Digital Onboarding: Facilitators and Barriers to Improve Worker Experience

Sara Petrilli, Laura Galuppo and Silvio Carlo Ripamonti
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Sara Petrilli: Department of Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 20123 Milan, Italy
Laura Galuppo: Department of Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 20123 Milan, Italy
Silvio Carlo Ripamonti: Department of Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 20123 Milan, Italy

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 9, 1-15

Abstract: The pandemic has forced organizations to find new ways of working. In fact, we are seeing an increase in remote working and this has inevitably impacted onboarding processes. In this respect, the aim of this study was to understand how young graduates under 30 experienced digital onboarding (in terms of emotions and cognitions) when joining organizations with structured Human Resources processes. An exploratory qualitative study was conducted in which participants were asked to fill in ethnographic sheets in order to understand the barriers and facilitators that organizations can implement to improve the digital onboarding experience. We used thematic analysis. What emerged from our study is that newcomers struggled, in digital contexts, to find the right information, to be proactive and to receive immediate feedback in order to understand the context and to understand their fit with the company: it is important not to lose sight of the importance of socialization, but rather to find effective and structured practices that facilitate it and make it last over time. In our study, we argue that a structured digital onboarding program could be a relevant step in order to implement an effective transition towards remote working cultures and an attention to socialization processes.

Keywords: digital onboarding; organizational socialization; social and normative learning; proactivity; pouvoir d’agir; thematic analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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