Induction training for new employees - inspiration needed

I have been kinda tasked with the same thing, but more on the job training skills.  I was going to take a superhero comic book approach.  Our company would be like the Justice League and the superheros (trainers or current employees) are in charge of training new recruits (new heroes).  The new recruits have to go through training before they are released to fight crime or set to take on job tasks.

Some of the scenes would be them attending training and they can select from several modules to take.  Each module would raise their training level to show progress to reaching superhero.

I know it sounds kind of goofy, but I thought I would give it a shot and have fun with it.

The best thing is it sounds like fun to me which makes building the eLearning exciting..

Good luck!

If you are simply doing a company overview that has no real world task involved make it a movie. Unless you are teaching something there is no need to spend the time making an an e-learning module. I could see an e-learning module about filling out new employment forms etc but not for a company tour.

Hi Bartlomiej,

One thing that might work playing off James' idea of using video. Thinking about the types of new hire orientation (NHO) courses I've built in the past, they usually have chapters like: Culture, company history, leadership healthcare, benefits, retirement, facilities, and so on.

So, maybe each topic includes the data or content overview along with a video or two from a department manager. Here's an example from the Associated Press around what I'm thinking:

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/wdc/ap_mtvu_poll_0509/index.html?SITE=AP

In the top right corner is the menu where you can select a specific topic. Of course Presenter's outline but I like the combination of content with user or manager video profiles.

I've seen a few onboarding videos and there are at least three problems with them:

- they are boring (how many managers and happy people can you listen to?

- they are not so easy to update

- if in HQ, a good network connection is needed if put online

@Brad: I like your idea with superheroes. I'm looking for some innovative concepts like games or comics.

Might be a nice place for a Jeopardy kind of game?

The "movie" idea helped me out on a few modules. But, I used automatically advancing narrated/animated presentation (approx. 5 mins) embedded within another presentation. This gave them the feeling of a "movie" but, it will allow me to edit the presentation. With this being just a part of the module, it still retained some interation. Another bonus, it isn't nearly as large as a movie file.

What about making a board game?

How many different versions of Monopoly are out there? Make one where the spaces are specific to your company (buildings, offices, locations, departments, functions, services, etc.)

Or what about a variation of The Game Of Life? Or Clue? (The ACME VP raised profits in the Northern Region with the ACME Widget.)

Or getting really creative and coming up with your own game?

You could make it either a solo-play game (real or electronic), or you could make it multi-player and start building teamwork and camaraderie right from the start! The games all mentioned above would allow learning from seeing what spaces the other players land on or what cards they get.

That's a great advice! A detective story game!

I've used infographics / visual stories that resemble comics in my work as internal comms. They are a cost effective and fun way to get the main points across. The added benefit is that you can explain complex, abstract topics in a way that wouldn't be possible with video or text. Also: you can reuse the images in a PowerPoint presentation, if need be. Or even turn them into a simple animation with narration with free tools like Slideshare.net.

To give you a rough idea what I'm talking about check out my illustrated introduction to Yammer (enterprise social network) or my visual explanation to our staff why the organisation had to change the way we produce content for the web. I'm now doing visual explanations for other organisations as well (I set up my own freelance business after realising more people would benefit from visual stories).

Cheers,

Virpi

www.businessillustrator.com">wwww.businessillustrator.com

This project is probably long finished but I immediately thought that Prezi could be useful for training like this. You could start zoomed right in on the company, then zoom out to stakeholders and even further out to the surrounding marketplace. This would be a good way to show how all the components fit together - something many new starters say they don't get a good overview of.  

I like Tim's idea, however, I find that Prezi gives me motion sickness!

You could certainly create something similar though, coming further and further out from their "job in the company" and explaining their "role in the industry".

I like that concept a lot.

Bruce

What about a travel theme ala boarding a plane? Maybe you could make each of the section/topics a stop on their voyage and stamp their passport for each one they complete. Intrepid learning is blogging about some onboarding they've done like this. It might give you some ideas. I really like the "feel" of what they've done.

Check out their design/treatment http://intrepidlearning.com/blog/new-ebook-were-off/

Hi All,

All this info is great, as I too have been tasked to design a full Global Onboarding Project so any ideas/hints or tips you have and would like to share, would be great.

Looking to have a mix of blended learning and for the colleague to be able to start the 'process', if you would like to call it that, as soon as we receive the acceptance letter.

Any support would be greatly received.

Look forward to any comments/ideas or suggestions you may have.

Chelle

HR Development Manager

Hi, Chelle:

If the project is international in scope, you might consider some type of passport theme or travel theme. Perhaps they have to visit so many destinations/topics before they can move to the next "level." The folks at Articulate have an airmail template that might also work. You can download a trial version of Storyline at Articulate.com.

Are these employees ever going to be meeting in one central place?

Hi Bartlomiej, I hope your induction pack came out great in the end! Would you mind sharing your copy with me, please?