You are about to deliver a team presentation and have been anticipating it for the last month. Although you are well-prepared, a feeling of dread washes over you - at least it will be over in an hour’s time!

This situation will be familiar to many, and while you can learn to become a more confident public speaker, you’ll still need to practice and learn to sit with the uncomfortable sensations. 

No matter how you feel about addressing a large group, research suggests that one of the quickest ways to improve your confidence in any situation is to make small alterations to your body language. 

It is tricky to be aware of how you hold yourself, especially if you sit at a computer for most of the day. Nonetheless, checking in and making a few small adjustments could make you both feel better, and communicate to others that you are self-confident and have a positive mindset. 

Social psychologist, Amy Cuddy, discusses how body language affects how others see us, but it may also change how we see ourselves.

In her popular Ted Talk, she argues that “power-posing” - standing in a posture of confidence, even when we don't feel confident - can boost feelings of confidence, and might have an impact on our chances for success.

In her study, participants sat either in a high-power pose (in an expansive position) or a low-power pose (leaning inward or legs crossed) for two minutes. Cuddy found that those who sat in high-power poses performed better in mock interviews than those who had adopted the low-power poses. 

The two key takeaways from her research were that those who sat in high-power poses not only felt more powerful, but that the poses actively changed their body chemistry.

The New Zealand rugby team performing the haka before every international game is a great example of expansive, powerful body language in action.  

How your team can build confidence through body language

Most people can agree workplace communication is very important to a business. After all, when providing a professional service, clear and concise communication with prospects and existing clients is essential. Excellent communication skills are just as crucial when dealing with internal staff. So, how can your team put the science of powerful body language into practice? 

In her book, Presence, Amy Cuddy summarises her research and experiences, offering the following tips to get started: 

This sounds simple, but isn’t always easy to do. If you are performing a task or role, and deep down you don’t believe that you are equipped to do it well, this will come across in your body language and others will pick up on it.  

If you suffer from imposter syndrome in certain situations, yet your boss or somebody else has chosen you to perform a role or task, do your best to challenge your thoughts and tell yourself a different, more positive story about yourself.

2. Being present - presence begets presence

A great way to be aware of the position of your body and your internal dialogue is to stay present in the moment. Cuddy also explains that presence begets presence, meaning that once you are able to start being present, your will gain momentum and find yourself spending more and more time living in the moment. Mindfulness training is a proven way to train yourself in this skill. 

If you notice that your self-talk is negative and your confidence is low, you can make simple changes to your body language to interrupt this negative thinking pattern. A gesture a simple as smiling, no matter how you are feeling or what state of mind you are in, has been proven to interrupt negative feedback loops in the brain, and turn them in a more positive direction.

Again, this action might sound simple, but, like smiling, tweaking your posture can really make a difference. It is easy to start slouching when you are sitting down, particularly when your attention is focused on a computer screen or phone. The more you can check in with yourself and readjust, the more you will reap the benefits of having a better posture.

Cuddy identifies a few poses which are helpful for boosting confidence. These are proven to make changes to the body and mind as a whole, so perhaps try a few out before your next public speaking gig! The images in the top row show “high-power” body language, and the bottom row shows “low-power” body language.

Images courtesy of Amy Cuddy, Harvard University

Good communication plays a key role in maintaining staff productivity, job satisfaction and positive staff morale. It’s also central to the effective dissemination of information across any organisation, and vital for building relationships of trust and commitment.

In Go1 Premium, you’ll find courses on many aspects of workplace communication, including negotiation, delegation, and how to make meetings as productive, engaging and efficient as possible.

This guide from Toastmasters, a non-profit organisation that teaches public speaking and leadership skills, also gives a detailed explanation as to just how much your body speaks. 

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How to build self-confidence at work through body language

Cast your mind back to the classroom at school. The teacher begins explaining how to solve a problem you already understand, and you start looking out the window, whispering to a friend or throwing screwed-up pieces of paper at your classmates. 

Fast forward twenty years to a face-to-face training course you are attending for work, and you find yourself in exactly the same situation. Hopefully not disrupting the rest of the group as you have, of course, matured slightly since then, but perhaps doodling or thinking about what will be included in the free lunch. 

