Traditionally a new hire after being shown their desk, toilets and kitchen then settle in with a coffee or tea; an informal induction chat often ensues. Next, comes the company starter pack. It is meant to read and digested, but in reality it is perused and dumped in a draw. After all, there is the job to learn and the associated processes and systems.

What next? Often have new hires attend presentations of key departments. When this occurs depends on the starter numbers, then how busy the company, the departments and the presenters prove to be.

Some inductions happen months after starting and may not even be the same for each person. This is a wasted opportunity. It also fails to achieve the key objectives of induction. To get these starters familiarised and integrated with the company environment and their job so they become productive as quickly as possible.

People integration and interaction is still the key component but, is there a better process that manages time, resources and staff? 

Yes, Online Induction. Companies are now recognising the benefits of virtual inductions as part of the webinars training solutions wave.  

Here are some of the key reasons companies need to update their induction process and protect their new investments – staff.

1. Always available, at whatever time, for where ever the location
2. Consistent quality, each induction is uniform and repeatable
3. Ensures the correct company messages are delivered
4. New starters become self reliant quickly and become productive sooner
5. Interactive aspects stimulate employee engagement
6. Helps the busy manager manage everyone’s time
7. Reduces work disruption for all
8. Ensure every new employee is inducted

Companies ignore this opportunity to change at their peril. Webcasts, virtual events and e-learning like social media and the app culture is here to stay. Early adoption of online induction can offer advantages over other firms. Why not ensure new joiners get the best start to their career and your company also reaps the benefits.

We would love to hear your thoughts about Online Training Strategy Integration and how that could benefit your organisation?

John Chambers of CEO Cisco Systems commented in 1999 “The next big killer application for the Internet is going to be education. Education over the Internet is going to be so big it is going to make e-mail look like a rounding error.” That was fourteen years ago. This may have taken longer than expected but the explosion of the internet and emerging technologies now means distance e-learning is a given.

What does that mean to companies in today’s economic climate?

Companies are seeing the convergence of e-learning and on-demand and recognising the many benefits. The future John Chambers saw in 1999 has crossed over from educational institutions into society and therefore into business as practical knowledge-on-demand (KOD) applications are being developed. According to Training Magazine companies could save 50-70% from using e-learning over instructor led classes.

Demetrios Sampson and Charalampos Karagiannidis’s excellent paper Knowledge-on-Demand in e-Learning and e-Working Settings gives some fascinating insights into these knowledge systems and their impact on educational institutions and society. They talk of a knowledge society where there are new demands and objectives:

• Personalised training schemes tailored to the learner’s objectives, background, style and needs.
• Flexible access to lifelong learning as a continual process, rather than a distinct event.
• Just-in-time training delivery.
• New learning models for efficient integration of training on workplaces.

• Cost effective methods for meeting training needs of globally distributed workforce.

These Backend Users are offering solutions that take the complex technological processes away and provide easy to use toolsets. This allows their clients to focus on their training objectives, the content, and making the process & content reusable.  The learning experience also becomes adaptive, interactive, consistent and highly accessible. Other key features are extracting strong analytical metrics, identifying ROI and realising cost savings.

This KOD revolution is not about replacing live classes, seminars, events, conferences or removing the need for face-to-face individual and group networking but recognises the how technology impacts learning/training culture and processes. Just like the arrival of the portable office, it is both a system and resource that companies must learn to use effectively not just today but in the future to make the most of their business opportunities.

How is your company dealing with the digital training culture? Is your company harnessing the potential of e-learning?

We are WIT Communications, an international team with over 50 years of global experience. After having run WIT Consultancy for more than 10 years, our MD John Michaelis, decided it was time to start a second brand to offer online communication services to solve operational business problems and engage with your audiences intelligently.

In the Digital Era, every day there is something new; new apps, social media sites, blogs, magazines and a whole range of options to optimise the way we communicate. Online Events are a powerful tool to communicate to global audiences, with no barriers to access the content except having an Internet connection. It’s an environmentally friendly tool, truly interactive and captures meaningful behavioral analytics.

We’ve recognized that in the UK companies are still not harnessing the potential of this new way to engage. With that in mind we decided it was time to blog.

WIT Communications blog was born with the idea of sharing our content and experience in Online Events Strategy as a means of improving audience engagement and productivity while saving a big part of your budget with an environmentally friendly solution.

In this space you will find articles focused mostly in how to harness Online Events to improve internal communications and HR challenges.

We are going to be posting the 1^st and the 15^th of each month; the 1^st, because we are the first company at offering this service in the UK and the 15^th because we like this number, it is the half, the middle of a project, the climax before going live, the most exciting bit… and most importantly, our audience and customers are the other half of WIT Communications so please, contact us, read us, post to us, be part of WIT! We promise to just offer high quality services and information! 

We would like to know what intrigues you the most about Online Communications Strategy to solve Operational Business Problems, so please leave your thoughts here and we will try to cover them in the blog.