“Onboarding” is the introduction to the organization, both to the team the new employee will be working with, as well as the role, tasks, and responsibilities in a new workplace.
According to Harvard Business Review, organizations with a standardized onboarding process report a 62% higher productivity of new employees. Effective adaptation allows to properly organize the first weeks of a new job, enables to quickly achieve a high level of efficiency, and also confirms a new employee in the belief that joining the company was the right decision.
Onboarding in the employee era
Have you ever wondered how important the first impression is? It takes a quick glance for someone to evaluate and assess things that they see for the first time. The same is true for the company’s onboarding process. Some human resources specialists believe that onboarding starts along with the recruitment process. During that time potential employees have the opportunity to see the company for the first time and not only make a great first impression, but also get impressed by the future employer. It will form a base for their future relationship. The more positive the impression, the better the chances that the relationship will be stronger.
While in small organizations most of the rules are based on loose relationships and personal contacts, formalized onboarding may seem unnecessary, in industries where employers are fighting for candidates or where employee turnover is high, organized and automated onboarding process may turn out as crucial for the stable operating activity of the enterprise. It also may increase the chances of the contract being extended by a newly employed employee.
As Gallup research shows, employee turnover in the first 18 months of employment can even reach up to 50%. Other sources (The Boston Consulting Group) also indicate that companies that attach importance to HR activities such as a thorough onboarding, also achieve better financial results. Regardless of what research and data we refer to, the same conclusion can be drawn: the employer is subject to the most intensive assessment during the onboarding process. So what is worth paying more attention to in order for the new employee’s implementation to be successful? How to approach the topic of onboarding automation so that the project does not fail?
There are certainly many rules that an organization should follow in order to conduct a perfect onboarding. Let’s point out some of them and see how to say HELLO more effectively.
Help
As onboarding is the beginning of the employee journey, it is crucial to make an extra effort and do it in a professional way. Don’t forget that your employees are the most valuable resource in your organization. Their behavior in the workplace is mostly affected by the characteristics of the business or organization for which they work. Therefore, you should treat them with caution especially at the very beginning of their journey when they are more likely to leave the company. You should support your new hires, help them as much as you can, provide them with all the necessary information and feedback. In order to be successful, adaptation requires both the employer and the employee to be engaged equally.
Endorsement
The first few weeks are crucial. You should not only take care of all the paperwork, which should, of course, be prepared before the new hire arrives at the organization, but you should also focus on the emotional sphere of your new workers. They will make some mistakes for sure and that’s what you should be prepared for. Don’t let them feel disappointed or meaningless especially when they still feel excited about their new job. Instead, listen and provide them with appropriate feedback that will navigate them towards the right solution. Increasing their potential may take a little way but be patient, it is definitely worth it. The effort that you put into delivering a professional recruitment process and furtherly into onboarding, training, and personal development, will pay off for sure. You should bear in mind that it is more economically viable to maintain employees you’ve already have, rather than recruit new ones.
Leadership
Being an effective leader requires a number of soft skills. You may need to develop the ability to communicate well, motivate your team, handle and delegate responsibilities, listen to feedback, and have the flexibility to solve problems. Therefore, remember that new recruits may feel a little bit uncertain at the beginning of work. Your main duty is to lead them and make sure that they won’t get lost. At the very beginning, you should ensure that the person is familiar with the office space. In order to do so, take a short trip around, show main departments where he or she can get certain advice and introduce a new person to the rest of the crew. At this stage, it is very important to ensure that new recruits will receive a warm welcome which will positively influence their attitude. Later stages are mostly focused on introducing to the new duties and responsibilities. You should prepare a personalized onboarding plan, including the KPI’s they should accomplish to succeed.
Learning
One of the most important issues during the onboarding process is to deliver all the necessary information through employee training. The learning process is crucial for any organization – it enables the smooth flow of information which in consequence causes an increase in efficiency and productivity. You should start with initial training – introduction, go through mandatory training (required by law) and provide additional product or services training as well. It helps new hires to understand organizational culture and the company’s policy. This is only a beginning. Nowadays, a good practice is to ensure that employees have access to e-learning platforms where they can consume knowledge and adapt to the organization at the right pace. It is not only about theoretical knowledge of course. It is only a short preparation before getting some practical skills. At this stage, you should listen to your workers and try to answer their questions in-depth manner.
Organize
The basis of an effective onboarding process is to transform it into an automated, measurable process. It is important that the process once developed is easily copyable and modifiable in the future – so choose an IT tool that will provide it.
Why should you measure the onboarding process?
Satisfaction assessment of newly on-boarded employees allows to indicate the strengths of the organization, but above all, it indicates which elements of the onboarding process, or more broadly – regarding any aspect of the organization’s functioning – should be improved. The benefit is mutual – the employee has a feeling that he or she has a real impact on the functioning of the company and will certainly appreciate the opportunity to actively participate in the process of building a better organization. The employer, in return, receives a tool that allows measuring the “mood temperature”, as well as an important source of inspiration, free of charge. Strengthening the positive attitude of a new employee, conducting periodic interviews, but also examining the assessment of implementation, will certainly translate into a positive assessment of the onboarding process and increase its effectiveness.
Why is it worth to digitize and centralize onboarding processes?
