Digital Onboarding: Facilitators and Barriers to Improve Worker Experience

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

 

This is a review of the manuscript, Digital Onboarding: facilitators and barriers to improve worker experience. I found the introduction to the article interesting. After section 1 (around line 84) I started to wonder, What does this article have to do with sustainability? I don’t see any description of a company or companies focused on sustainable topics and the nature of the work seemed much more generic.

In the Materials and Methods, I would expect to see research questions stated as such, and clear descriptions of the how the data were analyzed, including theoretical or conceptual lenses to make sense of what was learned. This study was done using one data source, a worksheet, and there was no information about how the data were analyzed, nor how those answered specific research questions.

I think calling a one-page worksheet an ethnographic form is a misnomer. It was a one-page questionnaire. I would have expected to see a section on the participants – gender, type of position, perhaps the nature of the company, age or level of experience, that sort of thing.

The researchers did obtain IRB and collect informed consent forms, so that is in line with a research project. Even with more detailed methods, this study seems superficial, at best. Was it the participants’ first work experience? There are so many factors that are involved in a position. What level were the positions? I can’t imagine onboarding people in the way that was described in highly technical or involved situations that would require a lot of training. Most would require active mentoring and learning of a lot of new systems.

In light of no research questions, no theoretical or conceptual framework, no details about the participants, no description of the analytical techniques and examples of coding, no clear connections to sustainability, and one data source, that this paper is not ready for publication.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

I provide a point-by-point response:

This is a review of the manuscript, Digital Onboarding: facilitators and barriers to improve worker experience. I found the introduction to the article interesting. After section 1 (around line 84) I started to wonder, What does this article have to do with sustainability? I don’t see any description of a company or companies focused on sustainable topics and the nature of the work seemed much more generic.

We have specified the link between our contribution and sustainability, by highlighting how employees resilience and possibility to flourish (at stake in remote working and remote onboarding) are embraced by the broader concept of “social sustainability”

In the Materials and Methods, I would expect to see research questions stated as such, and clear descriptions of the how the data were analyzed, including theoretical or conceptual lenses to make sense of what was learned. This study was done using one data source, a worksheet, and there was no information about how the data were analyzed, nor how those answered specific research questions.

We have made this part clearer and more detailed 

I think calling a one-page worksheet an ethnographic form is a misnomer. It was a one-page questionnaire. I would have expected to see a section on the participants – gender, type of position, perhaps the nature of the company, age or level of experience, that sort of thing.

Done

The researchers did obtain IRB and collect informed consent forms, so that is in line with a research project. Even with more detailed methods, this study seems superficial, at best. Was it the participants’ first work experience? There are so many factors that are involved in a position. What level were the positions? I can’t imagine onboarding people in the way that was described in highly technical or involved situations that would require a lot of training. Most would require active mentoring and learning of a lot of new systems.

These detalis have been added

In light of no research questions, no theoretical or conceptual framework, no details about the participants, no description of the analytical techniques and examples of coding, no clear connections to sustainability, and one data source, that this paper is not ready for publication.

 

Thank you for your suggestions.

Please see the attachment for the new version of the article.

Best regards

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Review Manuscript Sustainability-1600984

Dear author(s),

First of all, thank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript. I congratulate the authors for addressing such an important topic for workers, managers and organizations, especially in times of Covid-19. Please, see below some suggestions for your evaluation if they can contribute to improve your work.

 

Abstract

Line 12 – Please write the full words the first time you use the abbreviation "HR"

Line 15 – The sentence "We used thematic analysis" alone can cause more confusion than clarity in the reader. It is unclear which "themes" or "thematic categories" were analyzed, and how the thematic analysis itself was carried out. Please consider being more specific or providing more detail on what you mean, as the abstract is important in attracting the attention of potential researchers and citations.

 

Introduction

Please assess whether the first paragraph requires references.

Please check for missing words in the sentence "consequently leading to a decrease in the turnover rate and allowing them 51 to fully [4,5,6,7]. " (lines 51-52)

Please check the text formatting in the Introduction, as some paragraphs are spaced and others are not.

Materials and methods

Please note that you need to explain what is meant by "HR" (line 89)

Regarding the research instrument (“ethnographic form”), please consider explaining how it was arrived at, that is, how were the questions and the logic constructed? It is possible to understand both the questions and the logic of the form itself, but it is not possible to understand their construction process, if this was done based on some theoretical and/or methodological basis.

 

 

 

Please consider explaining why only participants under the age of 30 were selected.

Please consider arguing why the sample size was considered sufficient.

