For many businesses, onboarding at a new job can be exciting and nerve-racking. For new employees, it is a fresh start — with new coworkers to meet and talk to, opportunities for growth, and even the chance to break in their new shoes. To get the best onboarding experience does not mean you always have to do things manually. Automation can be a game changer when it comes to creating processes to welcome new hires. Organizations can implement automation in their onboarding process. By doing so, they will simplify their process while creating an informative experience for the new employee. This will increase employee engagement and lead to making him or her more satisfied with their job.
But why exactly is automation so crucial in the onboarding process?
As an HR manager, you are responsible for overseeing many details in the life of your employees. When it comes to on-boarding most of the process involves exchanging and signing various forms. You could manually manage these tasks. However, it's not efficient to duplicate this effort when you have to do it over and over again.
There is a wide margin for error in the manual onboarding process, both from the employer and the new hire. For example, you could misplace a document or not send a document to the right person for approval, or miss a required submission deadline.
The good news is that it does not have to be this way! By automating HR processes like these, you can reduce errors and save time. This allows your team to complete these tasks in one place where everything is tracked for you and saved for any future need.
Using a software that allows you to create items necessary to set up the on-boarding process can make the first day of work much easier for the new hires. It's important to remember that each employee on your team is unique. Therefore, they may need different steps to ensure they are prepared for the demands of their job.
As a result, you should customize the onboarding steps for each new hire depending on their department. There is software that allows you to create items necessary to set up the on-boarding process. For example, you may input the required check lists, training materials, etc., in the on-boarding platform. The best thing is its only required just once. The software will then run your workflow over and over without any extra effort.
Some software will also allow you to send notifications to a specific user about the progress of a particular hire or group of hires. You can notify your hiring managers about new hires (or about changes in their status). You can also notify your leadership team members, so they know who's been added to help with projects or initiatives that they oversee.
It’s important that your new hires are able to access their accounts at the earliest possible date. This helps them to get started before Day 1. With the right software you can immediately grant access to social media managers, IT managers, and more! All without having to send or receive multiple emails or create temporary passwords for each new employee. A custom onboarding workflow can also be set up, as mentioned earlier, for all your team members. This will allow you to send them documents and videos of how to use different features of the software.
Let's face it: onboarding can seem like a never-ending process. You must make sure that your employees complete the necessary paperwork and get through all the required training steps. Now add to this the fact that you may have hired several new employees recently. This can be a recipe for disaster, with the volume of tedious, time-consuming, repetitive paperwork, one miss can easily cause any number of necessary steps to be overlooked and required items can easily slip through the cracks. Automation is key in making sure that does not happen.
If you want to ensure effective onboarding for your employees, you need a way to keep track of them individually. You can schedule automated reminders to check in on new hires, so you don't lose anyone along the way. This helps when providing ongoing coaching and mentoring as new hires learn about the company.
Keeping track of each employee's progress will help you better understand key aspects of everyone’s needs. For example, where they may need additional training or why they might not be performing at their best. On-boarding software may also provide continuous compliance monitoring in the system, linking the employees to the required training. Scheduling automated check-ins during new hire onboarding. You will now get immediate feedback on each employee's progress. An employee’s individual development can also be tracked over time, allowing you to adjust, as necessary.
At the end of the day, organizations need to take onboarding seriously, this is a cornerstone to employee engagement. Not only do they want their new hires to be as productive as possible when they're on the job. They also want them to be as satisfied as possible with their workplace. An automation-based process takes out the time-consuming efforts of methodically following a detailed checklists. Then verifying each step of onboarding that comes with a manual process. Employees appreciate feeling as though they are being taken care of by their company. With a streamlined process that makes their experience simple and stress-free.
The result is that these companies will have new hires who are more engaged and ready to go from day one. That's why automation is key. There are limitless opportunities for organizations to implement a seamless process that puts everyone in a position to succeed. If you would like to learn more about the benefits of automation, please contact us!