Did you know that 29% of workers quit a job within 90 days of starting? While there could be a number of reasons for such a high turnover rate, poor onboarding is usually a common factor up there on the list. Onboarding lets new employees quickly learn the organizational ropes. This is usually about their roles, organizational policies, company values, and the larger goal. If your organization is unable to provide a good onboarding experience, it can be difficult for the new recruits to navigate the initial phase of their tenure.
A learning management system (LMS), which is typically used for managing training and educational programs, can help streamline your onboarding process. If your organization is facing high employee turnover rates, an LMS platform may help resolve that problem. But before you start looking for the best learning management system for your company, you should know how an LMS can improve your employee onboarding process.
The Importance of Efficient Employee Onboarding at an Organization
For a new employee, onboarding is their first interaction with the organization after an extensive interview process. A poor onboarding experience can leave a bad impression on the employee which often leads to job offer regrets. A subpar initial experience can also create negative perceptions or biases against the organization, resulting in an early turnover.
Apart from helping create a good impression on newcomers, organizations need a well-structured onboarding process to help these new employees adapt to organizational regulations and working standards. This process also allows them to understand their roles and build positive relationships with other employees.
Understanding the Process of Employee Onboarding with LMS
While a learning management system is designed to help organizations create, manage, and deliver training and educational content, it has plenty of other applications as well. Most LMS platforms help streamline the employee onboarding process. With the right strategy, an LMS can help induct, train, assess, and successfully integrate new employees into the organization.
Learning management systems centralize onboarding courses, enabling new team members to quickly catch up with various operations and the company culture. LMS platforms’ e-learning features also help employees learn more about company policies and offerings. Using LMS for onboarding can empower employees to align with the organization’s core values.
With LMS, new employees gain access to a wide range of onboarding materials that they can review whenever they need to. Also, if the employees need to complete certain compliance training courses before starting a new role, LMS can help manage this process efficiently.
Why Use LMS for Employee Onboarding?
Most organizations use e-learning in their onboarding programs, whether their operations are office-based, fully remote, or hybrid. While an LMS can significantly reduce the workload of your HR department, there are several other reasons to use an LMS to manage your onboarding process.
Cost Effectiveness
Using LMS for employee onboarding can help your organization save a lot on your training budget. With an LMS, you no longer need to spend a massive amount of money on instructors, venues, transportation, and more. The system lets you create and host the necessary materials online. Even if the new recruit is joining the team remotely, they can receive the same high-quality training as those attending the office.
Customized Learning Paths
LMS allows you to easily update the training materials and courses, ensuring all new employees get relevant and up-to-date content. Some LMS platforms also have the feature of bundling courses to create a specific learning path. Your organization can use this to personalize the onboarding process, delivering the right training to the right learner. Automating the entire process streamlines employee onboarding for the admin teams.
Role-Based Learning
You can use an LMS that lets you define the hierarchical structure (roles, departments, etc.) to simplify the process of assigning new recruits to the right learning path. When you are able to define roles and departments for every user on the LMS platforms, you can just automate the learning assignments. Any new employee who gets onboarded to the LMS platforms is then automatically enrolled in the correct learning path.
Scalability
Whether you are onboarding an individual employee, a small group of new recruits, or teams of hundreds, you should have a consistent onboarding process as an organization. While it is difficult to maintain such a level of consistency during manual operations, LMS can help you handle hundreds, even thousands, of new employees and their training requirements. When you have set LMS automatics, the new learners can automatically receive the learning paths that are right for them when they need them.
Asynchronous Learning
When you use LMS to handle the onboarding process, you also give your employees the option to learn at their own pace. As all the materials and correct instructions are available to them any time they want, they can learn the necessary information or complete their training at a comfortable speed while still fulfilling their work requirements. Since everyone learns at a different pace, your new recruits can benefit from this. Also, it helps your business by minimizing downtime and disruption at work.
Learning on the Go
With technological advancements and the growing usage of mobile devices, a mobile learning strategy has become essential for organizations. This helps you meet the learning needs of the new employees while aligning with their digital habits. An LMS platform lets your new employees access onboarding training and materials through their mobile devices. As they get the flexibility to learn on the go, you can access their learning pathway whenever they need.
Thorough Monitoring
You can also closely monitor, track, and report on new employees’ progress. This lets you assess their skills and aptitude for tasks, identify who may need extra help and focused training, and automatically assign the next stage of training and certifications. You can also take advantage of the tracking features on the LMS to ensure proper governance and compliance throughout the process.
Conclusion
In this competitive environment, having an effective onboarding process is the first step toward organizational success. A learning management system not only digitizes the onboarding process but also helps create an experience where your new employees can feel valued and supported. By streamlining the onboarding process, an LMS makes training more accessible and engaging while allowing the employees to catch up with the organization’s policy, work culture, and core values faster. However, you should do your own research while choosing an LMS for your organization.
