One-third of new hires will leave a company within just 6 months of being hired. Depending on the industry, the cost of hiring a new employee can often exceed $10,000. When added up, the recurrent, high cost of employee turnover alone should be enough to reconsider your current onboarding strategy.
Why do most new hires leave a company early on?
According to research by BambooHR, one of the top reasons employees will leave a company is inadequate training and the fact that the job wasn’t “fun”. Making a job itself fun isn’t always possible, but designing fun experiences around a job is possible and can create the perception of a fun job. Inadequate training is a common issue. Current onboarding programs are generic, over-formal and utilize outdated styles. Employees are given a few days to a week of full-time orientation and are then assimilated into a company and forgotten about. This is when things start to fall apart.
The answer: engage new employees early on
If employee turnover is costing your company thousands of dollars each year, engaging new hires from Day 1 should be at the forefront of your onboarding strategy. From an engagement standpoint, gamification is a proven effective employee onboarding strategy. Gamification in eLearning is the principal of adding typical game mechanics and design elements to motivate participation and engagement in learning material. Some examples of gamification in onboarding include goal-based point systems, employee reward programs and leaderboards.
How can gamification enhance employee onboarding?
Increase engagement levels
When onboarding is fun, challenging and rewarding, engagement levels naturally rise. A gamified onboarding program allows new employees to interact, whether it be socially, physically or virtually, instead of simply sitting back and taking notes on a lecture. Gamification motivates participation and has an astounding effect on information retention. It has been found to increase engagement rates by as much as 50%.
Create a positive company perception
Onboarding is essentially an employee’s first impression with a company. If your onboarding program is old-fashioned and mundane, employees will carry on that perception to your company as a whole and their job as well. Even worse, first impressions are nearly impossible to reverse. This means a positive onboarding experience will more-or-less set the tone for the rest of their time at your company. So, add some fun to your onboarding program or suffer the consequences.
Decrease employee turnover rates
As stated earlier, most employees who quit within six months will quit due to inadequate training. Since an employee’s onboarding experience will affect how they perceive your company and their job down the road, a positive experience will surely have an impact on employee turnover rates. This means you can actually control your employees’ perception of your company and their job by simply creating a memorable and enjoyable learning experience from Day 1.
How can you gamify your onboarding strategy?
Create a rewards structure
This doesn’t mean giving a higher cut in the annual bonus. Rewards can be anything from a free lunch coupon to a mention on the company leaderboard. Leaderboards are a great way to reward employees without investing in monetary rewards. Rewards help drive engagement levels by increasing motivation and feelings of recognition.
Make it fun and interactive
Create an onboarding experience, not a check-list. Onboarding shouldn’t be a one-way conversation. Nor should it ever feel like a never-ending university lecture. Incorporate a mix of real-life demonstrations, interactive videos, hands-on tasks, team-oriented games and continuous feedback into your onboarding strategy and engagement levels will skyrocket.
Make it incrementally challenging
Just like a typical video game, start off with easy icebreakers and finish off with more challenging activities or tasks. This part can also be gamified through the creation of levels and points. Points provide intrinsic rewards while attaining higher levels creates a sense of accomplishment.
Create milestones and goals
Establishing clear milestones and goals not only helps keep new hires on the right path, but they can help track progress and induce feelings of accomplishment early on. To gamify this, create a “leveling up” system where new privileges and responsibilities are unlocked after a milestone or goal is attained.
How can BlueTea help?
Please contact BlueTea for a free consult. We are happy to serve you!