How well do you onboard your employees? Onboarding goes beyond the orientation week. In fact, according to Gallup’s, “Creating an Exceptional Onboarding Journey for New Employees,” proper onboarding should last as long as 12 months from the employee’s first official day. This is vastly different than most onboarding programs, which typically only last 3 to 6 months. Of course, the goal of onboarding is to help your new employees acclimate to your company culture and learn the intricacies of their positions, and when you do this properly, it can help you retain employees for the long term. One of the ways to can ensure a seamless onboarding experience for both your new hires and management staff is to automate some of those processes. In this article, we’ll discuss the ways you can implement automation into your onboarding.
Ideas to Help You Implement Automated Onboarding
Automated onboarding can help ensure that your new hires fill out all the needed paperwork in a timely manner and get all their training completed. It can also help you make sure that certain tasks are completed prior to your new employee’s start date, including making sure that all equipment is sent to the employee and that all the needed accounts are created.
Automatically Send Welcome Emails
You can set up your Human Resources Information System (HRIS) to automatically send a welcome email once your new hire’s basic information has been input into the system. The HR welcome email should include a polite greeting welcoming the individual to the team and provide any pertinent information, like where to park on their first day, what room to go to or who to ask for, the dress code and any information they need to be able to access your building. If your new employee is fully remote or hybrid, the email should contain information on how to access the company WiFi or when to expect to receive all the login credentials as well as how to download the company apps. These emails work best if they are sent about a week before the new employee’s start date. Additionally, if you want your new employee to complete the new hire paperwork ahead of time, you should include that login in the email and provide access instructions.
Ensure Device Delivery with Automated Shipping Notices
Many employees are issued company laptops and other equipment before their start date. This is to ensure that they have all the tools they need in order to go through orientation and onboarding as well as to do their jobs. To ensure that your employee receives his or her equipment in a timely manner, set up an automated email that generates when the equipment ships or if the equipment isn’t shipped on time or gets delayed in transit. These emails can help alert you to the need to create contingency plans and inform the proper personnel, like the IT manager and the employee’s direct manager, when shipping delays are experienced.
Automate Account Creation
Depending on the features of your HRIS system, you may be able to trigger it to automatically create the needed accounts for your employee, based on their job title and duties. A less automated way to do this would be to have the HR system trigger an email to IT in order to have the accounts created. Once all the accounts and permissions are granted, your new employee should be sent an email with all the information so that they can login and begin their orientation and training.
Automate Training and Employee Development
In order to ensure a smooth orientation and onboarding experience and to make sure the employee receives all of the necessary training, it’s important to have a training portal, where the employee can view relevant videos and take the appropriate training courses. By automating your training, you are making sure that all the training within your company is standardized and compliant with any legal rules and regulations as well as with your own internal company policies.
Automate Progress Tracking
Set up reminders to track your new hire’s progress in the system. It isn’t enough to just provide the training, you’ll also need to make sure the employee is completing the training. By reminding yourself to check the employee’s progress, you are also giving yourself the opportunity to personally check in with the employee to see if they are having any difficulties or need any help.
Implement an HR Training Chatbot
To answer common questions about onboarding, training and company policies, you can create an employee onboarding chatbot that is programmed to answer common questions and direct the new hire to where they can find additional information. If the chatbot can’t answer something, it can trigger an email to the individual who can answer the question.
Employee Onboarding Help with ASAP Payroll
If you’re looking to automate and streamline your HR services, including employee onboarding, ASAP Payroll Service can help. We offer a variety of HR solutions, including a fully functional HCM Platform, employee benefits administration with a self-service portal for employees, an HR library and employee onboarding solutions.
To request a quote, contact ASAP Payroll Service today.
