Acculturation Onboarding and Your Intranet

Do you ever get the feeling that every vendor on the planet is trying to sell you something you don't really need? In the case of some acculturation portals, your instincts may be right on target.

When you socialize your employees, you want them to get comfortable with using the same communication platform and information resources as all your other workers. They don't need to be segregated into one program and then have to acclimate to another structure later on. That would be obviously counterproductive. But this fact doesn't keep software vendors from promoting just such an approach!

Work with What You've Got

If you already have your intranet up and running, there's often no point in setting up an additional program that duplicates capabilities you already have. Organizations that use solutions like the SharePoint platform from Microsoft don't need to buy redundant software. Certain employee self-service portals may also offer acculturation potential without the need for a separate system.

The more flexible your current solution is, the less sense it makes to add yet another program that you will have to manage and maintain. Instead, you can simply work with what you have to meet the changing needs of your company. You should only invest in an acculturation portal if it offers you something really special.

MS SharePoint

When your organization is a Windows Server user, you get the SharePoint program as a freebie. In this case, free doesn't mean low-quality. You can actually use this information management system for a huge number of applications.

The document-enabled characteristics of this program alone make it remarkably useful. As HR or other departments make changes to company documents (such as policies or training materials), the links in your onboarding portal are automatically updated to show the latest version to your employees. That's certainly simpler than having to get IT involved in every little tweak you need to make in your onboarding modules.

Windows Workflow Foundation is now part of the SharePoint package. The WWF can be integrated with your existing Business Process Management (BPM) system. This provides yet another opportunity to seamlessly connect acculturation and transactional onboarding functions. For example, you can encourage employees to become socialized by assigning them the task of filling out their personal profile in the SharePoint network. Then, your workflow rules can be set up to prompt the employee again later if needed.