successfully implement digital employee onboarding: a step-by-step guide
The digital employee onboarding process is the same regardless of the type used. Employers need to create and document onboarding plans that cover employee introductions. The standard digital onboarding process can be broken down into three components:
Digital preboarding.
Welcoming and orientation.
Training and development.
To establish any employee digital onboarding plan:
1. Define goals and objectives
Each employee role comes with a clear set of requirements. The employee is hired to do X, Y, and Z with standard expected results. Their employee onboarding process should quickly and clearly prepare them to start fulfilling their role.
When setting employee onboarding goals, set:
The key metrics you want the employee to achieve.
The timeline for the onboarding process.
Long-term goals like better retention or lower turnover.
Unfortunately, this part can take some time due to the different requirements of every position. However, accounting for the differences between roles does not take much longer with the right tools.
2. Set security requirements
Whatever tools you use, ensure your organization and employee data is secure. Onboarding processes typically require the exchange of personal ID and banking information. Tax forms, NDAs, and other documents are common parts of the process.
When you’re putting together a digital onboarding process, choose the right, secured tools for:
Employee onboarding processes may involve using several different applications and platforms. Choosing the right platforms also means choosing those with up-to-date security built in, reducing your workload while keeping important data secure.
Your organization’s needs may also necessitate further security checks. Specifically, look into any relevant regulations in your jurisdiction. For example, automated digital onboarding may contain PEP screening or checks against sanctions lists. Another example is AML watchlist screening, an additional check to deter known money launderers from accessing their potential targets.
These kinds of additional checks prevent your organization from facing legal challenges resulting from not following regulations. You will likely need to consult a legal expert to get a complete list of the regulations your digital onboarding must follow.
3. Choose the right onboarding platforms
There is no complete ‘onboarding platform’ that can handle every single aspect of employee onboarding. However, there are a few types of platforms that simplify entire employee onboarding tasks.
For example, the most rigorous employee onboarding demand is normally training. If the onboarding process requires introductions, demos, or ongoing learning requirements, a learning management system (LMS) offers the most complete infrastructure for your training needs.
An LMS is a complete learning system for creating, hosting, and managing any kind of educational material. That means you can immediately start implementing standard invitations, welcomes, orientations, and courses. Easy LMS lets you upload almost all kinds of media as course content. Crucially, you can also analyze course performance and results, enabling you to leverage analytics to perfect onboarding content over time.
4. Develop training systems
You will need unique, effective, concise training material to onboard a new employee. Digital spaces enable a wide range of training materials to be used. So, take some time to study digital learning/training theory and methods. To be successful with digital onboarding or any other online training, you need both the understanding and the technical skills.
Some digital training platforms, like Easy LMS, enable you to create diverse onboarding content. You can upload slide decks, video files, and more. Then, you can invite onboarding employees and track their progress.
5. Data submission and storage
The steps vary from organization to organization, but all users will normally need to submit at least some basic contact information and a username. Ensure your systems are ready to accept new employees with the minimal permissions required to complete their duties.
Some regulations may call for secure data collection. In financial organizations, data must be stored securely in case of additional steps.
Wherever necessary, ensure your employee onboarding includes secure and compliant data collection.
6. Welcoming
The digital onboarding process normally includes some mix of the following:
A standard welcome email.
Reading and agreeing to terms of employment.
Welcoming content.
Directions to training, demos, and other educational content.
With this welcoming content, the new employee should understand their role and the terms they are expected to abide by.
Now, the new employee has submitted their information, been cleared by security systems, and is able to start using the relevant accounts and software. They should also be able to access customer/client information legally and professionally.
7. Encourage and facilitate communication
Digital employee onboarding is usually more thorough than user/customer onboarding. However, employee onboarding processes can actually be counterproductive if they are confusing and your new employee lacks support.
It’s important that new employees can access support during employee onboarding. Ensure they can reach out to someone if they have questions or need clarification.
8. Optimize the onboarding process
Employee onboarding is a high-stakes exercise, and you won’t get it perfect on the first try. The cure to underoptimized onboarding is:
Evaluating performance data.
Collecting trainee and management feedback.
Incorporating and testing new strategies.
Potentially incorporating new software tools.
Thankfully, most onboarding tools come with built-in analytics. Analytics help you understand which onboarding training materials and functions achieve the desired results and which lead to confusion or poor test results.
Digital onboarding software solutions to simplify and streamline onboarding efficiently
The best software solutions for better digital onboarding include:
Different SaaS products with digital onboarding features may be identified as digital onboarding tools. These software options are designed to help HR streamline onboarding processes and may offer any combination of the above features.
Easy LMS is a learning management system built for coaches and trainers. We offer a complete infrastructure for creating and managing onboarding content and processes. Use the Easy LMS academy to organize your workflows and boost onboarding efficiency!
