Over the past five years, onboarding has evolved from a basic orientation to a key talent initiative. Organizations understand how a positive new hire experience can help to reduce turnover and increase time to productivity. Clearly, onboarding matters. Yet, the majority of organizations admit to losing new hires due to a poor new hire experience. Something isn’t adding up. In a time with plenty of options for innovative talent strategies, why are so few organizations implementing leading-edge onboarding programs?

Well, for starters, the majority of organizations (76%) are concerned with the “basics” – completing, storing and retrieving employment eligibility forms and ensuring compliance. The electronic I-9 and new laws and regulations set forth by the Department of Homeland Security contribute to this pre-occupation with forms management. By focusing so heavily on forms and compliance, few organizations are actually addressing one of the most critical areas of onboarding…socialization in the company culture. Despite all of the buzz around employee engagement, organizations still fall short. 

Vestas Wind Systems is an exception. The leading supplier of wind power solutions makes socialization a priority through their Global Induction Program. The goal of this program is to streamline the way they introduce new employees into the company culture and to create a learning culture throughout the entire organization. Vestas Wind Systems achieved these goals through innovation…creating a virtual environment targeted to reach a very broad audience of new hires. Not to mention, they translated this program in 12 languages.

How Does the Virtual Environment Work?

Vestas Wind’s Global Induction Program provides a consistent virtual world for every employee in the organization.   The program is divided into 5 chapters:

• History Train Ride: an overview of the company culture
• Product Development and Sales: a chance for new hires to interact with customers
• Production: experience with construction and production
• Project and Service: a learning experience designed around the company value chain
• Welcome to Vestas: an opportunity for new hires to report what they have learned to current employees

What are the Lessons Learned?

• Senior support was critical to the success of the global induction program and helped to create a learning culture.
• The program needs to be evaluated continuously both through satisfaction surveys and also pre and post- measurement for each new hire.
• The global inductions virtual world training takes a total of five hours to complete. In order to ensure participation throughout the organization, Vestas Wind Systems had to invest in internal marketing and promotion of the program.
• A common theme in talent management and learning management this year is to make sure that these programs align with the overall business issue. Vestas Wind Systems achieves this goal by making this program transparent and consistent to every job family and geographical region of the organization.

We are publishing a more detailed overview of Vestas Wind System’s Global Induction Program in the next few weeks. If your company is innovating your onboarding approach, we would love to hear from you.