Please consider explaining how the aforementioned thematic analysis was carried out? How were the themes identified? Was there any coding or categorization step? If yes, how many analysts have done so? Did they all analyze all 36 descriptions? How were divergences resolved and how were convergences integrated?

Results

This sentence needs to be clarified: “From the analysis of the ethnographic forms, themes emerged that can be summarized in three key findings, namely those organizational conditions that allow onboarding to be a structured, interesting and functional process for both the organization and the newcomers.” It is not clear what are the three key findings, as they also do not match the title of the sections. This sentence is important because, if it does not help the reader to understand the results themselves and the logic of their presentation, it hinders understanding.

Please explain what “social information” means. (line 142)

Please consider revising the writing in the results section for clarity. In the present form, it is very difficult to understand what is finding from your study and what comes from the literature.

The authors stated that “a total of 36 episodes, i.e. 3 episodes narrated by each participant” were collected, however, the results do not reflect this richness, the association between the data and the results is not clear.

Discussion

The authors base the discussion on "two views that emerge from the results", however this appears suddenly, the reader is not led to understand how these "views" emerged; there is no description or mention of them. For instance, the authors stated that “The first view, which is more in line with what the scientific literature describes”, but this was not shown/described when they addressed the literature on the topic.

It is not possible to understand what relationship the authors intend to establish between the "visions". Is the relationship between them one of opposition or complementarity? Is their coexistence possible? Do organizations have advantages/disadvantages in adopting one or the other?

In line 256 you say “two different visions of digital onboarding emerge”, and in line 270 you say that “These two ways of thinking about job placement”. Are they the same?

The discussion section contains many confusing sentences. Please consider reviewing for clarity. For example:

• “as the ability to understand the context in which one is inserted, to question oneself about cultures and oneself, being able to understand the fit with the task and the organization.”
• “newcomers who emphasize the difficulty in constructing a map within which to place themselves. From these ethnographic records emerges an image of a stable organization, within which one must put oneself to play one's role well.”
• “relationship between self and organization. The encounter with a new organization brings to the newcomer issues beyond struggling to know the organizational map within which to place himself”
• “in remote onbording, this complex texture of the individual-organization relationship is entirely missing” – There is a typo in this sentence (onbording)
• “The second cluster emphasizes questions that place the individual at the center of the organizational stage and the possibility of constructing a pathway to entry into the world of work that allows him to protect the development of his ability to act and influence reality”

Please consider the following paragraph: “The French literature on the world of work offers us a theoretical-conceptual distinction that is important for us to comment on these data. We refer to the difference between the concept of "capacity to act" and that of "Pouvoir d'agir". The "capacity to act" refers to what 306 the subject can do based on competencies and which can potentially support organizational action. It is the theoretical possibility of action regardless of contexts. "Pouvoir d'agir," on the other hand, refers to what is can be accomplished given the singular characteristics of the situations in which the person performs [26,27]. "Pouvoir d'agir" includes the individual and their context as a unit of analysis.” – The sentence “The French literature on the world of work” is very confusing, i) because this would encompass an immense literature and a huge number of authors who even present very different theoretical approaches and ii) since you haven't mentioned it until this point in the text.

The authors use "him,her, him/her, one" to refer to the subjects who participated in the study, but as this distinction is not made in the characterization of the sample, the random use of these terms only ends up adding confusion.

Conclusion / limitation

Please consider revising this sentence for clarity: “helps newcomers to better read the working context in which they are inserted”. What does "read the working context" mean?

The authors stated that the limitation of the study is that: “The sample size is not large, but this is due to the fact that the research was purely exploratory.” On what basis is the claim about sample size made? What was the criterion for defining the sample size? What has been done to compensate for this limitation? That is, although it is considered “not large”, was it sufficient to meet the proposed objectives? And, most importantly, does the study being exploratory justify a small sample?

Finally, it is necessary to point out that at the beginning of the paper (including the abstract) the authors imply that the study will be related to the field of human resources (""), but this is not done. In addition, it is necessary to establish a clearer connection with the theme of sustainability.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

we changed the abstract and introduction, following your instructions.

In the "materials and methods" part, we have tried to modify some parts in order to give them more clarity, describing more the logic of our study, the research questions, how the thematic analysis was carried out and we have described the sample in more detail.

In the Results part, we have made our key results explicit by making the descriptions more detailed and clearer. Furthermore, we explained what we mean by "social information" by quoting from the scientific literature. 

In the "Discussion" part, we have followed your suggestions and removed some unclear parts, making the reference to French literature clearer.

