Augmenting the Employee Onboarding Experience

Employee experience and engagement are critical in ensuring that an organization runs smoothly and successfully. Previous studies have shown that companies with high employee engagement are more profitable. Meanwhile, a holistic employee experience invites high morale in the workplace and encourages people to work better.

For Hilton Giesenow, digital transformation has provided a strategic avenue to augment employee experience in many aspects, including onboarding, communication, and collaboration. For example, Microsoft Teams has seen an increase in its number of users, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown. However, a large portion of employees only uses Teams’ communication functions, such as chats and video calls. Hilton noted that there is more to Teams than its communication functions, and employees can even use it to share links or manage projects.

Focusing on the employee onboarding experience

Statistics revealed that 50% of employees who had a good onboarding experience have higher productivity. They are also likely to stay longer within the company and perform better.

According to Hilton, most online bots are catered to assist customers such as those who have sales or service inquiries. There are, however, fewer bots that assist internal employees. That is why ChitChattr decided to focus on improving the employee onboarding experience through TeamMate, an employee onboarding welcome bot.

Improving Human Interaction

Today’s work-from-home setup has made employee onboarding more challenging. TeamMate aims to take off the burden from human resources and IT personnel, who typically interact with new employees. A typical employee onboarding session, whether face-to-face or online, would take a few hours or days which can be a waste of time and energy and can cause repetitiveness and inconsistencies.

Hilton stressed that with TeamMate, employees can now ask company-related questions in a time and headspace convenient to them. It will also eliminate information overload and allow employees to learn about the company at their own pace, automating the entire process. Most importantly, it replaces mundane interaction with quality human interaction. For example, time spent learning company rules and culture can be spent talking with HR personnel on a more personal level. This is crucial in establishing rapport in the current online work set-up.

Taking note of important matters

Overall, looking at digitizing employee experience from a marketing perspective would need an in-depth understanding of the B2B business model. Hilton shared that for TeamMate, they have opted for traditional and social media marketing strategies. As an entrepreneur, it is necessary to move out of comfort zones and take note of trends in terms of employee experience and engagement. Security of customer data should also be of primary concern to ensure smooth operations and maintain integrity. Finally, moving forward means looking at ways to grow and improve employee experience in today’s digital landscape. For ChitChattr, this means looking at other areas aside from onboarding, including management, training, and wellness activities.

About the host

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Abhii Dabas is an active member of the tech community, and through his companies (including Webpuppies), he conducts outreach programs across different universities with a focus on entrepreneurship. Over the past months, he has already trained over 1,000 university students to help them prepare to join the workforce.

About the guest

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Hilton Giesenow is the founder of ChitChattr, a company that helps businesses maximize the benefits of Teams. ChitChattr offers various products including Quicklinks, Reminderz, Shortlinks, and its flagship product TeamMate, a digital new employee onboarding welcome bot. With over 20 years of experience in various industries, Hilton helps clients understand trends about employee experience and engagement. He also guides them in creating strategies to better adapt software such as Teams, Office 365, SharePoint, and Azure.