A strong recruitment process is key to finding and retaining great employees, but what you do after they’re hired is just as important. From introducing new employees to their co-workers to familiarizing them with your company culture and policies, a successful onboarding program can improve productivity and increase employee retention.
While onboarding software can help you deliver an effective onboarding process, every company has its own onboarding needs — and in fact, even individual employees may need a customized onboarding guide tailored to their skills and experience level.
Whether you’re introducing a new team member to your workspace or training remote employees, here’s how to create an effective onboarding process that makes a great first impression and sets your new team member up for success from Day One.
An onboarding program is a set of practices used to welcome new members to your company or organization. In this post, we’ll be focusing on the employee onboarding process — although some organizations also have a customer or client onboarding program that serves a similar purpose and may use some of the same tools.
Your onboarding checklist might include some or all of the following:
If you’re welcoming multiple employees all at once, you might have a group onboarding experience with in-person training and team-building activities. If you’re onboarding new hires one-on-one, you could provide an AI-powered employee support center to guide them through the process and allow them to move at their own pace.
A good onboarding program should begin before your new employee starts their job and continue well into their first month or year at your organization. Here are three stages to keep in mind when creating an employee onboarding process from scratch:
Pre-boarding starts as soon as you make a job offer and continues until the new hire’s first day on the job. Start by sending out a welcome email with a reminder of their start date, and an onboarding guide so they know what to expect from the process.
Then, ask them to fill out new hire paperwork digitally — including their tax forms and direct deposit information — so they don’t have to do it when they arrive.
This is also a good time to attach your employee handbook so they can get to know your company policies and the obligations that come with their new role.
Next comes the most important part of the onboarding program — the employee’s first week on the job. Set aside some time to show them around their new workspace — or remote work environment — and introduce them to their co-workers.
Depending on their job description, you might break down orientation and training into two separate components, or combine them into an onboarding training program with online training modules and/or skill assessments.
Either way, an effective employee onboarding process should include a mix of formal training, in which they learn the day-to-day responsibilities of their new job, and some socializing, in which they get to know their new co-workers and supervisors.
An employee’s first day on the job is just the beginning: schedule regular check-ins with their supervisor or hiring manager to see how well they’re integrating into the company. This part of the onboarding process should extend well into their first year, and should be separate from your usual performance management process.
Following up boosts employee engagement and satisfaction by showing that you care about their long-term success and professional development.
It’s also a good opportunity to check in about opportunities to upskill or reskill, and to remind them about any professional certifications that are about to expire.
Artificial intelligence (AI) can be a useful tool in the human resources (HR) department. Today’s HR professionals use AI in recruitment, analytics, and more. But how exactly does it fit into the new employee onboarding process? Here are three ways AI can streamline onboarding and provide a better employee experience overall:
HR teams can easily get overwhelmed with all of the steps involved with onboarding a new employee. From misplaced paperwork to expired credentials, the new employee onboarding process presents plenty of opportunities for human error.
Using an AI-powered automation platform like RapidBee can take a lot of the pressure off of your HR team. Not only can you use it to generate new documents automatically, you can convert traditional documents into digital forms without having to code.
RapidBee can also send out automated alerts to remind your new hire about an urgent task or let your HR team know when they need to take action. It also has a certification tracking feature you can use to remind a current employee that a credential is about to expire — saving you from a potential workplace safety or compliance issue.
Each new hire has their own communication preferences and learning style; some may have a disability that qualifies them for a workplace accommodation under the ADA.
Instead of having a standardized onboarding program with rigid templates that can’t be changed from one employee to the next, use AI to provide a personalized onboarding plan for each employee based on information you discover along the way.
With RapidBee, you can create custom training modules for each employee, so they don’t have to review material they’re already familiar with or that isn’t relevant to their job description. You can even provide an AI chatbot or onboarding buddy employees can turn to if they have questions along the way.
RapidBee’s AI-driven chat and ticket management system resolves simple queries in real-time and automatically escalates complex cases to your HR department.
The employee onboarding process generates a lot of data. From new hire paperwork to employee performance metrics, look for onboarding software that can store employee data securely and help you make sense of it with predictive HR analytics.
RapidBee integrates with a wide range of human resource information systems (HRIS) — as well as Google Drive, OneDrive, and SharePoint — so you can use your existing investments while benefiting from advances in artificial intelligence.
With a unified HR operations platform, you can reduce data silos and ensure your data is synchronized across platforms. Use analytics to optimize your employee orientation workflow, increase employee satisfaction, and reduce turnover rates.
An effective onboarding program helps new employees acclimate to their new role and become an essential part of your workforce. It typically includes an orientation to your workplace, an introduction to colleagues, and of course, plenty of paperwork.
Onboarding software can streamline the process by generating onboarding documents automatically, delivering online training modules, and sending out reminders whenever something important gets missed. You can even use an AI chatbot as a personalized onboarding guide, providing support and answers to FAQs along the way.
RapidBee’s HR automation platform helps you streamline every stage of the employee lifestyle — from onboarding to offboarding — increasing job satisfaction and improving employee retention along the way. Request a demo today to see how it works!