There were times during my customer onboarding career where I had my work cut out for me. Usually when I was running a training session. It became less about proactive education and more of an exercise in detecting distractions.

Have you noticed it when running calls with a group of people?

The subtle disengagement of individuals during onboarding sessions can cause frustrations on both sides later on.

But if you can identify it as it happens and correct it before it causes issues, then the customer experience excels and you end up with much higher adoption rates.

This week we're going to look at the idea of Social Loafing and 4 ideas to improve stakeholder engagement from day one.

Scroll on, grasshopper ↓

It’s the idea that individuals put in less effort when working in a group compared to when working alone. Often because they think someone else will pick up the slack.

It occurs when people feel their individual contributions are less crucial to the overall outcome. They don’t have a strong sense of responsibility or accountability for the work.

This behaviour is often unconscious. It’s not that Bob has decided he will sit back in the meeting because he can’t be bothered. It’s more that subconsciously he knows there are enough people involved and someone will pick it up. There is no pressure on Bob to deliver in this scenario.

Let me take you back to the the early 2010s when technology was not as advanced as it is now. Retail store Walmart introduced a mobile app-based inventory management system.

The goal was to leverage store employees for stock monitoring. Employees were expected to report low stock using the app on the shop floor.

But there was a problem. There was a lack of ownership over the task. Employees often assumed others had already reported low stock so didn’t bother. Plus - they were busy with their main tasks!

This project gives a number of options to combat social loafing. Choose one or more that work best for your company. Don’t be afraid to test them out.

You can be strict with who attends your training sessions. Each attendee should have a purpose for being there. Highlight this in the mapping for the customer and explain the reasoning behind this process.

For example:

You will increase accountability by clearly defining roles, responsibilities, and expected contributions for each team member. It’s important to get sign off from the customer to make sure everyone is aligned.

Work with each team member to set personalised onboarding goals that align with their role and the overall objectives. These goals should be specific, measurable, and time-bound (SMART goals).

You want to highlight “what’s in it for them”. This will answer their immediate question. It will also get them strategically thinking about their role early on.

This puts more meaning on completing the onboarding tasks due to personal investment.

For each onboarding session or task, try assigning a different team member to lead. This person is responsible for driving the session from the customer’s side. You are asking someone to be responsible for aligning their team to create valuable and productive meetings.

This idea may meet some resistance but I would urge you to dig into the reasons why. Use the 5 Whys technique that we covered the other week. By understanding the resistance, you will uncover root causes and be able to adjust to positively impact them.

Think about developing a dashboard that displays individual and team progress towards onboarding goals. Make it visible to all stakeholders and their superiors. There’s nothing like some friendly competition and positive peer pressure to combat social loafing!

This can be part of your check ins during the onboarding process. It can be as simple as a project management view in a tool, a spreadsheet, or a pdf.

This is about accountability and bringing the team closer together. If they are missing the mark, help them uncover why that is and how to fix it.

Group sessions are a perfect place for social loafing to occur. But once you are aware of it, you can avoid it and move to a much more engaging process.

If you end up with disengaged customers in onboarding, consider looking at whether social loafing may be the problem.

You are aiming for active participation from the customer during onboarding. You can reach this by implementing one or more of the ideas above.

What to expect if you try this project: