Onboarding Productively

This article seeks to answer the question, “Can AI build a more integrated and productive workplace?”

It Starts With Onboarding

Onboarding is the first step in the process of welcoming and integrating new employees. The question is whether or not there is a significant difference in the onboarding process for remote workers versus in-office workers. It turns out that with all the experience developed by employers and employees during the pandemic years, we’re pretty good at handling remote communications and meetings. So the difference in onboarding whether your role is remote or not are not that different.

Nonetheless, hiring new employees is still a very “people and paper” intensive activity. There is a lot of emphasis on getting it right the first time as well as maintaining a high employee retention rate. This is a combination of hiring right and providing an environment where employees feel valued and their needs are met. In that sense, the main difference for remote workers is the amount of face-to-face social time they experience during the hiring process. And this difference, we have learned can be important.

The Role of Social Structure

This socialization becomes more difficult when a significant part of the workforce is remote. Not all employees require the same amount and type of social engagement. However,  some software tools are starting to gain traction in this space that can help figure this out. These tools combine new AI techniques with the automated onboarding tools. The key objective is to make sure that the transitions between in-the-office workers and remote workers runs smoothly. The ultimate goal is that an AI chatbot lives on your computer and is a helper to make sure communications are clearly understood and are frequent enough to be effective. The technology isn’t quite there yet, but that is where it’s headed.

Introducing AI

Before we get there, the current challenge for employers is to make sure that from initial contact all the way through eventual job offer and employment, that candidates/employees have a high degree of positive engagement. Hopefully it is possible for the new employee to visit the workplace at least once during the onboarding process, but even if they can’t some HR programs are now using surveys that produce AI interviews to profile attitudes toward work, social style, engagement and happiness. Using voice recognition, some software claims to be able to quantify those attributes versus the work styles of the rest of the work teams.

This should have advantages for the remote worker, and the in-the-office worker as well. There are at least two companies, workhuman.com and amazingworkplace.com which purport to help with the process of determining how to incentivize employees to improve communication and their satisfaction. Workhuman emphasizes peer recognition while amazingworkplace takes a more holistic process of personal interviews aimed specifically at improving “happiness” at work.

Happy = Productive?

The ”happiness factor” should not be underrated. Only about 50% of the employees in a typical company are happy at work and their dissatisfaction often centers on their boss. In fact that is the number one reason that employees give for wanting to change jobs, “I didn’t like my boss” is a common refrain. There has now been enough research into this subject that its clear that happier, more engaged employees stick around longer and are more productive. That, in itself is not that surprising. However, using AI software tools it should be possible to survey workers and managers at all stages of the onboarding process through their probationary period and beyond to get an idea of what actions improve their happiness scores. In theory, happiness or engagement audits might pick up some unspoken stress and a chance to intervene in a positive way. This series of short, friendly interventions could go a long way toward creating a smooth functioning and highly effective workforce. Don’t be surprised if your computer eventually becomes your “workplace mentor” providing communication advice and helping build successful work relationships.

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