In the conclusions and limitations, we have rewritten some sentences to make them more understandable, explained the sample limitation in more detail and made the barriers and facilitators more explicit (to create a connection with the title and the objective of the article).

 

Please see the attachment.

Thank for your suggestions

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors: thank you for the opportunity of reading your manuscript. I find that the topic is really interesting and relevant. However, I would make some suggestions in order to enhance the paper to the next level. 

First of all, regarding the introduction and the literature review, I will include the research question plus a stronger research motivation for the publication of the manuscript. Moreover, it is important to include a research model with hypothesis in order to sustent your thesis, despite the type of methodology included. 

Regarding the qualitative analysis performed, it is good enough but could be completed with more information and the motivations or psychologic traits of the workers. It will differ a lot taking into account more factors, not only the age of the respondents. Furthermore, I'll include wider range of ages and also more cases in order to enhance the validity and extrapolability of the results.

You need also to review the references and put them all in the same format, as for example number 5, 25 and 27 are in three different formats. Also remember to put in capital letters the first letter of each word in the journal (see reference 11 or 23).

For good measure, my recommendation is to have the manuscript reviewed by an English speaker proofreader.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, we have modified the article according to your suggestions, including the research questions, more information about the sample (number of participants, characteristics, job position, motivations) and changing some errors in the bibliography.
Thank you for your suggestions.
Please see the new version attached below

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

[Original comments are in normal text and new comments are in bold.]

This is a review of the manuscript, Digital Onboarding: facilitators and barriers to improve worker experience. I found the introduction to the article interesting. After section 1 (around line 84) I started to wonder, What does this article have to do with sustainability? I don’t see any description of a company or companies focused on sustainable topics and the nature of the work seemed much more generic.

The revised article says it relates to social sustainability, but they do not define this and I don’t know what it means. I don’t see how the questions or analysis specifically relate to this construct. It seems like it is about onboarding. Not sure what that has specifically to do with sustainability, when the participants are interns and by nature are not necessarily going to continue with their company. It does feel as though this was a small study looking for a home and retrofitted for this special issue.

There is still no research design mentioned. A lot more information is given regarding the methods, although we don’t know how many companies, or how people were recruited to participate. Although gender is now mentioned, nothing is done with gender to analyze if there were any differences in the groups.

In the Materials and Methods, I would expect to see research questions stated as such, and clear descriptions of the how the data were analyzed, including theoretical or conceptual lenses to make sense of what was learned. This study was done using one data source, a worksheet, and there was no information about how the data were analyzed, nor how those answered specific research questions.

This has been addressed. I do not know what organizing cards means because they filled out a one-page questionnaire. (lines 381-391). It sounds like the themes were negotiated, so discussed along the way, not calibrated and independently coded, as would be expected to confirm validity of the codes.

I would like to see examples of the coding of each of the categories and how prevalent they were. This can either be done in the methods or in the findings by displaying the data in a table with the categories and the occurrences.

I think calling a one-page worksheet an ethnographic form is a misnomer. It was a one-page questionnaire. I would have expected to see a section on the participants – gender, type of position, perhaps the nature of the company, age or level of experience, that sort of thing.

This has been improved.

The researchers did obtain IRB and collect informed consent forms, so that is in line with a research project. Even with more detailed methods, this study seems superficial, at best. Was it the participants’ first work experience? There are so many factors that are involved in a position. What level were the positions? I can’t imagine onboarding people in the way that was described in highly technical or involved situations that would require a lot of training. Most would require active mentoring and learning of a lot of new systems.

This has been addressed.

In light of no research questions, no theoretical or conceptual framework, no details about the participants, no description of the analytical techniques and examples of coding, no clear connections to sustainability, and one data source, that this paper is not ready for publication.

Lines 365-370 it says:

“For each one page questionnaire, narrators were asked to give a title that summarized the content. The methodological motivation that explains the use of the cards is related to the possibility of making respondents reflect more calmly than in an interview. After the day's work, the effort to find a space in solitude to rethink one's experience and find points worthy of analysis involves the activation of critical thinking that allows for a more excellent reworking of the experience.”

I have no idea what this means. Where did the cards come from? Whole thing is unclear.

The findings are written up like a discussion. Assertions are explained and there are citations to the literature. The findings should simply describe/presents what was found, not interpret it. It looks like there are some categories mentioned – normative information, social information. Do these tie to the social sustainability that was mentioned but not explained?  

On second reading it strikes me that there were males and females, but no analyses were done to identify if there were any trends by gender.

