Onboarding for care workers

Mastering the first days in the new job together

Providing the right support for new employees can be challenging for companies, particularly in times of a pandemic. For this reason, we’ve helped improving and expanding onboarding processes in the field of (mobile) care.

In a project funded by the AK Digifonds, the umbrella organization of Viennese social institutions has started a co-creative process together with ovos in order to successfully map onboarding on a digital level.

Client
Dachverband Wiener Sozialeinrichtungen
Year
2021-2022
Type
Playful Trainings
Technology
ovos play

The Digifonds round of funding in spring 2021 saw the kickoff of the “Willkommen in der Pflege” (Welcome to care) project – an ambitious project with big ideas and many unanswered questions. The goal was not only to be able to present a prototypical digital onboarding product by mid-2022, but also to jointly initiate a co-creative process.

The conceptual phase

Many voices for a wow-effect

Thanks to the support of numerous Viennese care organizations who shared their experience, knowledge and time with us, we succeeded in developing an exciting  digital onboarding process that is generally valid for several care organizations.

The umbrella organization enlisted the help of the Graz-based agency Webentwicklung Ideenreich to organize the workshops of the project: the entire onboarding process was gradually visualized as a large infographic – every input was heard, discussed and classified.

In the process, it was also important to consider the content with regard to the different personas: Does onboarding for Sophia, the career starter, have to look different from onboarding for Andreas, who transfers from one organization to another? What are the differences between small “family organizations” and organizations with hundreds or thousands of employees?

The wow effects mentioned in the headline are moments during the  onboarding that should be remembered by starters. We were able to implement some of them digitally but the larger part was implemented as part of the  analog onboarding after the workshops and implemented there for the first time.

The Implementation

using a smartphone, tripod and drawing pen

Once the concept was finalized, ovos started implementing the content. In order to make the “generic” onboarding process more vivid, we created prototypes for  three organizations.

Volkshilfe, Caritas and MOKI Wien invited us to spend half a day with them to get to know them and record videos with them. We chose equipment as minimalistic as possible, using an iPhone, a simple tripod and a lapel microphone as we wanted to show that you don’t need a camera team with lights and make-up for short video messages in the digital onboarding process.

In the process, we managed to film a large number of people: managing directors, regional managers, division-managers or care service managers and young or longstanding employees. The videos of already established employees  left a particularly deep impression on everyone: they shared memories of their first days at work, and which worries, fears and concerns they had at the beginning, and how quickly these were resolved.

In addition to the honest stories of the “real” people, another character accompanies new starters through the entire onboarding process. The nameless person is also a new starter and helps you not to forget important things, to prepare properly for upcoming conversations, to reflect on your own actions and, if necessary, to ask for help in time.

To make the contents of the prototypes lively and colorful, more than 30 additional illustrations were created.

Moodboard & Surveys

Enabling employers to react proactively

An ovos play enhancement that emerged during the process quickly attracted the interest of all the organizations involved.

The mood board was implemented to capture the starters’ mood in just a few steps. On the one hand, it can help to better observe one’s own mood – on the other hand, it enables the team management to react quickly.

If someone’s mood, according to the mood board, has been on the lower end for days, supervision can be offered without the employee having to ask for it. In addition, it is possible to observe the mood of the entire team over a certain period of time.

Moreover, short surveys are repeatedly conducted within the app throughout the entire process. This is used to collect feedback on the onboarding process in order to quickly adjust, change, and improve things.

The Digifonds of the Chamber of Labor

This project was funded by the Digifonds der AK Wien. New projects are selected for funding every six months.

The Digifonds about themselves: “The fund supports projects that illuminate digitization from the perspective of employees and shape it in their interest.