Fixing employee onboarding: a practical guide for HR leaders

Rrahul Sethi, our founder, has run a recruitment company for more than 10 years. Onboarding and early engagement were problems he saw HR teams face again and again. This article sets out why traditional onboarding struggles and how a virtual, interactive approach can help.

Why traditional onboarding loses new hires

HR teams carry a lot of responsibility in a new hire's first weeks, from the initial paperwork to the training modules. The aim is to set each person up to succeed.

In practice, traditional onboarding is often tedious and slow. New hires sit through long training sessions and fill in forms for hours. Their enthusiasm drops, and they come away with little real understanding of the company's culture.

The biggest problem is low engagement. Disengaged new hires are less likely to stay, and they take longer to become productive.

The idea: onboarding in a shared virtual space

Virtual onboarding introduces new hires to the company's culture, values and processes inside a 3D environment. New joiners can meet colleagues as avatars, explore a virtual version of the office and learn about the company's mission through activities rather than slides.

Example: Kotak Mahindra Bank's Learning-a-fair

Kotak Mahindra Bank engaged more than 35,000 employees through "Learning-a-fair", a learning experience built in the metaverse. The experience won a Brandon Hall award and was designed to encourage collaboration, engagement and new ideas among employees.

Kotak used GMetriXR to deploy it. GMetri's no-code toolkit lets teams create, manage and track their own virtual experiences. Its templates shorten implementation, so L&D and HR teams can launch an experience with less support from outside agencies.

How to set up virtual onboarding: seven steps

You cannot simply launch a virtual onboarding programme and expect it to run smoothly. These steps help it work from the first cohort.

1. Try it yourself first. Spend time in virtual worlds: play games and attend events. You will understand what your new hires will experience.
2. Understand the concept. Research what virtual environments can and cannot do for onboarding, and keep up with developments.
3. Set clear objectives. Decide whether the priority is building a sense of community, teaching specific skills or creating an immersive learning experience. Clear goals shape the design.
4. Choose a platform. Compare the features of different platforms and pick the one that fits your company's needs.
5. Build your presence. Create avatars for team members, a virtual office or workspace, and a branded company space.
6. Plan how people will learn the platform. Choose between live virtual training sessions, a written user guide or self-guided exploration, and give everyone the resources to feel comfortable.
7. Make it interactive, then ask for feedback. Add team-building activities, icebreakers and games to help new hires remember what they learn and feel connected. Ask what works and what does not, and adjust the programme.

Next step

If you are planning onboarding for new joiners across several plants or offices, talk to our team about interactive and VR-based onboarding that gives every joiner the same first week.

First published on the Metaverse911 blog.