Having to listen to a familiar concept being taught in great detail is neither engaging or useful. When the average employee has only 24 minutes per week to learn, even slightly irrelevant content is a waste of precious time. 

Similarly, when learners find themselves completely lost in a session, they are just as likely to drift off or subconsciously focus their attention on something else.

Personalising learning is the difference between content being engaging or boring. Content needs to address an individual’s learning needs as accurately as possible, and advancing technology is helping to simplify this process.

Over time, eLearning content providers and LMS platforms have developed systems to make the learning process increasingly personalised. 

Improved tools for diagnostic assessment have given both instructors and learners the opportunity to understand how well the learning is going, and if there are any topic areas which are particularly difficult for a group to grasp. 

Globally renowned industry analyser and research analyst, Josh Bersin, describes a new paradigm emerging in corporate training. He labels this, ‘learning in the flow of work’, which means presenting employees with opportunities to learn through platforms they are already using to work.

Bersin uses the following example to explain the concept:

“In the application of safety and operational training (an enormous market in most heavy industries), there are now adaptive learning solutions that deliver small 2-3 minute videos each day when an operator checks into work. The learning is carefully curated, spaced, and designed to deliver an outcome – and the employee answers questions (including questions about their confidence in the answers) to give the system enough information to decide what should come next.  This is happening now.”

As technology advances, we are better able to tailor an individual’s learning experience and embed learning into pre-existing tasks or routines. 

What can you do to personalise the eLearning experience?

In addition to using the latest advances in technology, it is also possible for learning and development professionals to create a more personalised learning experience for employees. 

If you aren’t sure where to begin, the following steps are a good place to start:

1. Develop a culture of learning in your workplace  

When organisations prioritise learning and development, employees can become more agile and adaptive, meaning they have an improved ability to cope with and respond to the rapid rates of change expected of them in the digital age.  

This will provide a foundation for a more personalised learning process, with both employees and those in leadership positions valuing learning equally. 

2. Encourage employees to take ownership of their learning

It is also important for employees to take responsibility for their learning. The best learning and development strategy, course content and HR professionals can only take employees so far. When your employees understand what they need to learn next and when they need to learn it, they will be able to make progress at their own pace. 

The LMS dashboard, both for instructors and learners can help to make the learning process more personalised. If you have access to diagnostic assessment data, you will be able to see if there are any general gaps in employee knowledge, and be able to address these as they pop up.  

Learners can also use diagnostic data to understand if there are any topics they need to learn more about. They can do further independent research if necessary, or perhaps complete an additional online course.

4. Ask employees for feedback and respond

Finding out what your employees think of the eLearning process in your organisation is crucial to their ongoing engagement. If a particular course was too easy or too difficult, it is unlikely that they will take an interest in the rest of the content. 

It can also be helpful to find out what they thought of the eLearning system. Were the courses easy to follow? Was the content presented in an interesting way?

If learners can see that you value their opinions and they are taking part in the ongoing development of the learning process, they are far more likely to be engaged and invested. 

Personalised learning: the secret to engagement in online courses

Watch this webinar to learn how you can create more effective and productive working relationships in your organization, using Vado’s new eLearning toolkit. The toolkit will be going live into Go1 on Friday the 16th of August. 

Is the DISC Assesment of Human Behavior the answer to your workplace communication challenges? 

The DISC model is a great tool for building relationships, reducing conflict, and getting better results. Unfortunately, it does not work if you stop at taking an assessment.  To get great results and value by making a connection with and building relationships with people, you have to know how to use the DISC model in practical, everyday situations. That's why Kevin Eikenberry and Guy Harris created the DISC toolkit. 

In this webinar the Go1 team are joined by Guy Harris  Coach in the DISC Model of Human Behaviors and Cindy Pascale Vado eLearning co-founder, to learn more about the new Vado DISC courses and talk about what's in store next for the longstanding partnership between Go1 and Vado. 

