It's challenging enough to find quality talent while cultivating a desirable employer brand. If your business has trouble retaining high-caliber employees despite offering competitive salaries and benefits, you might overlook the importance of onboarding.
A negative onboarding experience can set the tone for the rest of an employee's tenure. 43% of employees only received a one-day orientation and packet of information about benefits as their onboarding. While new hires don't need their hands held, efficient onboarding processes don't need to compromise appropriately, preparing them for their new roles.
Digital employee onboarding is the wave of the future to improve the employee experience and give new hires the tools they need to thrive in their roles. Here are some electronic onboarding benefits that delight both employees and employers alike.
24/7 Access with Two-Way Communication
Employees and managers can access paperless onboarding solutions anytime, anywhere. Live in-person and digital orientations can still be part of the process, but new hires can process information at their own pace.
Onboarding tasks and documents can be separated into mandatory items, and information employees can browse whenever they want. They can use the search function to find specific information instead of poring through papers. Onboarding software also usually has chat functions if employees are not already in touch with managers using another communications tool. They can ask questions in real-time or put them in the chat, separating onboarding matters from other work.
Simplifies Preboarding
Before onboarding even officially begins, digital HR onboarding tools make preboarding a snap. Preboarding is a crucial step that shouldn't be overlooked. Electronic new hire forms eliminate a lot of the overwhelm of starting a new job, like tax paperwork and other HR forms.
Getting all of the bureaucracy out of the way early through a streamlined digital portal gives the new hire more headspace for starting their new job. By accessing HR resources in advance, like benefits information and employee handbooks, employees also gain familiarity with your company. Digital tools can't tell the entire story, but they will get an idea of the culture and job expectations. The preboarding process is an excellent opportunity to build familiarity and incrementally introduce the new hire to other team members.
When their official first day comes, new hires are more engaged, familiar, and less overwhelmed.
Onboarding Resources Instantly Update
Some employee resources must be tailored to a specific division, department, or role, while others are intended for the entire staff. Issuing print copies of new manuals, internal communications, and benefits information is cumbersome and not consistently effective. Digital onboarding solutions are incredibly inflexible and enable instant updates.
New documents are immediately accessible to employees, and communications are intended for everyone or specific groups. The onboarding process has room to evolve and include resources like videos, audio, courses, quizzes, and more. You no longer need to re-imagine onboarding from the ground up--you can start with a seamless onboarding process, and then it only goes up from there.
Accommodates Different Learning Styles
Some people are visual learners and prefer to see video examples of what they will do in their new role. Infographics and diagrams explaining company policies and responsibilities help break up walls of text with references that are easy to understand. Still, other hires want to read their onboarding and training materials at their own pace or need transcripts to follow along with audio and video content.
Digital onboarding makes information more inclusive and accessible by automatically being more amenable to different learning styles than traditional onboarding. Live orientation sessions can still supplement digital onboarding, but they no longer have to be the default.
Ability to Track Employee Progress
You don't know who paid attention during a live orientation or actually read the manual. But with digital employee onboarding, tracking which new hires engaged with their materials is very easy.
If you assign courses and required videos or texts, you get a 360-degree view of which employees began courses and how far they progressed. This also provides insights on whether one individual is struggling with an onboarding task or training or if it's systemic with multiple employees.
Advantages of Digital Onboarding Solutions
Streamlining employee onboarding with paperless onboarding solutions offers many benefits to both employers and new hires. It is a cost-efficient model, and digital HR onboarding tools can also be supplemented with digital and live orientations and connecting with team members. Onboarding automation can be easily tailored to every firm and role, with opportunities for engagement that go beyond a benefits packet.
Ready to transform off-putting old practices into efficient onboarding processes that engage new hires at every step? Contact Payday Payroll today to learn more about our efficient paperless HR technologies that streamline onboarding and delight employees.