The Why, What and How of Employee Onboarding

Myth – Onboarding is a process meant only for big corporations.

Reality – 69% of the employees are more likely to stay longer with a company where they experienced a good onboarding process. And there are between 365-445 million MSMEs in emerging markets.

Here, it is safe to draw the inference that a huge percentage of the world’s workforce is employed by small and medium business.

So after all, employee onboarding is as important for small and medium businesses, as it is for large enterprises.

But, let us elaborate.

The WHY

Many studies have proven that good onboarding processes have positively influenced businesses in many ways such as,

• Increased retention: Benefits, bonuses, compensation, everything can be competed by other companies. With employee-centric workplaces building up, there is going to be a tug-of-war for good employees and the only way to survive with your existing people is to create a good culture.

  A good onboarding program will help you in creating a strong foundation of interpersonal relations and culture which not only attracts but also retains the best talent.

• Boosted business growth: The goal of an onboarding program is to promote early employee engagement and build a positive culture. And, of course, these things have a direct impact on your business as well.

According to Gallup, the workers who were more engaged with their companies during onboarding, earned about 147% higher per share than any of their competitors.

The WHAT

Every business, every organisation is different in its structure and functioning. And to suit the needs of everyone, employee onboarding software can be divided into 5 types.

• The integrated tool: these comprehensive tools can be described as “all-in-one”. The entire HR management process, including, benefits, payroll, attendance, compliance and all the similar steps can be commenced with this one tool.

E.g. – Kin is a great HR management tool that encompasses features like onboarding, employee data tracking & monitoring, compensation & salary tracking, HR task management and much more.

Source: https://kinhr.com/time-off-tracking

• The checklist tool: The simplest and most straightforward tools used for onboarding. All you need is to download the employee onboarding checklist template or you can choose to devise your own. These tools are generally available for free.
• Specialized onboarding tools: These tools are specially designed to improve and accelerate the employee onboarding process. They help in streamlining and automating the whole process by digitising it.

E.g. Talmundo is a popular onboarding tool that provides features such as electronic forms, orientation management, training progress tracking, feedback, career development planning, and even third-party integration.

Source: Talmundo

• Bot tools: Modern-day tech is incomplete without AI. Bot tools or Chatbots are designed to make the onboarding process more personalized and interactive. These are conversational tools which help the learners in answering all their questions.

E.g. – ChiefOnboarding goes a step further when it comes to providing onboarding technology with the help of their Slack onboarding bot. It looks something like this.

Source: chiefonboarding

• Free tools: Although free like checklist tools, they provide much more flexibility and many more features. They only require user registration and login for you get started with them.

E.g. – Trello is not a new name in employee management tools category. With features of tracking, storing, sharing and discussing, it has become an integral part of many corporate teams.

Source: Trello

The HOW

Having the reason and tools, only fulfills half the criteria before you begin employee on-boarding in your company. Before starting, you need a standard process to follow.

• The basic and necessary
  1. Reach out to your new recruits to inform them about things like cafeteria, parking, shift times, etc.
  2. Provide a daily schedule to the new people for their better orientation
  3. Providing them with required equipment and giving them the opportunity to interact with other (old and new) teammates is important.
  4. The idea is to make them feel welcome and comfortable in a new space.

• Sharing information
  1. Even before and employee joins your company, you can convey the basic hierarchy, process, events and information flow of the company.
  2. Assigning a work buddy or a mentor also helps the employee in understanding the culture faster and in a better way.

• Applying experience
  1. Getting feedback from the older employees about the onboarding process can give you useful insights about what needs to be done differently.
  2. For doing this, AI applications, such as Chatbots can be used for better results.

• Training access
  1. If you have an eLearning training program for your employees, like a learning management system, or any other platform, you can grant its access to your new people before their joining date itself.
  2. In case there is no system in place, the HR should consider developing a training program so as to make the process more accountable and transparent.

A good employee onboarding process creates a strong foundation for the new recruits to become a part of a company. Increased retention and decreased attrition are the biggest and direct benefits that come from a good onboarding for any company.

So, learn about the best suited process and tools for your company and implement them for a long-term profit, for you and your employees.