The digital employee experience from onboarding through every stage of the talent life cycle can be improved and drive business success. Here’s how. 

Digital employee onboarding is the first chance HR gets to show any new joiner what organizational life will be like. 

In a world where over 80% of businesses allow some form of hybrid or remote work according to Deloitte research, getting the first digital moments right is critical to showing hired talent the organization is serious about creating a great employee experience. 

But digital employee onboarding isn’t simply about adapting in-person onboarding into the virtual realm. Instead, world-class organizations ensure everything from pre-boarding documentation to systems and culture orientation is in shape, but also align these first steps with other efforts to create a great digital employee experience (DEX). All in order to drive well-researched upticks in performance. 

What is digital employee onboarding?

Digital employee onboarding, simply put, is about onboarding a new hire or contractor into the organization using digital tools and systems. From pre-employment welcome emails to access to digital communication channels and systems to digital induction meetups with colleagues. It all needs to be accounted for. But this isn’t just for remote or hybrid workers, it’s for any organization that has digital platforms.

This process is also not just about legal and contractual obligations. Great digital employee onboarding is about ensuring incoming employees feel grounded in the digital employee experience and organizational culture as a whole. Even if they’re remote or hybrid. 

A typical digital employee onboarding experience will take into account:

● Digital pre-boarding: Typical elements of any onboarding process, inclusive of welcome emails with logins, showcasing policy, employee guides, necessary documentation via digital systems, and a full introduction to culture, values, and organizational mission.

● Platform induction & learning: Access to HRIS and other systems, introduction to learning management systems, and other workflow tools and security protocols they may need. Introduction to necessary training. 

● Engagement and experience introduction: Introduction into company culture and teams via the right digital channels, first steps into typical patterns of company life including check-in points and virtual get-togethers and run-throughs of roles, tweaking systems to fit individual needs and goals.

How is the employee experience changing?

With the majority of businesses utilizing some form of digital-first work, employees increasingly expect a world-class digital experience: from digital employee onboarding to performance management and beyond. 

Indeed, a great digital employee experience is a way that a given organization can stand out in an increasingly difficult talent marketplace. With only circa half of staff believing that currently digital workplace tools and processes deliver for them, its how organizations can stand out as an employer of choice. 

And it’s important to remember a great employee experience, digital or otherwise, is linked to less employee turnover, better revenue, and greater profits

For HR, IT, and leadership teams tasked with improving the employee experience in this digital age ensuring any efforts to boost employee life, it means the pressure is on.

In order to deliver, they might:

● Understand that getting digital employee onboarding right is not a trend and is a strategic business imperative. It means reaching talent anywhere, increasing onboarding efficiency, improving data collection on onboarding methods (to improve processes for the future), and boosting compliance.

● Use onboarding software(s) that take care of paperwork, background checks, pre-recorded culture introductions, and self-paced asynchronous learning.

● Foreground interactivity: whether thats gamified learning, introduction calls with colleagues via video platforms, or AI chatbots that help with onboarding inductions and helping onboarders get up to speed with technology.

● Personalise where possible. Delivering personalized videos from future team members and HR, creating learning tailored to the role, and allowing diary space for in-person catch-ups with the team. These processes also may have in-person elements.

● Measure the experience in onboarding: digital platforms for onboarding allow for measurement of where in the process there is friction or misunderstanding, allowing continuous improvement.

The digital employee experience: making it count

It’s clear that efforts to boost digital employee onboarding can help create digital employee experiences that stand out to top talent. As it stands only a third of employees believe their digital work experience is better than their experience of digital tools in their personal life. 

But to create DEX that stands out, there needs to be a focus on more than just the introductory elements. It has to be consistent across the talent life cycle.


Therefore, building a great DEX should include:

● Ensuring everything from digital employee onboarding to performance management and communication channels are aligned. For example: Are the same chat and communication channels used for onboarding introductions in daily team interaction?

● Reviewing the employee experience with stats and HR analytics to improve continuously.

● Understanding the core tenets of any great employee experience and using those to measure the digital employee experience. This might include asking: does our digital experience promote transparency, self-ownership, fairness, and two-way communication?

● Understanding how technology choices can create both connection or fiction, support work, or impede it.

● Assess how the DEX drives both individual and organizational goals. For example: Does it help create purposeful, values-driven work that helps innovation and business goals? 

Why create a digital employee experience that works?

Building and continuously improving digital life at a business, from onboarding all the way through the employee lifecycle, has the added benefit of driving innovation, engagement, and employee outcomes that can drive future success.

● A great DEX can create new incidental business channels. This is through the innovations digital brings about i.e. digital events, digital learning, and new virtual business channels.

● It can bring the arms of the organization closer together through intentional organizational redesigns, creating new organization matrices that can boost engagement and better business strategy alignment.

● There can be improved go-to-market speed with products with increased organizational revenue and improved productivity and connection by giving employees the digital tools and applications they need to succeed. 

● It can enable a great business culture, better-enabling collaboration and data collection on what works helping companies to strategically double down on what works.

● It can also backstop organizational dexterity and adaptability by having continuously updated tools and digital environments that can adapt to tomorrow’s challenges at speed. 

How to create a world-class digital employee experience?


From first moments to digital platform-enabled collaboration, improving the digital experience of work has to include understanding the importance of all tools, platforms, and technologies that teams use to perform their jobs and collaborate. 

For organizations interested in improving the digital experience they should:

● Assess current technology and understand what the current DEX is.

● Define what an ideal experience should be and how that should support broader strategic goals.

● Select the right tools and train staff effectively.

● Measure with the right tools (which might include real-time feedback tools, the right HR analytics, and data and employee surveys).

Aligning digital employee onboarding to digital experience success

It’s critical that organisations invest in their DEX in order to create an environment that attracts and retains top talent. As laid out, this focus can help the organization boost its productivity, innovation, and revenue gains.

The Top Employers Certification program can help employers ensure that these efforts are aligned and drive toward organizational goals and success. 

With over three decades of experience in shaping successful HR strategies, the certification process can help organizations benchmark and assess the digital experience they offer employees and shape them for the better with access to data-driven research and cutting-edge HR trends. Whether thats helping digital employee onboarding feel more personal or understanding how surveys can explore workforce sentiment about the technology you use.

With access to our global community, including a look at the digital experience efforts of Takeda, Lidl, and Mondelēz International, insights can be given into how to improve your own employee experience in this current era of digital work.

You can view how employee insights work for you and start that journey today.

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