Transforming employee onboarding and knowledge transfer with conversational AI

Imagine it’s your first day at a new company. You’re eager to start but feel overwhelmed by policies, documents, and onboarding processes.

What if instead, you had an assistant who guided you, directed you to the right documents, and helped you understand processes? Conversational AI enables this through intelligent agents that consolidate organizational knowledge and deliver it through a simple Natural Language Processing (NLP) query.

Onboarding challenges in large enterprises

The importance of onboarding has only grown in today’s dynamic, hybrid-first workplace. Inefficient onboarding doesn’t just risk employee engagement; it impacts long-term productivity and retention.

Despite investments, mid-sized and large enterprises face several persistent challenges:

• Scattered information: Policies, training modules, and documents are available across multiple platforms, making it difficult to find reliable information.
• Role complexity: A developer’s onboarding journey differs greatly from that of a Business Analyst or Product Owner. Generic content doesn’t meet these unique needs.
• HR bottlenecks: HR and Operations teams answer the same basic questions repeatedly, limiting their ability to focus on strategic work.
• Tool familiarization gaps: Quick access to system credentials, tools, and integrations is often fragmented.
• Inconsistent experiences: In global or hybrid setups, onboarding varies by location, leading to dissatisfaction.

These obstacles create long learning curves and leave employees feeling unsupported. Organizations need onboarding that is consistent, personalized, and responsive to each role.

How Conversational AI helps

Across industries, organizations are realizing that manual HR interactions, static FAQs, and lengthy training sessions no longer meet today’s needs.

What’s required is an intelligent, scalable solution that adapts to different roles, geographies, and business contexts. Conversational AI, when integrated with a structured knowledge base, provides exactly this. It combines automation with personalization, offering role-specific guidance, real-time access to resources and proactive support, ensuring consistency and speed at scale. 

Many leading organizations have implemented conversational AI solutions and witnessed benefits like:

• Up to 60% reduction in onboarding timelines
• Higher employee engagement and satisfaction
• Significant cost savings in HR and IT support

Examples:

Service Now Virtual Agent: Used by enterprises worldwide, ServiceNow’s Virtual Agent automates IT and HR service requests, including onboarding queries. Organizations report significant reduction in onboarding timelines when organizations integrate it into their employee experience platforms.

Microsoft Viva & Teams Integration: Microsoft Viva, integrated with Teams, is increasingly used to create personalized digital onboarding experiences. It connects new hires with curated learning paths, organizational knowledge, and communities directly within Teams (Microsoft, 2023).

Unilever's HR automation tool: The brand rolled out a multilingual virtual helper via Skype for Business to handle common human resources inquiries. This has reduced the time by 47% and also simplifies worker transactions, eliminating the need to navigate complex portals—creating a faster, more user-friendly experience across global teams.

Why Conversational AI works for onboarding and knowledge transfer

The benefits of this approach are multi-dimensional:

• Personalization at scale: Each employee experiences a role-specific onboarding journey.
• Consistency and compliance: Uniform standards and accurate content across geographies.
• Reduced HR workload: Routine queries are resolved instantly, freeing HR for strategic work.
• Agility and adaptability: Updates in tools or policies can be reflected instantly in the chatbot.
• Security and scalability: Sensitive content is protected with role-based permissions while onboarding scales globally.

Case study: Reinventing onboarding at a leading consulting firm

As leading global consulting firm wanted to reinvent onboarding to ensure a seamless experience for new hires. They sought a user-friendly, intelligent solution that cut through the noise of emails, Slack channels, and scattered materials.

The solution: a Conversational AI chatbot integrated with SharePoint, delivering personalized, real-time onboarding support. Nagarro partnered with the consulting firm to achieve this by combining the structured power of SharePoint with Conversational AI.

A unified knowledge base in SharePoint

Their SharePoint-based hub acts as a single source of truth, consolidating onboarding and functional resources: 

• Organized by job role (Developer, QA, BA, PO, etc.)
•  Indexed for quick search and instant access
• Contains product- and integration-specific knowledge
• Links to platforms like Saba, Credly, and LinkedIn Learning
• Regularly updated by practice leads for accuracy

Conversational AI chatbot layer

Sitting on top of SharePoint, a role-aware AI chatbot makes onboarding a conversational and interactive experience. It delivers:

• Role-based dialogues: Content tailored to each employee’s function
• Self-service answers: Questions answered in natural language with direct document retrieval
• Proactive nudges: Reminders, learning prompts, and task updates
• Always-on support: Available round-the-clock

Unlike conventional bots that recycle pre-fed content, this solution integrates directly with SharePoint for the latest, most accurate information.

A Conversation in action

Here’s an example of how a new joiner might interact with the chatbot:

User: Can you brief me on the learning modules?
Chatbot: Welcome aboard! Your learning journey is well-supported. You’ll use our Learning Experience Platform (LXP) for personalized content. For formal training, we use SABA. To track progress and earn credentials, we’ve integrated with Credly. You’ll also have access to LinkedIn Learning.

Chatbot: What onboarding area would you like help with?

• Product team onboarding
•  System access
• Functional training
• Platform knowledge transfer

User: System access

Chatbot: Please choose your role.

• Developer
• QA
• Business Analyst

User: Business Analyst

Chatbot: Here’s the relevant SharePoint guide. Would you like a summarized version?

Beyond onboarding: Continuous knowledge transfer

The chatbot also supports ongoing knowledge transfer within teams. In Agile environments, employees can access just-in-time knowledge without disrupting colleagues. Line managers can curate onboarding journeys while relying on the chatbot to deliver consistent experiences.

How we built it

Implementation involved collaboration between the Pathfinder and SharePoint teams. A dedicated SharePoint library was created with appropriate permissions. Custom actions integrated the repository with the chatbot, enabling document categorization and retrieval based on user intent.

This ensures onboarding is not a one-time process, but an evolving experience aligned with organizational growth.

Nagarro’s Own Experience: Ginger

Nagarro’s in-house chatbot, Ginger AI demonstrates how Conversational AI can streamline onboarding and employee support. Ginger helps employees:

• Raise IT and HR tickets
• Manage payroll and insurance reimbursements
• Book travel and handle expense claims
• Access induction programs and onboarding resources
• Resolve issues related to laptop configuration, corporate policies, leave, or compensation

By reducing manual interventions, Ginger has freed up HR and IT teams to focus on higher-value work. Its success is proof that Conversational AI can make everyday processes faster, easier, and more human-centric.

Implementation roadmap for conversational AI across enterprises

Having worked with leading global brands on conversational AI solutions, we have realized that the following considerations ensure a seamless implementation:

• Centralize all onboarding and knowledge resources in a single repository.
• Curate role-based content for maximum relevance.
• Integrate essential third-party systems (like Workday, SABA, LinkedIn Learning) into the hub.
• Select or design a chatbot capable of contextual, natural language responses.
• Utilize analytics to track chatbot interactions and refine journeys in real-time.
• Maintain strong governance with role-based access to safeguard sensitive data.

The future: From transactional to transformational onboarding

By shifting onboarding from a checklist to a dialogue, organizations empower employees to be confident, productive, and engaged from day one.

As workplaces become more hybrid, global, and fast-paced, this approach sets the benchmark for how enterprises welcome and grow their people.