Here are some highlights from the webinar with our Director of Products, Ashley McAnulty.
Check out the video at the end, and stay tuned for Part 2 with more great insights on employee onboarding and orientation.
What is Strayboots?
Strayboots is a mobile scavenger hunt company and team building company. We specialize in employee onboarding/orientation events and scavenger hunt events – for individuals, corporations, students, and anybody really looking for team building experiences.
Why is onboarding so difficult for companies, especially right now?
There is a lack of engagement when it comes to the company’s current onboarding programs, and there’s a lack of clarity when it comes to the individual’s roles and the onboarding process doesn’t really match the reality of actual real life. To put it simply, I think that not having a customized program and design that takes them through a specific onboarding that really meets their culture is a lot of the issue along not having the right technology is another major issue.
What makes virtual onboarding even more difficult?
I definitely think the lack of engagement and clarity is just the same, as I said before. When you take it to a virtual space, the lack of communication when it comes to just regular tasks and the direction and lack of resources and not having the proper technology- again, is a huge aspect of this when utilizing the virtual space. If you don’t know how to use the technology, you don’t have it available to you, or you don’t know how to customize it, that can be a huge problem. You aren’t able to take the information that you need and onboard people properly. There’s going to be information missing and that really causes a huge problem with companies. As I said, the reality does not match what actually goes on in everyday life in the company.
What can HR or human resources do to simplify the onboarding process?
We know that onboarding usually takes weeks or months to get a new employee engaged in their company. What do you think can simplify that whole process?
Being prepared, having the proper resources, knowing what type of content and information you want to introduce to those new hires, to your interns, to new clients, whoever it may be that’s going through the process.
We all know how difficult it is to join a new company, especially right now, virtually when you can’t meet people in person and get to see the office or get to see your fellow cohort.
Can you tell me a little bit about what your previous clients have done or how your process sort of works for Strayboots?
We have a program called Bootscamp. This offers an active, fun employee onboarding experience, and this can be done virtually or in person. It’s not just about the onboarding process, but it gamifies the onboarding process.
What does it mean to gamify an onboarding program?
It’s taking all these ordinary and mundane tasks that they would do every day at work like maybe going visit a patient’s room or go to a doctor’s office, picking up your paycheck, filling a prescription, et cetera, and then taking that and making it into a fun challenge, like taking a photo op or answering a question, meeting somebody new, being introduced to somebody in the HR office, let’s say if they’re new and making it a game and being able to make it a memorable experience, instead of just sitting in a classroom learning, “This is where the HR office is, this is where you pick this up, et cetera.” It makes it more fun. It’s interactive instead of just learning and being shown a slide show.
What sort of customizations do you provide for your clients?
Some clients really want to customize their core values or mention their CEO and who their president is. Sometimes they need everybody to know who their managers are. Sometimes they need them to know important, fun facts about the company and its history. It really just depends on what that specific company wants. We also do fun things like, take an interesting fact from each leader in the company and place it in the game, and that brings them to a challenge that says, “Find this leader. Ask them what the name of their pet is, how many kids they have,” and things like this. It gets conversations rolling and it starts the engagement.
What sort of technology do you use? Would this be on someone’s computer, on their cell phone? Have you found that helps with the process as automation?
We have our own platform here at Strayboots, and it is a web-based platform. It’s not an app that you download, but it is available anywhere that you can type in a URL, on your phone or computer laptop, tablet, everywhere it’s available. Companies can also customize it. If they’re interested in placing in their logo, changing the colors, editing the beginning and ending text and things of that nature, even down to the point where we can add a survey at the end, and if they want to ask specific questions, like: how can we improve the onboarding experience? Is there something that you didn’t learn that you wanted to learn today? Then, we can give them those results.
How are the results given to clients at the end of the experience?
We have what is called a summary page. At the end of the activity, they’ll receive a link and it will be sent directly to them. On the summary page, they can see there’s a live leaderboard. Teams or individuals that play, get a score throughout and they can see what amount of points each one gained throughout the game. Then underneath that, they can also see other statistics that we’re tracking in these surveys that we can set up for them.
How often do you usually recommend clients retest certain skills?
It really depends on what they’re looking for. We have clients that do this quarterly. We have some clients that do this more often than that. This is something that we would customize with them too and we would ask them how often they’re looking for results and how often they plan to use the game. How often we might need to test one company might not be the same as another.
That’s it for now. Part 2 is coming soon, in the meantime enjoy the full webinar here:
