Automate Your New Employee Onboarding

Working with small business owners over many years, I understand the time and effort that goes into bringing on a new team member into a business. What’s surprising is how many business owners unintentionally rush the process and overlook critical onboarding training and initiatives in an attempt to get the new hire up to speed as quickly as possible. It’s understandable in a small business that the aim of a new hire is to start getting some ROI happening to offset the expense of a new employee. However, the lack of an effective onboarding process ultimately ends up costing the business more in the longer term. Inadvertently the new team member is left with a not so great first impression and questioning their decision to accept the position. Facing this prospect so early in the onboarding phase could significantly impact the odds of succeeding in the job.

To become skilled, not only in hiring but in successfully holding on to great team members, you need to have a proven onboarding process in place. Your success rate will be a direct result of the process you undertake in the first 30 to 90 days of employment.

Onboarding and training a new team member can be one of the biggest drains of time and energy in any business or organisation. While not replacing a hands-on approach to onboarding, there is some smart automation and tools that can significantly reduce the time it takes to get a new team member inducted into your company.

Regardless of the type of position you are hiring for, there will be elements of your induction process that are rinse and repeat for every new hire. A great place to start is a simple checklist of all the regular and job-related activities that need to happen to ensure that the team member and HR Representative complete all the necessary steps.

Why Automate

Experience and Communication

• Automation workflows improve the overall experience of a new hire by creating a great impression from the very start.
• Automation of processes facilitates the completion of necessary employment forms before the first day on the job, thus freeing up the day for more meaningful experiences.
• Automation ensures that important company information such as core values and company performance guidelines are not overlooked in favour of supposedly more urgent matters.
• Brand personality, culture and concepts can be more easily conveyed using engaging media such as images and video.
• Information and reference materials can be stored all in one place rather than hidden in a stream of email messages.
• Onboarding can be interactive and enjoyable by providing e-learning elements such as short quiz questions and encouraging comments and feedback.

Acknowledgements

• To ensure new hires have read and understood the various components of their induction and training, some software platforms let you create, distribute and store online signatures and compliance agreements.
• Using technology to facilitate the onboarding process frees up key departments like HR from the drudgery of paper processes. Time can be better spent on focusing on building rapport and setting expectations.

Provisioning

• Transparency and collaboration are facilitated by assigning tasks automatically to other relevant departments, such as getting access to software and equipment.

Performance Management

• Automating key milestones removes the chance of forgetting key dates such as probation expiration dates. Automatic reminders ensure performance reviews will always be completed on time.
• Most automation software will seamlessly transition from induction to training and then to ongoing performance management.