Onboarding Definition: Ensure your employees' integration

Onboarding Definition - Train your employees upon their arrival

Companies face multiple challenges in attracting and retaining their candidates. To enhance their image, it's appropriate to implement better strategies. Therefore, Onboarding assists the employee throughout their journey within the company. This process is implemented from recruitment until full job takeover. Discover the benefits of Onboarding in this article.

What is Onboarding?

The term Onboarding literally translates in French as "boarding". For human resources, it signifies integration. In short, it corresponds to the probationary period. Indeed, this term encompasses a methodology, a process, tools, and many other elements. It ensures the integration of a new employee.

More precisely, onboarding represents the journey of a new employee, from their hiring until they fully assume their position. It allows for establishing lasting and positive cooperation. Among other things, onboarding is:

• A journey: it serves as a reference during the new employee's initial days.
• A familiarization: it's essential for the employee to get familiar with their new position and the company's entire system.

The role of onboarding

Onboarding represents the employee's first steps in the company, reflecting the initial impression they'll have. Hence, it offers multiple benefits:

• To facilitate decision-making: from pre-recruitment to the end of the probationary period, both sides (recruiter and employee) can better determine objectives and facilitate choices.
• For more commitment: it allows the new employee to create a bond and commitment to the company, laying the foundations for loyalty.
• Activate employee skills more quickly to optimize company profitability.
• Improve attractiveness: in candidates' eyes, you enhance your image by demonstrating that you offer an integration and support journey for new employees.

To ensure the implementation of onboarding, certain virtual training, such as remote HSE training, helps optimize workplace safety.

Steps to implement onboarding

The goal of onboarding is to provide guidance to the new employee and the employer. To succeed, here are the steps to follow:

• Define what you want to convey and the purpose of integration. To achieve this, you can start by introducing your company, projects, premises, values, safety measures, and the company's raison d'être.
• Determine how you wish to proceed and the medium used. You can form tailored groups to demonstrate the importance of teamwork to the employee. To acquire skills, it's crucial to establish a learning process through a presentation, video, VR, etc.
• Analyze results to improve the induction training.

Why is Onboarding a crucial step in an employee's life within the company?

Onboarding ensures a warm welcome for the employee and prevents early departures. The recruitment cost for an employee is high. Hence, this process allows them to adapt better and faster. Moreover, they can quickly develop their skills in their role. For the employer, this process has benefits:

• Enhancing company attractiveness,
• Preventing workplace accidents,
• Addressing security gaps and hygiene lapses.

Indeed, an employee who is received attentively easily finds their place within the entity. As a result, they will be more motivated and invested. To allow the employee to adapt in their new environment, it's essential to provide all the keys for them to evolve under the best conditions.

In the absence of an onboarding program, the new collaborator might feel left on their own during their initial integration days. Consequently, they may get a bad impression of the company, impacting their motivation and desire to continue. To prevent any premature departures, it's crucial to integrate each new collaborator properly.

Workplace Accidents in France

Work accidents are common in the industry. They can impact employees' lives and have economic consequences for the company. They are often characterized by falls, improper tool handling, neglect of personal protective equipment, leading to recruitment difficulties. Hence, occupational health is a significant challenge.

The main causes of work accidents include:

• Falls on the same level
• Using the wrong tools
• Handling
• Falling from heights
• Etc.

Thanks to increased awareness, the number of work accidents is beginning to stabilize. This decline is more pronounced in the construction sector. However, the service sector is experiencing a sharp increase. In 2015, the number of work accidents in France exceeded six hundred thousand cases, with a frequency of 33.9 accidents per 1,000 employees.

Employer Responsibilities

The legal person responsible for workplace accidents is the employer. This responsibility is due to their obligations concerning health and safety at work. Article L. 4121-1 of the Labor Code requires the employer to take necessary measures for the safety and protection of its employees. Among other things, he/she is obliged to create a document to assess occupational risks related to:

• The choice of manufacturing methods
• Different work equipment
• Chemical substances
• The facilities and layout of workplaces
• The choice of workstations

This approach aims to adopt prevention actions and take effective measures to reduce workplace accidents.

Solutions Implemented

To reduce the number of accidents, industrial companies can use multiple entities:

• The Committee for Hygiene, Safety, and Working Conditions or CHSCT
• Prevention services of the National Health Insurance Fund for Salaried Workers or CNAMTS
• The Health-Safety-Environment service or SSE

Moreover, they can request the services of external providers specialized in preventing workplace accidents.

Certain risk prevention trainings are mandated by law, depending on the type of establishment or the employee's role:

• Onboarding: From their induction, employees must be informed about their safety and the risks they face during their professional career.
• Physical activity: This helps employees perform manual operations.
• Creation of a professional risk prevention plan

Onboarding and VR, A Powerful Mix

Onboarding in VR offers several benefits:

• Enhancing the employer's image in terms of safety and modernity: It reassures employees about the company's safety commitment.
• Greater learning efficiency with VR: It enables deeper and more realistic learning.
• Better employee engagement from the outset: It provides superior support for employees, ensuring seamless integration.
• Ease of use for new hires: VR Onboarding can be used by multiple people at once.
• A preliminary tour of the premises: This method allows a quick and easy virtual tour of various professional facilities without the employee having to travel.

Learning with VR and General VR Training

What is VR and VR Training?

Virtual Reality training is a digital simulation containing realistic scenarios for learning. It is an environment where the user is fully immersed in a virtual scene, in 3D, and with a 360° camera. The user wears a Virtual Reality headset covering their entire field of vision. When they turn around, the scene moves just like in the real world. They are free to move and interact by physically moving with sensors and using control joysticks.

This type of learning is akin to on-field practical training. VR is highly recommended for broader skill training.

Advantages

VR training has multiple benefits:

• Requires few resources: The user only needs VR headsets and VR controllers.
• Quick to implement: When an employee wears the VR headset, they are immediately immersed in a virtual learning world.
• Individualized training: Training can be customized based on activity. The learner interacts in a 3D virtual environment using electronic devices.
• Better trained and more engaged employees: This immersive technique is very close to reality, making training even more interesting and effective.
• The training is retained: To analyze the employee's performance, analysis platforms exist. These determine their weaknesses and performance to offer tailored training.

Examples of Groups Using VR

Many groups use immersive training, including:

• Walmart
• UPS
• Thales
• Manpower

Immersive Factory, Your Partner for Integrating Your Employees in VR

Immersive Factory supports you in training and integrating your employees. We offer HSE VR training that is easily accessible with complete and quality equipment. Thanks to our training, innovation will be at the heart of your business, enhancing safety and your organization's image. We develop more than 60 immersive VR workshops. Here are our advantages:

• We support you in setting up your training.
• We advise you to choose training tailored to your goals.
• We train your employees on the operation of VR headsets and the 3D environment.
• Our trainers stand by your side to implement effective training tailored to your employees.
• Our content was created in collaboration with renowned industrial companies.
• Through active pedagogy and immersive learning, we help you develop a training path tailored to your needs.
• Our learning paths are endless.

We offer innovative HSE exercises, like risk identification and hunting, quizzes, serious games, and more.