Vado are a leading Go1 content provider and very popular with our United States based customers, given the thorough Discrimination and Harassment content they have available via Go1. Go1 has been proudly partnered with Vado since 2017, and they are one of our many content providers helping Go1 customers improve the performance of their team. 

Guy Harris is with The Kevin Eikenberry Group in Indianapolis, Indiana. The Kevin Eikenberry Group is a leadership and learning consulting company – a world leader in equipping leaders to reach their full potential and productivity.

Guy draws on more than 25 years of combined professional and military experience when he consults, coaches, or trains in the areas of workplace conflict resolution, team and interaction dynamics, communication strategies and tactics, and emotional intelligence.

Typical client concerns prior to working with Guy are: forging a team from a group of individuals, moving a team past the conflict stage of team development, developing other leaders, expanding personal influence within the organization, communicating more effectively, and developing buy-in for new programs and processes. In other words, he helps you understand – and work through – the reasons why your relationships are getting in the way of getting things done.

Guy is a Master Trainer and Coach in the DISC Model of Human Behaviors and a Workplace Conflict Resolution expert.

Cindy, a Vado co-founder, has primary leadership responsibility for business development, account management and operations at Vado. She has 16+ years of HR, Training and Development, and OD leadership experience, with 12 years experience as a COO and CEO of various talent management consulting and assessment organizations.

For more insights, subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

Webinar Recap: Vado’s new eLearning toolkit

With communication in the workplace continuing to change rapidly, we now have an unprecedented capacity for interaction across the globe. And as a result, the daily routine for many workers involves a considerable amount of screen time.

To demonstrate just how quickly things have changed, email came into general use approximately twenty years ago, and the first Apple smartphone went to market in 2007. It’s difficult to imagine both our working and personal lives without these tools now, yet we are still in the infancy of understanding how to optimise the advantages they bring, and the impact they are having on our productivity and wellbeing. 

With this focus on screen time at work, the millennial workforce is craving opportunities for face-to-face interaction and collaboration. The question is how to build meaningful face-to-face interactions into the working day, without using precious time unnecessarily. 

According to research, 93% of communication occurs nonverbally, through body language and tone of voice. Only the remaining 7% is communicated through words. This shows how much we are missing out on when using email and messaging platforms instead of talking to each other face-to-face.  

While employees can use instant messaging platforms to ask each other quick questions, it is important to be aware that much of what is said is lost, and misunderstandings could easily happen without talking things through in person. 

In the early, formative stages of a relationship, face-to-face communication is essential for building a connection and trust between two individuals. 

First impressions really count. It takes only milliseconds to make an initial judgement on somebody new, and reading nonverbal cues plays a huge role in this process. This means that meeting face-to-face is very important for building a better-informed connection between two parties. Without it, a relationship can develop, but the depth of connection and level of trust will be limited. 

When two individuals take the time out of their day to meet with each other, this shows a commitment from both parties to give their attention to the conversation. The full range of communications can be picked up, and a better connection built. If it is a difficult conversation involving conflict, but both parties have good intentions, this will come across much more easily in a face-to-face interaction than in an email. 

If you are meeting with a new client, a meeting face-to-face shows that you have committed your time, effort and money to building a relationship with them. With information and demands on our time coming at us from so many different places, we are now living in what is described as an attention economy. Now, more than ever, your efforts to meet up won’t go unnoticed. 

How to use time effectively is the question on every manager and employee’s mind in the digital age.  It can be so easy to get carried away and distracted by the onslaught of information, finding ways to be more productive are like gold dust. 

Although it may seem more time-consuming to meet with people face-to-face, it can actually improve efficiency in the long run.  Instead of writing ten emails back and forth, your conversation could be resolved in a matter of minutes over a coffee - much more enjoyable!  You will also gain all the additional benefits of having taken the time to meet, so it’s a win win.

If physical distance isn’t a limitation, meeting in person is almost always preferable. When working remotely, or with team mates from different locations, video-conferencing is a convenient way for employees to discuss, plan, and build positive working relationships. 

Sometimes, we need to share information that is only meant for one other person. Meeting in a private setting can build trust between two individuals, particularly when the information you need to talk about is sensitive. This way,  you know that only you and the person you are talking to have heard the information - as long as there’s nobody behind you eavesdropping! 

