Onboarding a new employee is stressful, time-consuming, and challenging for the HR teams and the recruits. While new recruits struggle to adjust to a new workplace, procedures, and coworkers— the HR teams do their best to make sure the new hire is up to speed as quickly as is practical while taking into account excellent onboarding.
The human resources department and recruits must complete several responsibilities during onboarding. In fact, during the onboarding process, HR teams and new hires perform a plethora of tasks, and these tasks must be done manually in the absence of an onboarding platform, which adds to HR’s effort and deflates the excitement factor for new hires.
Human resources are the most valuable asset of every organization—effective onboarding helps speed up the process and lowers turnover rates by ensuring that new hires become productive team members. An effective onboarding program boosts productivity and job performance, reduces the chance of unexpected employee exits, and does many other things.
It is crucial to have a robust onboarding process to assist with onboarding new employees. Onboarding software or an employee onboarding platform simplifies the hiring process—ensures a smooth transition without turning onboarding into a time-consuming or burdensome procedure, and reduces time-consuming administrative activities. The software will keep a track record of potential candidates and employees and will be accessible 24/7 from any device.
Let us delve deeper into understanding the advantages of onboarding software when introducing a newly hired employee into your organization, but before that, we will walk you through what onboarding software is:
Understanding employee onboarding software
Onboarding software assists recruiting and HR teams create, manage, and track employee onboarding programs—it is a technology that assists organizations in ensuring that recruits have a seamless transition. Employee onboarding software frequently includes a digital dashboard that makes it simple for talent acquisition teams to connect and monitor each hire’s progress as they go through the employee onboarding stage of employment.
Onboarding software organizes paperwork, improves the document management process—keeps your new hires motivated, and takes care of all the tedious procedures associated with joining your new hires.
Onboarding software enables collaboration between your IT team, HR team, and manager to ensure that all tasks and requirements are completed for the new hire to ensure a smooth first day. It also allows HR personnel to send documents for signature and collect them with other required forms online before day one.
Some software even links the organization’s application tracking system and performance management system to enable a seamless transition in the new hire’s employment history. Some businesses use a hybrid approach that combines online tools with in-person alignment meetings—others use online tools, such as control panels for employee onboarding.
Whether a hybrid or an online tool, whatever approach you use, onboarding software will highly impact the culture of your business—help your new hires feel at home, and relieve them of their new responsibilities while also saving time and money.
6 Advantages of using employee onboarding software
The advantages of onboarding software go beyond the recruiting procedure itself—with improved hiring, businesses will increase overall business efficiency and profitability. You will be able to speed up, simplify, and accurately execute your onboarding process using onboarding software.
The key benefits of onboarding software include:
1. Invariable HR and employee experience
When using software to onboard employees, your new hires and the HR team members participating in the process will expect a consistent experience. HR teams using software tools will improve the process of onboarding new hires. One such tool is the creation of a digital checklist, which clarifies which activities need to be performed and when. After that, HR will be able to guide each new employee through the onboarding process with assurance.
In order to create confidence and demonstrate their worth, new hires will have a clear path through their onboarding strategy when they begin their new job. Because workers frequently talk about their experiences in online reviews, social media posts, or through word of mouth, this consistent experience also serves as a recruiting tool.
2. Enhance communication with key stakeholders
Proper communication is the key to success—setting expectations, conveying the organizational goals, and getting the relationship to a good beginning will be crucial when onboarding a new employee. A lack of communication at this crucial stage will permanently impact their opinion of your company and make conveying your ideas more challenging.
Communication is crucial to ensure a smooth transition between HR and the new hires. When you employ onboarding software, you will speed up communication between your HR department and new recruits. In this approach, the HR staff can immediately respond to any queries or issues that your new members must have.
Additionally, as they are now necessary to connect and engage with the existing workforce, communications are more critical than ever. Employee onboarding software will expedite communication between new employees and their supervisors and colleagues. It will help the HR teams to establish a single hub where all staff members will submit queries and exchange details about assignments, projects, and other matters.
By employing employee onboarding software, all employee communication will be centralized in one location, saving time in finding the right person to consult.
3. Reduces costs and increases employee retention
Turnover rates will be extraordinarily high in the early stages, where the typical turnover price is significant in the first 6 months. While it is challenging to eliminate attrition rates, employee onboarding software significantly reduces them.
Giving new employees access to independent support resources is a great benefit of investing in employee onboarding software. They will effectively fill up skill shortages or enhance work performance.
Onboarding software, among other aspects, speeds up the process of training new hires and improving their performance. Enhancing communication and eliminating duplication across divisions will also aid in improving the high quality of staff member onboarding programs, all of which contribute to a lower turnover rate.
Instead of contacting a manager for assistance or executing a work wrong until someone points out the error, onboarding software enables users to access the online tools they require whenever the need arises.
4. Enhance engagement and productivity
The employee onboarding software package is desirable for a company aiming to improve employee interaction and performance. Implementing an onboarding program for new employees will help them become much more engaged and effective at work much faster.
The impact of onboarding software on employee performance is one of its key benefits. A typical onboarding procedure shortens the time to productivity and increases new employee productivity by up to 50%. Including goal-setting and performance evaluations in your onboarding process helps prepare and assist your new hires.
As part of the onboarding process, new employees are trained in the company’s policies, rules, and laws and their responsibilities within the organization. The new recruits are given the information, instruction, and assistance required to function effectively on the team. Using onboarding software aids in orienting, engaging, and retaining workers.
Additionally, it shows that your organization aims to assist new employees by providing clear instructions and feedback. You will also be able to run new employee engagement surveys using onboarding software to receive feedback on your onboarding procedure.
5. Reduce paperwork for employees and managers
While hiring someone, there are lots of paperwork and projects to do. Coordinating the onboarding process with the help of onboarding software will eliminate the need to complete several onboarding forms, saving time and lowering the risk of human error by reducing documentation for new hires, HR, and supervisors.
New employees will be able to electronically complete and sign all necessary documentation and forms using onboarding software. In order to eliminate misunderstandings and possible mistakes, managers will also utilize the program to develop onboarding guidelines and monitor how new hires adhere to them. You must also replace paper-based forms with electronic ones to help you prevent mistakes and saves time.
6. Ensures accuracy and compliance
Compliance must be a priority during the onboarding process for new employees—failing to maintain track of crucial information, documents, and letters will result in major compliance issues and fines. The risks associated with an automated onboarding process are significantly reduced.
The software will make many compliance considerations during the onboarding of new workers simpler. HR must confirm candidates’ eligibility for employment, conduct background checks, and get tax documents for signature. It will be necessary for some recruits to sign nondisclosure agreements (NDAs), present documentation of their qualifications, or go through specific training. Onboarding software will digitally complete many of those simple verification procedures. By including all of the unique needs for each function in new hire packages, HR must ensure that the required data is gathered.
To further help the employees with their questions, they connect them to information networks and ensure they understand their job responsibilities. The software consultants inform fresh hires about legal regulations and concerns once the hiring procedure is over. It also ensures the efficient operation of a firm by setting automatic reminders and follow-up communications.
Wrapping up advantages of using employee onboarding software
The employee onboarding process is critical for new hires and hiring teams—to keep them motivated and satisfied for a productive future and the growth of your business, successful employee onboarding is a must. To make the most, employ robust onboarding software for an experience that leaves a good lasting impression and increases your team’s efficiency, reducing the turnover rate.
Author Bio:
Surya Ranjan Pandita is a content marketer. He is always on the lookout for new optimization strategies and loves to create actionable content.