How do you keep track of the multitude of different tasks that are required to successfully bring new hires into a company?
From contracts, offer letters, proof of identity, pre-reading and training admin, not to mention key tasks and prep for day one such as workstation set up.employee onboarding presents a daunting administrative challenge.
And a key way to handle this process has been through the use of an employee onboarding checklist.
An employee onboarding checklist sets out the exact sequence of HR actions that needs to happen to ensure that successful job applicants become fully integrated employees.
Often this is a manual process, 68% in fact according to our recent webonboarding survey. it means HR teams having to manually update checklists, creating slow and error prone processes. It’s these inherent weaknesses that are making more companies switch over to digital onboarding software.
Here’s a look at how:
Automated and interactive
To be of any value, a traditional employee checklist needs to be constantly updated with accurate information added at each stage of the onboarding process. The more employees are being handled, the more HR time and resources this starts to eat up.
With a cloud-based system, each task is tracked in real-time with checklists automatically updated the moment new information is added. It removes the need for any manual information entry – significantly reducing onboarding processing times.
Data connectivity
A fundamental flaw with the conventional approach to employee checklists is the lack of data connectivity. There’s no easy way to share information that’s stored within the various documents or spreadsheets.
The efficiency of onboarding software comes from the way that it automatically gathers and collates data across an organisation, allowing a central HR or Hiring team to always knows the status of each new hire. It creates a fully scalable way to manage employee checklists – capable of handling anything from a small startup to a global corporation.
Integrating onboardees
The primary role of an onboarding checklist has typically been as an administrative tool for HR and hiring managers. It means that onboardees are prone to be kept ‘out of the loop’, often left unsure of exactly which tasks are required of them.
A system such as webonboarding ensures that onboardees always know which tasks they need to complete. Each stage of the process is clearly communicated to them via an online portal with completed tasks being ticked off.
Improving the experience
The difficulties faced when trying to manually manage a swathe of different onboarding tasks means there’s a tendency for HR to focus only on essential tasks. Onboarding will typically consist of little more than contract signing and the exchange of payroll information.
With a schedule automatically tracked, HR teams have the ability to greatly enhance the experience for new hires. A checklist can include actions which are designed to integrate new employees into a company – welcome videos, information on social events and guides to help with relocation.
Streamlining the process
When an employee checklist takes the form of a static document, the onboarding process is difficult to modify. While an existing system may be inefficient, trying to change things around becomes prohibitively complex.
A failure to manage an onboarding checklist can have costly consequences. A 2017 survey of more than 4,000 workers found that 19 percent had left jobs within the first months due to poor onboarding experiences.
*Survey data by webonboarding 2017 and 2018.
