A smooth onboarding process sets the tone for employee engagement and overall job satisfaction. Let’s take a look at how technology can ensure your onboarding process builds healthy employee-employer relationships and leads to long-lasting involvement.
Have you ever been ghosted? Not by someone you were dating, but by someone who worked for you? If you haven’t yet, odds are you soon will. Today’s tight job market has generated an upsurge in workplace ghosting. So much so that employees are either leaving their current jobs without giving any notice, or they aren’t even showing up for the first day of a new job because they found something better at the last minute.
In a time when employees are trumping employers, the importance of companies being prepared for their new hires both on the first day and beyond the initial few weeks cannot be emphasized enough. And nothing establishes a healthy, lasting employee-employer relationship better than a smooth, technology-enabled onboarding process.
Effective communication is crucial to onboarding so new hires know what to expect, and technology streamlines that vital interaction. Without a well-oiled, technology-enabled onboarding machine, employers may be inconsistent in their communications with new hires after a job offer has been accepted. This lack of follow-through can lead to employees second-guessing their decision to join the company or at the very least, dampen enthusiasm.
Workflow automation enables efficient and seamless employer-employee contact before the first day of work. It reminds companies to complete time- and activity-triggered tasks, such as writing a welcome email, providing a summary of benefits and sending payroll-related paperwork. It also tethers disparate departments together by automating onboarding tasks in a central location.
For instance, an automated process built on a low-code platform ensures that all necessary tasks are completed by the employer before a new hire arrives for the first day. HR enters new employee paperwork and payroll into the system, IT procures a computer and sets up network access and the employee’s new manager prepares helpful information. Having all necessary tools and information in place, especially day-one network access, empowers productivity and serves as a new hire’s litmus test: Were they ready for me?
Another area where technology aids the onboarding process is with training. According to a recent Bridge survey, 86 percent of millennial respondents would stay at their jobs if career training and development was provided. The takeaway: Training is critical in attracting and retaining top talent.
Offering learning-development opportunities on day one, particularly when workloads are light, delivers the message that the company values an efficient, productive and engaged workforce. Workflow automation clearly defines employer-mandated training, allows new hires to search for available courses to add to their skill sets, and provides guidelines for enrollment.
Along with improved communication and training, workflow automation unifies and streamlines onboarding processes that help enhance employee performance, increase efficiencies and ultimately retain the talent you just hired.
Successful companies offer employees user-friendly experiences that provide a digital, engaging, self-service process right at their fingertips. In fact, the 2015 State of Talent Management by SilkRoad Research found that 72 percent of organizations use self-service functions within HRMS for employees to access information — from versions of hardware and software they need to do their jobs to understanding where they fit in their company’s hierarchy — without having to call or email others for help.
Despite this success rate, organizations don’t always provide managers with the same HRMS self-service capabilities. Which is baffling because a self-service portal would provide a more efficient work environment by not only streamlining everyday service requests but by simplifying managers’ onboarding duties. Remember, department managers likely bring in new talent sporadically; and if their familiarity with the onboarding process is limited, the experience – and the new employees – can suffer.
That’s why a technology-enabled structure is particularly helpful for this group. By defining which tasks the hiring business unit owns versus HR or IT, an automated workflow ensures that gaps and vulnerabilities don’t occur and keeps employers from fumbling blindly through the process.
It’s no surprise that it takes a lot of time and resources to get employees up and running. That’s why it’s so important to get a new relationship off on the right foot. Consider this: an estimated 42 million employees left their jobs last year, according to the 2018 Work Institute National Employee Retention Report, which resulted in an estimated $600 billion in turnover costs. A structured, technology-enabled onboarding process increases the probability that new hires not only show up on their first day but stay past their ramp-up and ultimately become engaged, productive, longstanding employees — a win-win for employees and employers alike.
The skinny of onboarding is this: It can drastically help or hurt companies in their search to attract and retain employees during the United States’ tightest job market in decades.
The reason? New hires view their onboarding experience as a reflection of how companies treat their employees and how they, in turn, will be treated.
By investing in the right technology, you ensure an efficient and effective onboarding experience, a positive employee-employer relationship and continued employee engagement. And of course, you decrease your chances of being ghosted, at least in the workplace.