Now I have read the discussion, which is presenting data from the findings. Nothing new beyond discussion should happen in the discussion. This is where you tie findings to what others have done, and make it clear how the work ties to the literature and your theoretical or conceptual framework.

The conclusions refer back again to barriers to digital onboarding. I see no ties to theory or conceptual frameworks.

The paper has been improved, definitely. I still do not feel the paper is publishable in its current form. I still do not see a case for sustainability.

I suggest finding a paper that has been written up as a model to see what is supposed to happen in findings and discussion sections. With such a small sample it feels as though some patterns could have emerged that were not necessarily shared. Gender is one of them. 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,
thank you for your suggestions. We have made the requested changes and made our article clearer.
We did not analyse the difference between the male and female groups as this was not foreseen in our research and was not a research question. We will certainly keep this suggestion in mind for a future study.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear author(s),

Thank you for the opportunity to read the revised version of your work.

Please see below for some issues that undermine the quality and reliability of the study and that certainly jeopardize the impact and validity of the results. I hope the comments can help you in some way. Thanks again for your work.

 

“1. Introduction” is missing

English proofreading is needed – for example, “dymensions” is written in the line 98

Text needs formatting - for example, there is paragraph on line X, but not on the others; there are other parts of the text that are the same way

“We chose to select participants under 30 years of age so that they were interns and at their first work experience.” - As a selection criterion, this does not guarantee what is assumed. The authors justify “This made it more likely that they were on their 117 first work experience and had never experienced digital onboarding before”, but was there any procedure to ensure this and guarantee the reliability of the sample? Furthermore and most important, how to explain the exclusion of people over 30 who meet the requirements? Or people who are not on their first professional experience, but are going through the same digital onboarding process? The objectives proposed by the authors include this population.

There are repeated parts in the text. From line 122 to 128:

“The study was conducted on a heterogeneous convenience sample. In addition, in order to verify the comprehensibility of the instrument adopted and the relevance of the information it collected, two pilot tests were carried out. The study was conducted on a heterogeneous convenience sample (N = 30, 17 women and 13 men). In addition, in order to verify the comprehensibility of the instrument adopted and the relevance of the information it collected, two pilot tests were carried out.”

“The study was conducted on a heterogeneous convenience sample” – What does a “heterogeneous convenience sample” means? Wasn't the criterion used (mentioned above) aimed precisely at homogenizing the sample?

“Of the 30 one-page questionnaires, 12 were selected” - Why only 12 were selected? What was the selection criteria used?

“(for a total of 36 episodes, i.e. 3 episodes narrated by each participant (Appendix II).” - Parentheses used incorrectly

“: Familiarizing yourself with your data: Generating initial codes: Searching for themes: Reviewing themes: Defining and naming themes: Producing the synthesis:” - Colon used incorrectly

“We synthesized the major emerging themes from the research questions by organizing the first set of initial codes” – What research questions? What codes?

“From the analysis of the one-page questionnaires, themes emerged that can be summarized in four key points” - How were the questionnaires analyzed? What methods were used? Was any technique used to group the themes? Was there data triangulation to increase data reliability?

“These key points are: understanding your job, the relationship with colleagues, the relationship with your boss and the relationship with the organization” - Is the use of "yours" in these sentences correct?

“These outcomes will be discussed on the basis of the literature on digital onboarding, also taking into account the peculiarities of Generation Y and Z.” -  It is not clear how this contributes to achieving the proposed objectives. On the contrary, this appears to be counterproductive, as it unjustifiably excludes potential participants who are included in the study objectives the way they were stated.

“The sample size is not large, but this is due to the fact that the research was purely 446 exploratory” - The exploratory nature of a research cannot be used as a justification for the sample size.

 

Author Response

Thank you for your suggestions.

We have made all changes according to your suggestions and made the article clearer, adding details of the study, procedures, sample, method and data analysis

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

Review of Sustainability 4-12-22

 

This is the third time I have seen this article.

 

Abstract – I think this is a typo –

“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 on onboarding processes.”

Seems like it should be impacted – cut the word “on”

“In this respect, the aim of this study is to understand how young graduates under 30 experience digital onboarding (in terms of emotions and cognitions) when joining organizations with structured HR processes”

Shouldn’t it be past tense? The aim of this study was and experienced?

“An exploratory qualitative study was conducted in which participants were asked to fill in ethnographic forms in order to understand the barriers and facilitators that organizations can implement to improve the digital onboarding experience.”

Shouldn’t this word be facilitation?

“What emerged from our study is that newcomers struggle, 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.”

