In today’s fast-paced, hybrid workplace, the first 90 days of an employee’s journey are more critical than ever. For Learning & Development (L&D) professionals, building an onboarding program that is effective, scalable, and flexible means combining structure with adaptability and aligning learning outcomes for business impact. Whether you are onboarding in-person, remotely, or across global teams, a thoughtful blend of delivery formats, synchronous and asynchronous, combined with mentorship, collaboration, and role-specific learning is essential to success.
Modern Onboarding Programs are Interactive, Customized and Measurable
Key factors for success in effective onboarding programs include:
- Aligning onboarding goals to business KPIs and retention metrics
- Incorporating mentorship, peer learning, and frontline manager accountability
- Using preboarding and evergreen learning hubs to build momentum before day one
- Customizing learning paths based on role, region, and seniority
An effective onboarding program is not just a learning journey; it is a strategic initiative that supports engagement, performance, and culture. L&D professionals must embrace a blended approach that balances structure with flexibility and connection with scalability. By integrating synchronous and asynchronous formats, mentorship, personalized learning paths, and measurable outcomes, onboarding becomes a launchpad for long-term employee success.
A Scalable, Gamified Experience
At Domino’s Pizza Enterprises, we’ve seen firsthand how rethinking onboarding can help meet the demands of a high-volume, fast-paced business. DPE needed an onboarding model that could serve a diverse workforce spread across multiple geographies, each with their own languages, operational norms, and customer expectations. A key challenge was ensuring consistency and brand alignment, while also creating an engaging, modern experience that new hires would want to complete. Using its existing learning management system, Domino’s built an onboarding journey that combines gamified modules, mobile-first design, and real-world application of skills. The experience was tailored to match the fast-paced, customer-focused culture of the brand.
The CoSo Cloud team collaborated with them to design a scalable onboarding experience that aligned with the fast-paced nature of the Domino’s franchise model ensuring every new team member could ramp up quickly, confidently, and consistently.
“Our focus was on creating a modern, gamified onboarding journey that was not only scalable across markets but also inspiring and aligned with our fast-paced brand culture,” said Dustin Ross, Global Learning Systems and Innovation Lead, DPE. “Taking inspiration from mobile gaming, we blended storytelling, rewards, and progress tracking which helped new team members feel confident and connected from day one.”
The integration of adaptive learning programs, gamification and artificial intelligence plays a crucial role in fostering engagement and addressing evolving preferences of new employees. Any technology that is used as part of the onboarding process must have some thought and intention behind it. Virtual onboarding revolves around a dynamic and interactive process that goes beyond traditional methods to ensure smoother, more engaging, and effective integration for new team members.
“Gamification was a game-changer, no pun intended”, explains Ross. “We adopted a “Candy Crush of Learning” approach, blending gameplay, progress tracking, and rewards to keep learners engaged. The experience is mobile-first, visually branded, and very intuitive. That emotional connection with the brand starts early through storytelling, quick wins, and personalized learning paths. We also made sure to include real-world applications, so team members aren’t just watching, they’re doing it. That builds confidence and pride quickly.”
Onboarding That Evolves with the Business
Onboarding isn’t a one-time event; it’s the beginning of an ongoing learning journey. Modern organizations are reimagining onboarding not just as a welcome ritual, but as a scalable business tool aligned with KPIs, designed for growth, and personalized to meet the needs of every new hire. To build onboarding programs that are flexible, scalable, and aligned with evolving business goals, companies must embrace key trends that enhance learning agility, deepen employee connections, and drive measurable outcomes. Onboarding success is no longer measured solely by completion rates or satisfaction surveys. Today’s leading companies are designing onboarding experiences that directly support business performance.
This means aligning onboarding objectives with measurable KPIs such as:
- Time-to-productivity
- First-year retention
- Engagement scores
- Customer satisfaction (for client-facing roles)
- Internal mobility rates
This means regularly refreshing content, adjusting for new technologies or policies, and staying attuned to how the workforce is changing. It also means providing continued learning opportunities beyond day one: mentoring, upskilling, and clear career pathways. While technology is a useful tool to assist employers as they onboard staff, an added emphasis needs to be placed on ongoing learning experiences. It has been found that when companies add additional resources such as continued upskilling opportunities, mentoring programs and feedback, their retention rates rise.
The Road Ahead
In the future, the food industry will continue to address the enormous factors important in onboarding using technology. Employees want learning that’s accessible, engaging, and relevant to their day-to-day roles, especially in fast-paced environments like hospitality or food and beverage. It’s not enough to build a platform once and leave it; it needs to evolve with the business and the people using it. Having a good partnership creates the e-learning environment that a company needs and the tools to measure it. There are great advantages to a strong strategic partnership for building onboarding success programs that increase both employee satisfaction and ROI.
Rob Porter: Learning Strategist at CoSo Cloud, Rob Porter is head of market and business development for CoSo’s e-learning solutions. He is responsible for developing and executing corporate communications, market programs, market visibility, and positioning strategy to expand CoSo’s market share in e-learning. Porter has a successful 25-year track record in instructional design and e-learning programs as well as in authoring and presenting on a variety of corporate topics and learning techniques. During his career, Porter has built hours of e-learning content, workshop curriculum, webinars, presentations, and multiple custom learning platforms for his customers. He has developed state-of-the-art learning programs for organizations such as BMW, Nike, Nikon, Johns Hopkins, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Dassault, and Domino’s. Before joining CoSo Cloud, Porter founded and was a principal at Training Objectives Corp.
Dustin Ross is the Global Learning Systems and Innovation Lead at Domino’s Pizza Enterprises in Brisbane, where he specializes in digital learning and manages global learning systems to support various operational roles. Previously, he enhanced eLearning platforms at within the mining industry by developing engaging online materials and managing the LMS. With extensive experience in eLearning development and a focus on innovative educational technologies, Dustin has consistently improved training delivery and learner engagement across multiple organizations.