How To Personalize Your Onboarding Training?

What Is Personalized Employee Onboarding?

Why Is Personalization Important?

6 Simple Steps To Personalize Onboarding 

1. Start Onboarding Before The First Day

2. Develop A Mentorship Program

3. Make Learning Materials More Engaging

4. Organize Team Building Events

5. Schedule Regular HR Check-in Calls

6. Make the Materials More Engaging

Bring People Together With Personalized Onboarding

Onboarding aims to overcome the obstacles on the workers` way to becoming productive team members. Yet, onboarding itself has so much room for improvement to become even more efficient in setting newbies for success.

An attempt to offer maximum information regarding every possible topic they need to know typically leaves newcomers feeling overwhelmed and disconnected. Personalizing the onboarding experience adjusts the whole procedure to every person's abilities, needs and preferences. As a result, new workers benefit from faster ramp-up times, higher engagement, and retention.

What Is Personalized Employee Onboarding?

This approach accounts for the individual employee's learning style, career goals, and personality. It is important to remember that it goes beyond the standard orientation, serving to welcome newcomers and introduce them to the culture. Personalized onboarding takes it way further, as it continually adapts to provide the right information, coaching, and resources at the right time. More importantly, personalization assumes that delivery channels should also be convenient for newcomers.

For example, scheduling regular one-on-one meetings with new hires caters to their unique concerns. Pairing them with a peer mentor who can answer job-specific questions also boosts confidence. Recognizing small wins and milestones throughout the first months makes each person feel valued. Using an LMS to deliver content in a convenient way, form, and time adds a lot to efficient time distribution.

The result is a custom-fitted approach to ensure each new starter gets up to speed quickly. Furthermore, it even allows them to do it via mobile devices, and makes them feel recognized as an individual rather than just another cog in the wheel.

Why Is Personalization Important?

Imagine if your first weeks consisted only of sleepy compliance training and dense PDF handbooks. You'd probably feel bored and overwhelmed. That is because you have to face learning that wasn't adapted to various employee learning styles. Without personalization, the onboarding experience for new hires is often an info dump rather than a warm welcome.

However, when companies personalize the experience, new employees:

• Learn faster with training tailored to their individual learning styles
• Feel more confident asking questions one-on-one
• Build connections faster with team events and mentors
• Understand how their role impacts larger goals
• Experience less stress and information overload

Bluntly put, personalization boosts the experience from the very first steps. Surely, it can be a significant investment, yet it will pay off with a more active, productive, and committed team.

6 Simple Steps To Personalize Onboarding

You don't need fancy technology or huge budgets. Here are six things to customize that make a tangible difference:

Start Onboarding Before The First Day

Kick off the onboarding journey early by having managers call new hires when they accept the job offer. It starts to build rapport and excitement for the first day.

Send a welcome box with company swag to make them feel special. Point them to relevant industry news and thought leader blogs to read. The more you front-load, the less overwhelming your first job day will be.

Develop A Mentorship Program

Assign peer mentors to guide new hires in their first months. Mentors can answer job-specific questions without newbies feeling shy or self-conscious. Accordingly, this helps ramp up productivity faster.

Try to match mentors and new hires based on shared background, experience, or personality style. Meeting during the workday also offers informal coaching time.

Make Learning Materials More Engaging

Rather than a generic slide deck, create fun and useful online video tutorials. Have department leaders explain core systems, processes, and tools instead of trainers. This builds connections and familiarity with key stakeholders.

Organize information around likely new hire questions and needs. Share digestible chunks on demand rather than overwhelming upfront data dumps.

Organize Team Building Events

Schedule monthly lunches, after-work socials, and informal coffee meetups. This gives new starters a chance to meet colleagues in a relaxed setting. Bonding as a team builds camaraderie and a supportive environment.

Personalize the events around new hire interests and hobbies for easy icebreakers—for example, a ping pong tournament for sporty types or a book club for avid readers.

Schedule Regular HR Check-in Calls

Don't leave new employees hanging after day one. Have HR book 30-minute check-in calls at regular intervals, such as the end of week one, month one, and quarter one.

Individualized training gives new team members a friendly ear for any pressing questions. It also flags potential problems early before frustration sets in. Ask specific questions to uncover the unique challenges each person faces.

Make the Materials More Engaging

Collaborate with each new hire on a customized 30-60-90 day roadmap. Outline clear role expectations, key progress indicators, and target objectives. Consider individual strengths, growth areas, and interests when setting goals.

Schedule regular touchpoints to review progress against the roadmap. Recognize small milestones and wins along the journey. This keeps new starters engaged, supported, and focused.

Bring People Together With Personalized Onboarding

Forgetting someone's name during introductions or glossing over role specifics leaves a poor first impression. That's why taking an impersonal approach fails new employees when they are most vulnerable.

Personalizing every process phase makes people feel welcomed, valued, and set up for excellence. So be human - take the time to discover individual needs, barriers, and goals. Help people forge connections through a mentor, role model, or new colleague.

When you show you care about someone's unique path to success, you open the door to possibility from day one. What possibilities will your next new hire achieve with personalized onboarding?