How to Choose the Best Digital Onboarding Tools for New Employees

Most business owners understand the importance of a thorough onboarding process for new employees. By prioritizing onboarding and new employee training, you potentially improve your chances of retaining employees and forming a stronger company culture with higher employee engagement.

However, the onboarding tools you choose to assist with this process can be integral to your onboarding success. Improve your chances of selecting the right tools by considering the following information.

Relevancy

When you start browsing for digital onboarding tools for new employees, you’ll likely encounter dozens of options to suit various businesses. While tempting to choose one based on its reputation and price, relevancy should be the most critical deciding factor.

Your chosen tools should be customizable so that you can tailor them to your new employees’ needs. It should also include everything an employee needs for stress-free adjustment to their new role and business and nothing they don’t.

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Engagement

Many businesses say they provide in-depth onboarding and then sit their new employee in front of a screen to watch a pre-recorded video or lecture. While some people are visual and spatial learners and learn everything they need from a video, others need to be entirely engaged in their learning materials.

Look for digital onboarding tools like apps and software that offer peer-generated courses and engaging content for new hires to interact with. If your new employees are immersed and engaged in their onboarding course, they might be more likely to understand what they’re learning and become competent in their jobs much quicker.

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Integrated vs. Standalone

It doesn’t matter whether you’re looking for a new calendar app or a digital onboarding tool, integration should be something you should consider before handing over your hard-earned money. Many digital tools, apps, and software are standalone, which means they can’t link with other resources and tools your team uses daily. As a result, there can be a considerable amount of double-handling when you must transfer data from one isolated system to another.

As a result, business owners should be exploring tools they can integrate with other HR platforms. Integrated systems allow you to access your onboarding data from multiple locations and see where your new employees are in the onboarding process and whether they need assistance.

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Hosting

The hosting options for onboarding tools can be one of the primary deciding factors before making your purchasing decision. Some tools require on-premise hosting, meaning you can only access and manage the software from your work premises. This requires you to have space on your server and an IT team to manage its maintenance and updates.

However, some of the many leading onboarding tools are described as ‘cloud’ onboarding. This means the program vendor hosts the program or software on their platform, and you only need to pay a monthly subscription fee. Such an option can be ideal for businesses with remote and hybrid workforces.

Choosing the best digital onboarding tools for new employees will never be easy, especially if you’ve never prioritized onboarding. However, by looking for onboarding tools using these tips above, you might purchase the most appropriate option and provide your new employees with an onboarding experience that’s memorable for all the right reasons