Welcoming a new employee is an exciting opportunity to set the tone for their success. This article shares practical tips on how to create an engaging onboarding experience using H5P — perfect for both in-office and remote workers.
What is Onboarding?
Onboarding is a thoughtful process that helps employees understand their roles, connect with colleagues, and feel aligned with the company’s values and culture.
How long does a successful onboarding take?
- SHRM: “a comprehensive onboarding program should last at least 90 days”
- The Aberdeen Group: “86% of employees decide to stay or leave a company within the first six months”
- Glassdoor: “a well-structured onboarding process that extends up to 8 months can lead to higher employee engagement”
- The Human Capital Institute: recommends “a structured onboarding process that spans the first 6 to 12 months”
Onboarding stages
Pre-boarding stage
Even before their official start date. Effective pre-boarding includes sending welcome emails, providing access to online resources, and setting up IT accounts.
H5P tools for pre-start:
Interactive Book
IT setup instructions download
Interactive Video
Company overview video with embedded quizzes
Image Hotspots
Company values exploration
Course Presentation
First day expectations overview
First day
Key activities: warm welcome meeting, office tour (or virtual tour for remote employees), introduction to company policies and culture.
H5P tools for first day:
Image Hotspots
Interactive org chart with team member details
Virtual Tour (360)
Virtual office tour with clickable hotspots
Quiz (Question Set)
Company policies comprehension quiz
Timeline
Onboarding roadmap with interactive timelines
Flashcards
Meet your team with fun facts
First week
Activities: role-specific training, meeting key stakeholders, setting initial goals, regular check-ins.
H5P tools for first week:
Documentation Tool
Task checklist for role-specific training
Drag the Words
Role and responsibility matching game
Dialog Cards
Mentor or buddy introduction with structured interactions
Find the Hotspot
Interactive org chart for exploring team roles
First month
Ongoing training and development, participation in team meetings and projects, receiving regular feedback.
H5P tools for first month:
Information Wall
Project collaboration space
Documentation Tool
Goal setting and tracking tool
Questionnaire
Feedback collection and analysis
Game Map
Team integration activities
Second and third months
Advanced role-specific training, increased responsibilities, cross-functional collaboration.
H5P tools:
Branching Scenario
Advanced training modules with scenario-based learning
Timeline
Leadership development interactive planner
Essay
Interactive self-assessment on skill acquisition
First year
Long-term integration, continuous development, career planning, and leadership opportunities.
H5P tools for first year:
Interactive Book
Career pathway planner with interactive milestones
Timeline
Year-end reflection and professional growth tracker
Creating learning experiences with H5P
H5P is an open-source tool for building engaging and interactive learning experiences. It creates interactive videos, quizzes, presentations, and branching scenarios without advanced technical skills. H5P seamlessly integrates with Moodle, Canvas, and WordPress.
Tips for using H5P in WordPress
- Activate only the libraries you need — reduces unnecessary load times
- Optimize media files — compress images and videos before uploading
- Regularly update the H5P plugin — for security, performance, and new features
- Test across devices — ensure content is responsive on smartphones, tablets, and desktops
- Customize with CSS — adjust appearance to match your site’s branding via a child theme
H5P examples for onboarding
The following interactive examples were built using the H5P tools described in this article. Try them out below.
Employee Onboarding Journey
A Game Map that guides new hires through the onboarding journey as a visual, gamified experience.
Explore Your New Workplace
A Crossword activity for new employees to explore and remember key details about their new workplace.
First-Month Activities Check-in
A Multimedia Choice quiz to check in on first-month activities and reflect on progress.
Personalized Onboarding Plan
A Documentation Tool to help new employees build and track their personalized onboarding plan.
Key Questions Answered
The most commonly asked questions about this topic, concisely answered.
- H5P is a free, open-source framework for creating interactive HTML5 content — including quizzes, interactive videos, branching scenarios, timelines, and more. For onboarding, it lets designers build engaging, self-paced activities without expensive authoring tools. H5P content can be embedded in any LMS, website, or intranet page.
- Research suggests onboarding should extend well beyond the first week:
- SHRM recommends at least 90 days
- Glassdoor found that structured onboarding up to 8 months improves engagement
- Aberdeen Group reports 86% of employees decide to stay or leave within the first six months
- Different stages call for different tools:
- Pre-boarding — Interactive Book for IT setup guides, Image Hotspots for company values
- First day — Virtual Tour (360) for office orientation, Quiz sets for policy comprehension
- First week — Drag the Words for role matching, Dialog Cards for mentor introductions
- First month — Documentation Tool for goal tracking, Game Map for team integration
- Later stages — Branching Scenario for advanced training, Timeline for career planning
- H5P.org offers a free tier with basic content creation and hosting. The open-source version is completely free when self-hosted on your own LMS (Moodle, Canvas, WordPress). H5P.com is the commercial SaaS offering with a subscription fee, providing managed hosting, analytics, and additional content types.
- H5P content can be embedded directly in websites, SharePoint intranets, or even shared as standalone HTML packages. Combine H5P interactive activities with a simple knowledge base or intranet page to create an effective onboarding hub without a dedicated LMS. The H5P WordPress plugin makes this especially straightforward.
- Pre-boarding refers to the onboarding activities completed before a new hire's official start date. Using H5P, you can send new employees an Interactive Book with IT setup instructions, an Image Hotspot exploring company values, or a Course Presentation previewing first-day expectations — all accessible via a web link before they even enter the building.
- H5P's Branching Scenario content type is ideal for realistic decision-making practice during onboarding. New employees can navigate work situations — such as handling a difficult customer or responding to a compliance issue — and experience consequences of different choices in a safe environment before facing those situations for real.
- Key advantages include:
- Cost — free and open-source for self-hosted use
- No coding required — browser-based editor with 50+ content types
- LMS integration — works with Moodle, Canvas, Blackboard via LTI
- Responsive — all content adapts to mobile and tablet
- Community — large open-source community with regular updates
- H5P supports xAPI and SCORM reporting when hosted within a compatible LMS, allowing you to track quiz scores, completion, and interaction data. For standalone web embedding, you can use H5P's built-in results display or integrate with Google Analytics for page-level engagement tracking.
- The most common mistake is treating onboarding as a single event — a one-day orientation — rather than a structured, multi-month journey. Research consistently shows that sustained support across the first six to twelve months dramatically improves retention and performance. Using H5P to create reusable, self-paced resources allows organizations to support employees at every stage without proportional increases in facilitator time.
- Effective onboarding programs extend well beyond the first week. Research from the Brandon Hall Group shows that organizations with onboarding programs lasting at least 90 days see significantly higher retention and time-to-productivity. The best programs structure support across the first 6–12 months, with intensive orientation in weeks 1–2, role-specific training in months 1–3, and ongoing integration support through the first year.
- The H5P core software is open source and free. You can install it as a plugin in Moodle, WordPress, or Drupal at no cost. H5P.com (the hosted platform) offers a paid SaaS service with enterprise features like branding, analytics, and collaboration. For small teams or portfolio projects, the free plugin version is fully functional. For enterprise deployment, the hosted platform provides better scalability and support.