Although the advantages of face-to-face communication are clear, some interactions are better than others.  Research shows that 92% of attendees choose to multitask during group meetings, meaning they are neither using their time productively, nor gaining many of the benefits quality interaction can bring. 

Alternatively, one-to-one meetings can increase productivity.  Instead of two employees emailing each other back and forth all day, which breaks the flow of the conversation and focus on other projects, a similar conversation could be had in a half hour meeting, without the interruptions. 

Many organisations are now setting up their offices to give employees full ownership over their workspace.  These changes have come in to meet the needs of the millennial workforce, who are looking for more opportunities to engage with their team members. The ‘co-working’ set-up is now favoured, giving employees the option to work independently or collaboratively as they see fit, rather than having to work at the same cubicle everyday next to somebody they don’t always need to interact with.

If you find that there isn’t much need to catch up in the line of work you do, meetings don’t always have to be work focused to be productive.  Coffee catch ups, walks and meals with colleagues all contribute to morale and give you all the benefits of communicating in person.

Perhaps the best way forward is striking a balance between online and face-to-face communication.  Think about the kind of conversation you need to have and adjust accordingly.  That way you won’t miss out on the advantages of the different methods available.  

Why we should still value face-to-face communication in the workplace

For many of us, our creative streak is something we left behind at the finger-painting table, or keep confined to karaoke sessions on the weekend.

Yet, each of us is born with an innate ability to create. The skill isn’t limited to artists, writers and musicians. Using creativity simply means to be engaged in an activity relating to or involving imagination or original ideas.  

I hear you thinking, after you’ve completed the routine tasks and checked off everything time-sensitive for that day, there is very little energy left for coming up with new concepts. 

No matter how repetitive or dull your work may seem, it’s less about finding extra time, and more about thinking how you could apply creative skills to tasks you already do - and there are benefits!

Scientists hypothesize that in order to be creative, our brains have to use the ‘Big Three’ networks in tandem - the default mode network (the idle state), the executive control network (oversees decisions and choices) and the salience network (determines which sorts of things tend to be noticed).

This means that creativity isn’t limited to a particular function of the brain, and is something that each individual has the capacity to engage in. The extent to which we are able to use this process will, of course, depend on our personality type, state of mind and tendency to engage in divergent thinking.

The alpha brain waves associated with creativity also generate a light relaxation state, superior focus and improved learning. While in this state, your brain releases endorphins and other substances that can alleviate the effects of stress hormones. 

This also works in the reverse. When we are relaxed, new ideas often come to the fore. Next time you have eureka moment in the shower, you’ll understand why. 

For leaders, the benefits of encouraging your team to think outside the box are endless. Creative thinking can increase productivity, motivation and problem-solving abilities to name a few.  

‘We are born as artists, but have to learn how to become them again as adults.’ - Pablo Picasso 

As children, we don’t give much thought to whether or not we are engaging in creative activities.  When we play, we pick something that looks fun, and just do it.  We are much freer to engage in divergent thinking, as we haven’t fully developed the inner-critic necessary for survival in the adult world. While useful, this voice can seriously hamper our efforts to have fun and experiment. 

Sir Ken Robinson, one of the world’s elite thinkers on creativity and innovation, explains that the way our school system is structured is adding to this problem, which he explores in his Ted Talk.  

He argues that in a system focused on testing and grades, children aren’t encouraged to follow their passion or what they are good at when thinking about what to do for work.  As a result, we either spend a significant portion of our lives remembering what we enjoy doing, or years stuck in a job we hate.

Much of the time at work, we are under pressure to get things done, but other ingrained psychological barriers could also be preventing us from channelling our creativity.

Assuming you are reasonably happy with the work you do, and it plays to your strengths, the following tips might help you to unleash your creative side. 

Depending on where you sit on the introversion-extraversion spectrum, your best ideas are more likely to come up during different activity types.  

Those who are more extraverted might use their creative skills in other ways, such as being diplomatic, getting things done in the world, and engaging in animated conversation. 

Fear of failure is one of the biggest psychological barriers to being creative.  It comes back to the inner-critic mentioned above.  If you become aware of your inner voice, you can listen to the comments that are useful, and ignore the ones you think are setting you back. Mindfulness training can help you to develop this skill.

Your personal experience in life to date is completely unique. There is no one else in the world who has exactly the same thought process or perspective.

While the ideas you have may be similar to somebody else’s, they are highly unlikely to be exactly the same.  Although your ideas might not always be met with awe, if you gain confidence in putting yourself out there, every so often you are likely to come up with a really good idea that others will take on board. This can be difficult, because it takes both the courage to fail and to learn from your mistakes.

The ‘Lego Duck Challenge’ involves giving each individual in a group six lego bricks and asking them to build a duck. The task itself isn’t difficult, but the likelihood of anyone in the group building the same duck is incredibly small.  This is both down to the individuality of the participants and the endless number of different ducks you can build!

Think about the tasks you enjoy most (and those you don’t!)

You are much more likely to be creative if you enjoy the task you are engaged in, and you are good at it. You are also more likely to reach a flow state.  It’s all about making the process more individual, enjoyable and fun.  Pick a task you really enjoy and make it more personalised to you.  

Finding a place for creativity in the workplace

Take your teams's training to the next level with Go1’s Insights!  

The new Insights Feature is your playbook for addressing key training gaps in your team. 

As the Go1 training library grows and your team expands,  we want you to be able to  easily understand more about how your team is learning. With this feature you can understand what your employees should be learning so they don't miss out on content most relevant to their training needs. 

The feature recommended the top courses for  content areas that your team currently has low engagement with. Our content suggestions are based on what hundreds of thousands of Go1 users are doing, narrowed down to your industry specifically. We then make it quick and easy for you to add the content to a group or assign to individuals. 

View a snapshot of key portal insights; this includes user management insights as well as insights on how your portal engaged with  with key content topics in your industry. 

View GO1's content suggestions  - which grouped according to the topics that your portal has low engagement with. 

Quickly assign suggested content to users or groups or quickly add content to your content portal selection. 

Enable a monthly  insights email for all Admins on your portal. 

What do I need to know about this release?

Your portal will have a new item in the drop menu called Insights. 

To enable a monthly isights email for all portal Admins head to Portal Settings > Notifications. 

We want to hear your feedback on the Insights tab!  Please submit feedback via our Public ProductBoard Portal. 

The team are still finalising some details - it will be live as soon as its ready! 

Go1's newest feature to help simplify the content discovery process for you. 

Product Early Access: Training Insights  

Patricia Holdings, a leader in Australian company registration and trust set up, has partnered with Go1 - the world’s largest onboarding, compliance and professional training platform. The partnership coincides with the launched of the new Patricia Marketplace – the first of its kind B2B Marketplace for startups and new businesses in Australia.   

We are very pleased to be partnering with Patricia Holdings, and look forward to delivering our eLearning solution to their clients. This collaboration will activate Go1’s content offering for new businesses in Australia, to help support them in their incorporation and providing relevant learning to overcome complex challenges such as onboarding and compliance. 

Beginning in August, this partnership will enable Patricia Holdings' clients to find Go1's corporate learning solution as an add-on available from the Marketplace, to better support new businesses in establishing their staff training programs. This partnership is an acknowledgment of organisations increasingly looking for a holistic solution to their Learning Platform (LDS) and training content requirements to help boost employees’ productivity and business profitability.

Go1 Distribution Partnerships Manager Simon Yeowart said the partnership with Patricia Holdings was a natural fit for both companies. He said, "This collaboration will activate Go1’s content offering for new businesses, to help support them in their incorporation and providing relevant learning to overcome complex challenges such as on-boarding and compliance."

Patricia Holdings Head of Business Development Johnathan Pestano, heading up the Patricia Marketplace platform, said that he’s excited to make it easy for Australian entrepreneurs to access world-class content. “Starting any new business is challenging enough without having to worry about onboarding or compliance. This new Go1 partnership will help Australian business owners to seamlessly implement benchmark training from day-one enabling them to focus on growing their business."

