Employee onboarding is a critical affair, so a dynamic and delightful onboarding experience requires powerful employee onboarding software to inspire and engage the new hires, overcome the initial challenges and align them to the organizational culture and environment from the beginning of the employee lifecycle.
Onboarding programs are chiefly conducted for assisting the new employees in having a deeper understanding of the business process, operations, rules, regulations, and core values of the company. An efficient onboarding process explains to employees their roles and responsibilities and how they contribute to the organization's overall growth and development. Onboarding smoothes out the transition and prepares the recruits to assume their duties by imparting the necessary knowledge and skills. A great way to offer a uniform and practical onboarding experience is to deploy a suitable and feature-rich employee onboarding software.
Organizations have already begun to realize the impact of the onboarding experience on employee engagement and employee retention. According to a survey done by Brandon Hall Group, efficient onboarding can improve employee retention by 82% and raise the organization's productivity to 70%. Conversely, failing to deliver a positive onboarding experience to the new hires results in high employee turnover, spiraling hiring costs, longer time to productivity, and several other disastrous effects on the company. So, a prudent choice of employee onboarding software or a comprehensive employee onboarding platform with the ability to accommodate the custom onboarding needs of the organization in this hybrid working environment is imperative for securing future resilience and success.
What Is Employee Onboarding Software?
Employee onboarding software can perform the tasks and functions required for executing employee onboarding and help the stakeholders observe the new hires' onboarding experience. In addition, the centralized system enables users like HR professionals and managers to supervise the employee onboarding process and reflect on the recruits' journey, highlighting the crucial touchpoints.
Generally, the employee onboarding software contains multiple screens and visual elements, navigational options, and action buttons to offer a 360-degree view of the onboarding process. It enables its users to perform a wide variety of onboarding activities like eligibility verification of the new employees, displaying Payroll and benefits information of the employees, offering compliance solutions, insights, and much more. In addition, employee onboarding software integrates several functionalities into the digital dashboard using various screens, allowing employers and managers to monitor the progress of the new employees. It can also include a knowledge base containing training videos and guides for the new employees, helping them learn at their own pace.
Employee onboarding software can be a standalone application or part of the HR, talent, or workforce management suite that helps manage tasks like digitally filling out forms and documents, e-signing, introducing colleagues, informing about company policies and procedures, etc.
Key Benefits of Employee Onboarding Software
● Streamlines and Automates onboarding processes
● Improves the onboarding experience and sets the proper expectation
● Eases the onboarding process and creates better employee engagement
● Standardizes the onboarding process and makes it uniform
● Reduces the number of employees turnover and achieves better employee retention
● Saves time, effort, and resources required in the onboarding process
● Ensure compliance and accountability
Some Popular Features of the Employee Onboarding Software
Welcome Screen / Employee Self-Service Portal
The welcome screen or the self-service portal should contain all the details that new employees need to know when joining a team. The feature enables new hires to log in and view details of the onboarding process before they begin their work. It informs them about the details of the first day of the training, job description, primary responsibilities, office location, the main contact's name, etc. Visual representation of the contents can make it attractive and easier to understand. The portal may offer the opportunity to post photos and videos to make it more interactive and enjoyable for its users. A short welcome message from the CEO or key personnel, or a highlight reel about what to expect when working for the company, can significantly enhance the first-day experience of the employee.
Task management
Multiple stakeholders from various departments are involved in the onboarding exercise. It becomes very difficult to track assigned tasks and monitor their status with such a wide and complex collaboration. Therefore, the task manager and checklist options are essential to encourage stakeholders to complete their functions and actions in time. For example, new hires can view whether the IT department has already arranged a new employee workspace, such as a laptop and email ID, from the task management feature. They can also check if the finance team has added the payroll details. In addition to that, they will be able to join the introductions and check-in meetings arranged by their supervisor from the same software.
Integration
The employee onboarding software must seamlessly integrate with the existing Human Resource Information System, Employee Life Cycle Management Software, Workforce Management Software, or any systems or standalone software related to the process or the employees. The capability of integration and compatibility prevents the duplication of data and efforts. Information that has been stored in one application should be available to the other one. For example -contact details of the new employees must be available in the HRIS in real-time vis-a-vis new employees must be able to view their team profiles from the HRIS.
Templated Forms
Employee Onboarding software often comes with templated forms to fulfill the onboarding needs. In addition, the organizations can tailor them according to their hiring policies and compliance requirements.
Auto population
The feature of auto-population streamlines the process of filling out the details in forms and reduces the effort needed to complete the lengthy paperwork involved in the onboarding process. The users need to enter the information once, and it will be auto-populated or appear in the appropriate places in all the necessary forms.
Electronic Signature
Verification, validation, and approval of documents can be completely paperless and streamlined with electronic signature or e-signature facilities.
Automated Offer Letters and Emails
Employee onboarding software can generate automated, and personalized offer letters for the new hires and is able to send emails automatically to the new employees with welcome messages, other content, and links.
Reporting and Dashboard
Extensive reporting options and an attractive dashboard provide real-time analytics and business insights into the employee onboarding process, enabling the HR and managers to understand the experience of the new hires better and help them to improve the employee onboarding experience.
How to Pick the Right Features for Your Employee Onboarding Software
Before deciding on the features, it is crucial to understand the specific need and nature of an organization's onboarding process. It varies largely from one company or enterprise to another, depending on the business, industry, region, employees, and other factors. Therefore, the employee onboarding software must be tailored according to your business need and goal to attract and retain the top talents and implement the right employee onboarding program.
