What Is “Everboarding,” and How Can It Help You Hire and Retain Employees?

When bringing in new talent for your team, a positive onboarding experience ensures that recent hires are happy and stick around. But what happens when onboarding ends, often after only a few days? 

Everboarding is the latest HR buzzword that extends onboarding beyond helping new employees settle in. It might just be the key to attracting top talent and keeping them engaged for years to come.

Curious about what everboarding is all about? Read on to understand what it means, why it’s great for your organization, and how you can make it work. 

What Is Everboarding? 

When welcoming recruits, it’s typical to train them on how to effectively accomplish their roles. You also introduce them to your company’s culture, policies, and procedures. However, the onboarding process is often short, ending when new hires are up to speed with how things work in your organization. 

Everboarding is continuous onboarding. With it, you don’t stop investing in employee learning and development once new workers are settled in their positions. Instead, you continue to train, guide, and support them throughout their employment. 

So whether someone has been with your company for a week or five years, everboarding keeps them growing and up to date with emerging changes in their role and industry. 

Why Everboarding Is Important

There’s a reason why everboarding is becoming popular – it works better than conventional onboarding. 

Traditional onboarding can leave employees feeling a bit lost. The reason? It only focuses on new hires’ initial orientation and expects recruits to wrap their heads around a lot of information in a short period. 

Everboarding is more effective because it offers employees ongoing support throughout their tenure. If you implement it correctly in your organization, you can enjoy numerous benefits, including the following: 

Attract Top Talent and Improve Retention

With the fierce war for talent in the job market, continuous employee learning and development can be the key to standing out. It can help you acquire the best candidates and keep them in your organization for many years. 

A 2022 study by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and TalentLMS revealed that the majority of HR managers believe training is beneficial to attracting (83%) and retaining (86%) talent. What’s more, 37.5% of job seekers selected “professional development opportunities” as an important aspect in their next job in iHire’s 2024 Hiring and Job Search Outlook Report survey.

Upskill and Reskill Your Employees

Everboarding lets you update employees’ skills throughout their employment. This can make your workers more proficient in their current roles. Continuous learning can also help employees pick up new skills for climbing the career ladder and taking on more advanced roles.

Continuously reskilling and upskilling your team can help your organization stay ahead of change. That’s because when industry disruptions happen, your staff will already be equipped to: 

• Adapt to industry trends
• Use the latest tools
• Implement the most current best practices

Boost Employee Engagement

Recent Gallup statistics say that about 33% of U.S. employees are engaged in their jobs. Unfortunately, that means the majority are still not engaged or are actively disengaged at work. 

Through continuous training and learning, staff development drives employee engagement. Here’s why.

Training and growth opportunities make employees feel valued. They signal that the company is dedicated to their career growth, not just their output. As a result, staff are likely to be more enthusiastic in their roles and more committed to helping your organization achieve its goals. 

Best Practices for Successful Everboarding

Looking to implement everboarding in your organization and reap the benefits that come with it? Consider the following employee everboarding best practices: 

Tailor Training to Match Employees’ Roles

Different roles within an organization demand unique skill sets. For this reason, a generic training program may not address the specific requirements of each job. 

To make everboarding effective, you can personalize the learning content based on what employees actually do day-to-day. Workers are more likely to stay engaged and apply what they learn when the training is directly relevant to their roles. 

Once you tailor learning and development to each role, you equip your staff with the knowledge they need for their jobs, which sharpens their skills. In other words, you empower your team to perform at its best. 

Keep Training Content Fresh and Up to Date

Stale training content does more harm than good. For example, if a training program teaches about a software solution discontinued months or years ago, what employees learn will be outdated and inapplicable in the real world. 

To avoid such scenarios, regularly update your employee learning and development modules. Ask yourself: Does the content reflect current and potential future industry trends? Is it teaching the latest best practices and technologies relevant to specific roles within your organization? 

The goal is to equip your team with what they need to know now – not what was important five years ago. 

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Take Advantage of Technology 

With technology, it’s easier to administer continuous learning. For instance, a learning management system (LMS) allows you to upload all your training content in one place. Having a central location makes creating, finding, and updating training materials simpler. 

An online LMS enables employees to access training content anytime, anywhere, via the internet. Whether your team members are in different time zones or need to balance work commitments, the platform allows them to learn at their own pace and convenience. 

Personalize the Learning Experience

Employees have different learning styles. Some might prefer video tutorials, while others may learn better through hands-on experiences or reading. Conduct HR surveys to find out how employees would like to learn. 

From there, you can use their preferences to administer the training correctly. This might mean creating different learning paths and offering various content formats. 

Hiring and Retaining the Right Employees

Everboarding enables you to train and educate your employees throughout their employment, not just during their first few days. You can use it as an incentive for attracting and retaining top talent in a competitive job market. 

Explore our Resource Center for more onboarding and employee engagement advice, and when you’re ready to grow your team, tap into iHire’s solutions to find your next perfect hire.