At Patricia Holdings we've helped over 250,000 accountants, lawyers and financial advisors as well as entrepreneurs set up companies across Australia since 1968.

We’re on a mission to be the most trusted professional documents platform in Australia. From our humble beginnings pioneering the ‘shelf company’ concept, we’re now a leading Australian online platform for company registration, trust deed and SMSF establishment. Our vision is to enable anyone to seamlessly set up a company or trust in Australia.  

Transform your training with Go1 - leaders in learning, design and delivery. Go1 is the single end-to-end solution for all your business training needs. Go1 Premium gives you unlimited access to a growing library containing thousands of learning resources, from top training providers around the world. The growing library has courses covering compliance through to soft skills, all accessible via the Go1 Learning Experience Platform - and all in one easy monthly subscription. Go1’s platform is designed for personalised learning, advanced content curation and streamlined user management. 

Start your business and sign up to Go1 to access a 14-day trial of the full Premium library via the Learning Experience Platform. Please email simon.yeowart@go1.com with any queries related to the offering.

Patricia Holdings and Go1 partner to bring workplace training to new companies 

Go1.com, the world’s largest online training marketplace, is pleased to announce a landmark worldwide partnership with Rosterfy, the global leading workforce management platform for volunteers, paid staff and contractors. This partnership will bring together two of Australia’s fastest growing technology companies to provide the most comprehensive solution worldwide for workforce management, inductions and online training.

Rosterfy works alongside an array of clients around the world from sporting federations and major events to charities, universities and local Governments, providing an end to end platform to centralise their workforce processes. With clients ranging from the past three Super Bowls and London Marathon to Hockey Australia and the Los Angeles Sports Commission, Rosterfy are rapidly expanding their offering to now over 15 countries worldwide.

Go1.com will enhance Rosterfy’s ability to increase volunteer and paid workforce engagement retention while saving clients significant administration costs, time and resources – a major boon to any organisation.

The partnership will allow Rosterfy’s clients to access Go1.com for induction and learning purposes through the portal to provide greater engagement with the workforce.

“Rosterfy eliminates the pain of managing a large workforce – be they volunteers, casual or contract roles. These workforce members constantly require training and we’ve been looking for a solution that’s easy to use, access and with high-quality content. From day one Rosterfy has always had basic training modules, but we realised the market needed a specialist - and that is why we are working with Go1. Their solution is flexible, cost-effective and their library of content takes the hassle out of building your own,” Rosterfy co-founder Shannan Gove said.

Gove continued, “we’re delighted to partner with Go1 which offers a flexible way for people to get upskilled anytime, anywhere.”

Go1.com UK general manager Mark Bolton hailed the partnership as a great step forward for all clients, in particular for sporting federations and event resource management.

“We’re excited to ink this partnership, which will strategically benefit both organisations and enhance the learning and training capabilities of Rosterfy’s clients.

“Rosterfy has the who’s who of clients on its roster and we look forward to helping them kick even more goals as they continue to grow,” Mr Bolton said.

Go1 and Rosterfy partnership redefines global training - Go1

Go1.com and Rosterfy set to redefine global training and workforce management in new partnership

An article from one of our partners, Roubler.

Automation is frequently seen as the answer to business efficiency. But can it really be applied to all aspects of onboarding new employees? Is it possible to influence an employee’s success using online onboarding tools?

Consider what’s involved in onboarding for a minute. The manager will need to ensure all the relevant paperwork is completed, provide organisation-specific training, give them the work equipment they need, convey potentially complex pieces of information in a way that is both easy to digest and hard to forget, and literally orientate them around the building. That means introductions to colleagues, signposting facilities, and explaining how things work in practice (which may not be the same as how they work in principle). All the while putting the new starter at ease so they can hit the ground running!

Trying to get a computer, or any other automated system, to take all of these duties on would be tremendously difficult, not to mention require the services of advanced humanoid robots. But this doesn’t mean automation can’t lend a hand – for example by using intuitive employee onboarding software and e-learning platforms – to take the legwork out and free up time for those aspects of the process that require a human touch.

