Article: Top business tech that's revolutionising staff training & onboarding

HR Technology

Top business tech that's revolutionising staff training & onboarding

Business tech is evolving to better meet training and onboarding demands. Here's how
Top business tech that's revolutionising staff training & onboarding

Hiring new staff, whether your business is growing or you’re replacing an employee, is an expense. When onboarding and training go wrong, it leads to low employee retention, and this is one of the biggest costs to a business. Businesses need the training and onboarding process to be as efficient as possible so new staff members feel supported with everything they need, and the company gets the full potential out of the new hire as soon as possible.

The key to getting the most out of your employees is to find the right balance between sufficient training and optimising your resources. Recently, more businesses are turning to tech for solutions. We’ve seen some incredible onboarding and training software introduced to help businesses train their new staff while wasting minimal resources in the process. In this article, we’ll explore the top business technologies that are changing the game in terms of onboarding and training.


Free file storage, conversion and sharing tools


Free file conversion tools are some of the most widely used tech involved in staff training today. Using a simple Word to PDF converter can turn nearly every training and onboarding document into a storable and transferable file.

This is a suitable measure for most SMEs that don’t have excessive amounts of documentation to run employees through. Converting the relevant documents to shareable files and storing them in onboarding folders provides the basics of every task a new employee may perform to be easily shared and downloaded.

When using this method, a mentor is required to walk them through the process, send them the documentation and tie up any loose ends. Make a plan for how to overcome gaps in documentation, which positions require which documents and how to allocate a mentor to new hires. Any ambiguities and questions can then be discussed through direct, one-on-one training. This minimises the time that mentors and trainers need to spend walking new staff through processes, while still ensuring sufficient training.


Digital onboarding platforms


For larger organisations, the onboarding process needs to be as streamlined and automated as possible. Digital onboarding portals and platforms are available to reduce new employees getting lost in paperwork and processes, guiding them through their training and onboarding process. Onboarding portals work by acting as a training guide for new hires while providing them with associated documentation and the paperwork to fill out. This can range from tax forms and superannuation fund details to corporate processes, best-practises and specific role training.

Not only does this reduce the staff resources spent on training and onboarding new employees, but it ensures essential documents are easily accessible. It also removes the human error involved in onboarding, as new staff are given everything they need at each stage of the journey.


AI-powered onboarding


Some modern training software is AI-powered. AI-powered learning software can have various functionalities, but often they run a full or micro training course for new hires to complete. AI can tailor the company’s knowledge database for the role of the employee in training.

Beyond fast tracking training, AI-powered onboarding offers comprehensive benefits. It promotes personalisation, with the employee's name, past experiences and prior learning modules referred to regularly. It helps keep staff engaged with their training, as they can ask questions for clarification at any time, and receive a personalised answer instantly. What’s more, it tailors the format of learning, switching between text, audio and video, which makes it easier to stay engaged and learn.


Simulation learning with Virtual Reality


Virtual Reality (VR) is here, and it's far from the world Inception had us imagine. It’s simply a tool that is making our lives easier in various ways, one of which includes employee interaction, and more specifically, onboarding and training. The use of VR tech is rising in employee training and onboarding. It enables a more hands-on and interactive remote learning experience by stimulating the functions of the role, without having a senior team member walk them through it.


What’s great about VR learning is the low-stakes environment it creates for staff to practice tasks during onboarding without risking company performance. It also feeds back information to employers with insights on areas of weakness to focus on further training. Consider a data analyst who needs to make important decisions based on information on a key client. The simulation allows them to confidently put their training into practice without the pressure of their insights being used to make real recommendations.


The gamification of training


Gamification means incorporating game elements into non-game contexts, like employee training. The idea behind the gamification of training is that people engage with games seamlessly, so it can sustain interest and enhance knowledge intake. Games not only make progress fun, but they stitch in a narrative that motivates people to achieve their goals, or in this case, their learning or onboarding modules.

Using game-like training works well for particular audiences, such as casual staff who might do their training at home, for younger teams familiar with computer games or when there is a large volume of formulaic training content to absorb. Gamification is offered in some onboarding software platforms. They will typically use a point system when completing learning tasks, switch up the learning formats, use avatars and use a choose-your-adventure narrative in selecting the next module.

You can see some elements of gamification on popular platforms like Slack and its infinite-emoji responses and Asana when fireworks go off once you complete a task.


Microlearning integrations

As you may have guessed, microlearning involves employees engaging with learning through bite-sized pieces of information. Microlearning platforms deliver training through short, focused training content embedded into daily tasks, processes and workflows. This means you only need to lay out the basics of employee onboarding, like providing them access to the project platforms, and then microlearning integrations can walk them through their tasks.

The benefit of these platforms is that they handle all of the small questions employees might have, like where they submit documents, who the point of contact is for a project and how to use a platform. It saves trainers ample time, but direct, human training is still required for the larger, more big-picture questions and training.


Collaborative and social learning technologies


Connection is always an effective strategy for productivity. That’s the motivation behind many employers that use collaborative and social onboarding technologies that facilitate peer-to-peer learning and bonding. On these platforms, new employees can discuss training modules, ask questions in a forum and advance towards completion together.

Social onboarding platforms work well for companies that hire multiple employees at a time, like in the hospitality, event and logistics and warehousing industries. However, they also work for individual hires, as trainers can act as peers, and answer onboarding questions through the platform.

Final thoughts

Employee training and onboarding can seem demanding enough for some businesses without the extra effort required to rethink it. But if it’s been a while since you’ve checked your training processes, or if you’re growing and you’re well aware you need a better way of doing things, turning to tech is a viable strategy.

For SMEs, make your documents as accessible as possible. Lean into free storage and file conversion channels so everything training-related can be passed around seamlessly. For larger organisations, you will need something bigger. Make onboarding and learning efficient and engaging through platforms that enable collaboration, gamified learning and microlearning. Or if you’re hiring for business-critical roles, you could consider harnessing the latest in VR to mitigate performance risks.

Whichever way you choose to upgrade your training infrastructure, it’s an investment that will save you endless resources down the line, so the sooner you do it, the better.

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Topics: HR Technology

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