Optimization and automation of the most important human resources’ processes should be a priority for any modern organization. An onboarding process carried out properly brings a number of benefits. It:
- helps to achieve full employee efficiency in the shortest possible time,
- reduces the tension and stress associated with starting a new job,
- increases the feeling of attachment to the company, and the level of satisfaction & motivation, which will be reflected in the quality of work (especially in dispersed organizations).
- reduces employee churn.
Choosing the right platform to provide an automated onboarding process is crucial.
Onboarding automation in HRM Productive24
HRM Productive24 is a solution that not only facilitates the quick and effective onboarding of a new employee but also automates all repetitive processes related to human resources. The HRM Productive24 onboarding module supports a new employee in the adaptation process from the moment the employment starts. When logging in to the HRM Productive24 for the first time, a new employee receives all the necessary information on what to expect during the first months of work. This, of course, will not replace personal contact with the supervisor and co-workers but it can organize and structurize all the important information and give the impression of transparency and professionalism.
A comprehensive onboarding process should include employees working in different departments.
HRM Prodctive24 enables the onboarding process that includes people who play different roles in the organization (e.g. the direct manager, onboarding supervisor, OSH trainer…) and those who work in various departments, e.g.. t, IT, HR, administration, etc.
With HRM Productive24 you can easily:
- Generate pre-onboarding and onboarding process automatically – based on a positive decision from the recruitment process,
- Carry out all onboarding processes (planning, executing and measuring) – within one system,
- Conduct any onboarding training (on-the-job, product, organizational, implementation of new procedures, retraining specialists from the team, etc.), e.g. in the form of slide presentations, attached video content, documents (various file formats),
- Work both on-site and off-site (native applications for iOS, Android and Windows10) – HRM Productive24 works both online and offline,
- Introduce elements of gamification at any stage, e.g. in the form of surveys or control quizzes, and support employees in chat – on a regular basis, in the context of a given task or problem.
- Divide the employee implementation process into various stages. Observe (on the calendar view or Gantt chart) and assess the progress in their implementation.
- The pace of acquiring knowledge can be measured and compared with historical data within selected groups of employees.
- Conduct post-implementation surveys and gain valuable feedback from new hires.
- Analyze data with the use of statistics and monitoring the implementation time of individual stages;
- Use the acquired data to further optimize the organization’s processes.
Importantly, in HRM Productive24 onboarding processes are parameterized by the administrator or business process owner. The module enables, among others:
- Preparation of predefined content (templates) in any element of the process;
- Automatic selection of the appropriate process according to the position or nature of the employee’s work;
- Setting roles in the process;
- Granting authorization to access individual data;
- Process automation – with a single click, the business owner of the process can easily model the stages of implementation of employees/colleagues, e.g. by groups, positions, departments, locations, etc. or individually;
- Adding an infinite number of onboarding processes;
- Adding an infinite number of stages;
- Independent management of the list and configuration of data stages in the process;
- Adding video content, graphics, and other attachments in various formats in any process.
Thanks to the onboarding process implemented with the support of HRM Productive24, the employee is guided through the entire process in an intuitive and organized way.
What are the additional benefits of implementing the onboarding process in HRM Productive24 in the organization?
Onboarding automation also means better control over the adaptation and implementation process. Moreover, easier communication between the HR department and the immediate superiors of a new employee, greater efficiency and quality of the employment process. Better communication also means better employee well-being and less risk of resigning from work after a trial period, transparency and order of the process of introducing new people to the team, as well as better understanding of company values. Once created, the process can be used multiple times and easily modified, saving time and money.
More about HRM Productive24
HRM Productive24 is not only about onboarding – it is a modern, flexible platform for effective management of HR that fully adapts to the needs of the organization. It enables to manage any processes related to human capital and human resources management, including HR administration related to recruitment, employment, vacation planning, work time registration, planning and settlement of delegations, termination of employment (circulation card, exit interview), management (MBO, KPI) and development: onboarding, career paths, trainings (training management and e-learning), competence-base, employee assessment, etc. What’s more, the system presents a dashboard with all HR indicators.
Productive24 – many applications, many departments – one common system
HRM Productive24 is one of many examples of using the Productive24 platform.
Thus, the processes in Productive24 can interpenetrate, connect, and influence each other. For example, at the pre-onboarding stage (related to the preparation of a workplace) the system can generate automatic tasks in the notification module for certain managers or for the IT department (e.g. tickets for the preparation of equipment and access to IT systems). Moreover, it also works in the fleet management module, e.g. creating documents for the allocation of company cars and confirmation of the car’s release by completing an appropriate report in that module. A compulsory element of each individual training (part of onboarding) could be ex. getting familiar with certain articles published in the WIKI module. In addition, the costs generated to cover the time necessary to accomplish the whole onboarding process may be useful to fill the forms in the budgeting module or the project management module. Appropriate authorizations to process personal data in the GDPR module can also be generated for new employees. The HRM system can also be connected with the Productive24 CRM system in the scope of changing tasks in the event of the employee’s absence reported in the HRM system, applications, e.g. to the human resources department for contract preparation, etc., etc. of this project). The ability to connect certain processes and digitization are almost limitless for Productive24.