In the Human Capital Institute’s study of more than 400 organizations, two-thirds reported that onboarding practices aren’t used to their full potential. Only 40% said onboarding is effective at retaining new hires, in large part because the process has been focused on paperwork rather than people. 

Furthermore, Gallup research found that employees are 3.4 times more likely to feel like their onboarding experience was a success if their manager took an active role in the process and are consequently more likely to stay in their role.

People are the key to giving new employees the best start. Technology should be focused on affording us more opportunities for the important things, better opportunities to connect. Those connections become bonds and in turn those bonds cement a stronger workplace culture. That culture, according to research by Gallup, is responsible for attracting the top 20% of candidates.

It’s clear that less time on administration during onboarding and more time face to face with your manager isn’t just a good idea – it’s a critical success factor. So how can we use online tools to make this happen?

Let onboarding software take care of the paperwork

“At Roubler, we eliminate all of the paperwork and data entry associated with onboarding, such as filling out an employee profile, entering contact details, emergency contacts, medical information, tax and banking information and uploading qualifications and licenses,” explains Andrew Northcott, Managing Director of Roubler.

Customisable onboarding is increasingly being increasingly incorporated into all-in-one workforce management systems. Once a profile is created, data can be entered by the employee via the employee self-service system and flows straight into other tools such as rostering, time and attendance and payroll. Tax declaration and superannuation information can even be sent straight from the system to the tax office saving managers, HR and payroll hours out of their day.

The paperless onboarding process can be completed via a mobile app or a web portal and only takes a few minutes.

“The greatest advantage of this is that employees have all of these tasks completed prior to starting, so their first day can be spent getting to know their colleagues and settling in,” Northcott says.

Spending half a day filling out paperwork can be isolating for new employees, particularly if they are chomping at the bit to get into their exciting new role. When that’s taken care of before they start, the first day can be filled with cake-fuelled morning teas, getting a taste of their new role and spending time with the most important person in their working lives – their manager!

Make use of e-Learning platforms and pre-built courses

There are undoubtedly situations where training needs to be delivered face-to-face, however e-learning tools like quizzes, short courses and games are a great way to train new employees on a variety of topics and get them prepared for their new role.

Consider blending e-learning with face-to-face options to reinforce learning. This works particularly well for topics like customer service and company culture.

Think about delivery. For the best results, training needs to be memorable and enjoyable. Can you turn some of your paper-based manuals into quizzes or games?  

Compliance training on a variety of topics such as fire safety and manual handling can be completed quickly and easily online. They’ll appreciate getting this done before the real work starts.

 Use e-learning platforms to deliver videos about the company culture and team – they can go a long way to helping employees engage with their new employer.

Short video tutorials on the software and processes that the employee will need to use are more engaging than manuals and can be referred to regularly.

Whether you’re a CEO or a retail sales assistant, starting a new job is nerve-wracking. Offering new employees the option to complete some online training prior to their first day can help them feel more prepared. They’ll also feel more comfortable when meeting and working with colleagues for the first time if they already have a degree of knowledge about the company and systems.

Online onboarding tools can greatly enhance the process, speeding up administration tasks to allow more time for those essential face-to-face activities that make onboarding a real success.

But before you purchase any software, there are three important things you need to consider.  

Think of onboarding as more than just filling out payroll information – it’s an entire process that inducts your employee into your company culture and their role. It should start the moment they are hired and continue until their probationary period is over.

Look at what activities are taking up the most time – is it administration, data entry, compliance training or on-site induction? Then look at which of those could be automated without losing personal connection.

Talk to employees who have recently started with you to find out what they feel could have been improved and get an idea of how much automation they feel would be of benefit before personal connection is lost.

By combining onboarding tools and face-to-face activities, and giving employees the chance to start the process before their first day, you’re not just building a successful, sustainable and consistent onboarding program, you’re nurturing employees who feel engaged and connected to your organisation from the moment they are hired.

Katrina Strathearn is the Marketing Manager of Roubler Australia. Roubler’s all-in-one HR system automates employee onboarding, rostering, time and attendance, leave management and payroll with Go1's Online Learning Management System.

How onboarding tech sets new starters up for success

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