Shouldn’t this be past tense? struggled

In the main body of the paper:

Line 58 – I am not sure what ” or open challenges” means

Line 83 – check formatting style for location of quotation marks and the period. “Sustainable Human Resource Management”.

Lines 88-89 “In analogy to natural resources and environmental sustainability,” – In analogy feels awkward/incorrect. Do you mean “using the analogy of natural resources and …?

Line 103 – “and establishing the reference values” I don’t understand what this means.

Okay – all of this red text that was added on p. 3 has helped me to understand the connection to sustainability.

Line 126 – are you meaning to use this spelling? “dymensions”

Line 136 – Is this sentence incomplete? “- the need to have tools that allow direct observation of the research in a mode of data 136 collection that wants to”

Line 152 – typos etnogrhaphic scheet

Line 155 – typos? “Descrive in the writing etnographig 155 grid an…”

Line 190 – typos? “etnogrhaphic scheets”

Line 253 – I think you probably mean ethnographic sheets – but please look at these throughout the manuscript.

Lines 264 – 281 - In the findings section, the findings are written up as though they are generic assertions for all people. What you have is an analysis of a small number of participants, so you are writing about these individuals, not overall. The findings should stick to specific statements about the findings and summarize them, not discuss. That is in the discussion.

Liine 444 – “In so doing, they seem more concerned to abilitate newcokers’ “capacity to act”, rather than their “power to act”. “

Is this supposed to be newcomers?

 

 

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

thank you for your suggestions.

We corrected the typos, following your instructions.

Thank you again.

Best regards,

Sara Petrilli, Laura Galuppo, Silvio Carlo Ripamonti

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear author(s),

Thank you for the revised version of your manuscript.

In the objective 1, line 127, it is written “dymensions”

There are other terms such as “scheet” (line 152, line 253), “Descrive” (line 155), “etnographig” (line 155), “etnogrhaphic scheets” (line 193, line 375), etc., that need to be corrected

The whole text needs to be revised in this matter, as recommended in the past reviews

Text formatting is different throughout

Consider the following statement: “We chose to select participants under 30 years of age so that they were interns and at their first work experience. This made it more likely that they were on their first work experience and had never experienced digital onboarding before” – If the participants were not asked or if no other procedure was used to guarantee this, how can one guarantee that, in fact, all participants do not have these characteristics? If there was no type of control of this information, this statement cannot be made and the sample has no significance in terms of these characteristics.

There are many unanswered questions posed in the previous review round, which are critical as they directly affect the validity of the study:

• “The study was conducted on a heterogeneous convenience sample” – What does a “heterogeneous convenience sample” means? Wasn't the criterion used (mentioned above) aimed precisely at homogenizing the sample?
• “Of the 30 one-page questionnaires, 12 were selected” - Why only 12 were selected? What was the selection criteria used?
• “We synthesized the major emerging themes from the research questions by organizing the first set of initial codes” – What research questions? What codes? How was the coding performed?
• “These outcomes will be discussed on the basis of the literature on digital onboarding, also taking into account the peculiarities of Generation Y and Z.” -  It is not clear how this contributes to achieving the proposed objectives. On the contrary, this appears to be counterproductive, as it unjustifiably excludes potential participants who are included in the study objectives the way they were stated. Please consider the objectives stated and critically evaluate if they are directed to a sample with these characteristics.
• “The sample size is not large, but this is due to the fact that the research was purely exploratory” - The exploratory nature of a research cannot be used as a justification for the sample size. This needs to be fixed.

“In the future we would like to think about another research that could investigate the existence between specific onboarding practices and specific employability characteristics” – Existence of what?

“In addition, it would be useful to investigate how digital onboarding practices are perceived by other categories of workers who are not Generation Z and not newcomers.” - How is it possible to know that the sample of this study does not have this characteristic? It is not possible for the reader to understand the characteristics of the sample, it is not possible to know if they are Generation Y or Z or newcomers. It is possible that everyone is, just as it is possible that everyone is not. This needs to be explained, or there is no validity to contributions from this article. Essentially, the authors need to inform the characterization of the sample and demonstrate how it is adequate, i.e., representative, to answer the research questions. Or, in another way, change the objectives, because the way it is, the objectives are not achieved, because the sample is not known.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

thank you for your suggestions.

We have made changes to our manuscript, making the procedures and description of the ethnographic method clearer. In addition, typos have been corrected. 

We hope the new version will work.

Best regards;

Sara Petrilli, Laura Galuppo and Silvio Carlo Ripamonti

Author Response File: Author Response.docx