The Next Generation for Employee Onboarding

Heather Shaffer-Orman, Learning & Development Manager and Elden Maxwell, VP Learning and Organization Development at First Tech Federal Credit Union

In today's dynamic workplace landscape, agility is everything. Agile onboarding adapts to business needs, propels employee development, and streamlines operational efficiencies. That's why, in 2023, we merged our Experience Center & Contact Experience Center training teams to provide unified support for onboarding new hires in our new Contact Experience Organization (CXO). This division represents one-third of First Tech Federal Credit Union’s workforce. 

First Tech is the Credit Union for people in tech. 

Founded over 70 years ago, First Tech has helped its members achieve their financial dreams and, in the process, became a “Most Admired Company”, a “Top Workplace”, a “Best Customer Experience Institution”, a “Great Place to Work” and more. We are proud of our innovative and award-winning financial services products and the difference they make for our members.

Embracing a digital-first mindset, we embarked on a journey to redefine onboarding, offering self-paced learning and customized learning paths tailored to the varied new hire roles we support. Our strategic approach enhanced our members' experiences and fostered collaboration and a deeper understanding among our diverse teams. 

With the unification of these teams, we faced some hurdles. Over 50% of the learning modules were duplicated efforts. These shared components provided a great place to start in merging our curricula. We didn’t just pick and choose from these existing courses, but rather, we assessed the learning objectives, and how to best achieve those, and then built new, targeted courses leveraging that content foundation. We then strategically determined what other learning needs were shared and which differed by role and built the rest of the new onboarding content accordingly. 

At the end of our instructional design journey, we found that almost 75% of our created content applied to all roles. The result was a better targeted, comprehensive, more consistent, and less time-consuming new hire onboarding curriculum. Our onboarding program went from 6 to 4 weeks, while still developing new hires into more confident and capable employees. And, by eliminating duplication and reducing the training time, we realized over $150K/year in savings and efficiencies. 

Our new onboarding program includes interactivity, simulations, assessments, high-quality eLearning, and live instructor-led workshops to enhance proficiency and role clarity. Our digitization strategy standardized the learning journey for all new team members, ensuring everyone follows a consistent and optimized development path. We transitioned to a digital workbook, enhancing our sustainability initiatives while enabling real-time updates to ensure its relevance whenever accessed. 

We developed over 120 eLearning modules, hands-on-practice activities, resource journey activities, formal weekly assessments, and interactive workshops. Each component is designed to immerse teammates in practical application, reinforcing knowledge through hands-on experiences, and evaluating real-time adaptability and application.  

The program includes system training, product knowledge, general financial acumen and customer service skills. Each area is crucial for our new team members to effectively navigate their roles. System Training will familiarize them with the technology and tools they’ll use daily. In Product Knowledge, they'll understand our products deeply, crucial for making informed decisions and recommendations. Developing Financial Acumen & Customer Service Skills are pivotal to becoming an expert in advancing First Tech's mission to empower our members to achieve their dreams.  

We have also implemented a comprehensive measurement system to evaluate the new team members’ progress and effectiveness of the onboarding program. Through our structured measurement and communication plan, we empower leaders with invaluable insights into the performance of new team members for their roles. Leaders are provided with weekly progress reports, which include ratings from 0-5 on key capabilities including attendance & timeliness, business acumen, engagement, tech-savviness, and communication skills. 

We leverage a variety of sources when considering ratings, including successfully passing eLearning courses, sandbox and simulated practice activities, formal weekly assessments, staying on track with digital assignments, and workshop interaction and engagement. By documenting performance and behaviors early on, we can promptly identify potential concerns, assess the need for additional support, and confirm fit for role. 

This new generation of our onboarding program represents a significant leap forward in nurturing talent, fostering cohesion, and driving organizational success. Training and upskilling our employees is a cornerstone within First Tech's 2024 business plan. Guided by this strategic imperative, the CXO Training Team stands poised to lead the charge, exemplifying agility in empowering our teammates to thrive and contribute meaningfully to our collective journey towards First Tech’s vision to “be America’s most admired credit union.”

 

Financial

Customer Experience

Agile