Onboarding training is the structured teaching a new hire gets in their first weeks: the rules they must follow, what their job expects, how the company works, and who to ask. New hires finish it when it arrives in small pieces, on the day each piece matters, in a format that fits around their actual work. A 40-page handbook and a 90-minute orientation recording fail that test, but the same material cut into five-minute episodes passes it.
Jellypod does the cutting. You upload the handbook, deck, or recording, edit the script it drafts, and get audio a new hire can play on the commute or between meetings. Below is a sample ten-day plan, what it costs in Jellypod credits, and where audio is the wrong tool.
Key takeaways
- Split onboarding into one five-minute episode per workday for the first two weeks, instead of one long orientation.
- Start from documents you already have: Jellypod accepts PDF, Word, PowerPoint, and audio or video recordings as sources.
- Keep confidential material on a Private podcast, which has no RSS feed, and share the downloaded audio through your intranet or LMS.
- Audio covers policies and context. Tool walkthroughs and manager conversations still need a screen or a person.
Hear a first-visit briefing
This 78-second episode introduces new volunteers to the fictional Riverside Workshop. Marcus Hayes explains the three preparation steps, when to ask the coordinator for clarification, and what to do before leaving. It covers one first visit; the ten-day new-hire plan below is a separate planning example.
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Read the original sample source and narrated script alongside the audio. Riverside Workshop is a Jellypod demonstration, not a customer case study or certification course.
Create an onboarding podcast, then add a handbook you have permission to use or upload your finished script.
How long should onboarding training take?
It depends on the company. SHRM says onboarding "can span one or two days of activities at some companies; others offer a more extensive series of activities spanning months," and can last up to 12 months. The trouble starts when a long process gets compressed into orientation week, when the new hire is also setting up a laptop and learning names.
So plan the first two weeks as a paced track and leave the rest to managers. Ten workdays with one short item each is a load a new hire can carry without falling behind on the actual job.
What should an onboarding training program include?
The SHRM Foundation's onboarding guide by Talya Bauer sorts onboarding into four building blocks, the Four C's:
Bauer's guide finds that about 30 percent of organizations stop at compliance and some role clarification, treating onboarding as a checklist. The two-week plan below covers compliance, clarification, and culture in audio, and leaves connection to people.
What can you turn into onboarding audio?
Anything that is mostly explanation: the employee handbook, benefits guides, security and acceptable-use policies, a recorded orientation, a leadership welcome, an org overview deck. Jellypod's supported source types include PDF, Word, PowerPoint, audio, and video files up to 100 MB each, and PDFs are trimmed to their first 250 pages. A Zoom recording works as a source, because the audio is extracted automatically.
If your material lives in slides, export the deck to PDF and use PDF to podcast.
Add the handbook, deck, or orientation recording as a source. Audio and video files are transcribed first.
Audio is a poor fit for anything the new hire has to watch or do. A tool walkthrough needs a screen, and a first one-on-one needs a person. Keep those live or on video.
What does a two-week onboarding audio plan look like?
This is a sample plan, not a benchmark from a study. Adjust the topics to your company. Each episode is five minutes.
Regulated topics such as safety or legal training need more than a five-minute episode, and compliance training best practices covers how to handle them.
How do you build the track in Jellypod?
- Pick one document per episode and decide the single thing the listener should know or do afterward.
- Add it as a source and start generation. Jellypod writes the script and generates narration in the same run.
- Review the script and audio against the original. Confirm names, dates, deadlines, and dollar amounts, since a policy error in audio is easy to miss.
- Edit any incorrect lines, regenerate the affected narration, and listen once through before publishing.
- Distribute it (see the next section).
Generation costs 30 credits per minute of audio. Text editing, publishing, and downloading use no credits. Regenerating narration uses no credits within a daily limit. Ten five-minute episodes come to 1,500 credits, and the Starter plan includes 5,000 credits a month. If several episodes share a schedule, automations can generate on a recurring cadence, though a fixed handbook rarely needs it. The Starter plan includes 2.
Jellypod has a Free plan with 500 credits and no credit card, and paid plans include a 7-day free trial.
How should new hires get the episodes?
There are two routes, and the choice matters for confidential content.
A Public podcast gets an RSS feed, so new hires can subscribe in Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Anyone can find it, so use it only for material you would put on a careers page.
A Private podcast has no website, RSS feed, or share links. You download the audio from the Studio and post it where new hires already look: the intranet, your LMS, or a Slack channel. That fits handbook and policy content. For more on internal audio, see how to run an internal communications podcast, and for short-form design, audio microlearning.
Can you track onboarding audio completion in your LMS?
Yes. Business and Enterprise can export each reviewed Episode as a SCORM audio package. In the editor, open Download, choose Download as SCORM, and select Audio. Set the playback completion threshold, then upload the ZIP to your LMS. Learners can resume their assigned Episode, and the LMS records completion against its learner account.
The Starter credit example above covers producing the audio; SCORM delivery requires Business or Enterprise. Each ZIP is one lesson. Assign the sequence in your LMS and use a separate quiz or acknowledgment when you need evidence beyond listening. See SCORM version guidance and the export walkthrough.
What is the difference between onboarding and orientation?
Orientation is the first-day event: paperwork, logistics, introductions. Onboarding is the longer process that follows, covering role training, culture, and expectations. Orientation is one part of onboarding.
Should onboarding training be self-paced or scheduled?
Use both. Policy and context work as self-paced audio. Manager check-ins, team introductions, and hands-on tool training need a scheduled session. A simple rule: if the new hire has to do something with their hands, schedule it. If they only need to understand something, record it.
What to do next
Pick the three onboarding documents new hires ask about most, and turn them into episodes first. If those get played, build out the rest of the ten days. Jellypod's learning and development page shows the workflow with a training example.
