Finding well-suited candidates and attracting, hiring and onboarding them is a time-consuming process. There are a lot of steps involved, and nailing each one is key to the satisfaction and productivity of your team members.
In fact, over 93% of employers believe that onboarding is critical for the retention of new hires. So why is it that 36% of HR professionals report having such inadequate technology to streamline the process that it negatively impacts their programme?
It seems there’s a mismatch between the importance placed on the process and the resources provided to manage it effectively. Employers are responsible for providing solutions that simplify ways of working for their workforce, one of which is the implementation of onboarding software.
What is Onboarding Software?
Employee onboarding software digitises the process of integrating new hires into a company. The software is a set of digital tools that automate and streamline how you welcome employees, setting them up for success from day one. More often than not, the system will include document management, training, task checklists and workflows, and trackers to monitor progress. It is designed to ease the workload of existing employees and managers by welcoming new staff in the most efficient way possible.
Benefits of Onboarding Software
Improving the way you onboard new hires with software can have a multitude of benefits – not just for the individual, but for your existing workforce and the company’s bottom line. Here are a few of the most impactful ones.
1. Boosts Retention Rate and Reduces Turnover Costs
The culture of ‘job hopping’ has become a lot more prevalent in the last few years. Nowadays, employees are much more comfortable with the idea of working for a company for a short period of time and carving out non-linear career paths – especially those belonging to younger generations. This freedom is advantageous in many ways, but it can lead to some tough challenges for employers, specifically keeping hold of trusted and valued employees.
What employers often overlook is the importance of onboarding for doing just that. The way that candidates are welcomed and transitioned into employees is critical in shaping their view of the company and increasing the likelihood of them staying long-term. A Glassdoor survey even found that onboarding boosts a company’s retention rate by 82% when carried out effectively.
There is no greater tool for this than onboarding software. Digitising the process improves the experience of employees by increasing transparency over expectations and tasks. This increased clarity eases the anxiety and enables new hires to feel more confident and comfortable in their role, and aware that their management team supports and values them. When workers feel this way, they are empowered to perform to the best of their abilities, grow in their roles and therefore stay longer. In turn, this has a positive impact on turnover and, importantly, the costs associated with it.
Satisfaction thanks to onboarding software extends to existing employees, too. By streamlining administrative tasks like issuing offer letters and monitoring progress of onboarding tasks, managers are heavily supported in their duties.
2. Improves your employer brand
Onboarding is the first opportunity you have to make an impression on your new hire. It’s at this early stage that they are most impressionable to your company and its values – and most likely to share intel with friends and family.
A smooth transition into the company is critical if you want this word of mouth to be positive. Onboarding software guarantees this in a few ways. Firstly, it is able to use candidate information stored from recruitment to avoid new hires repeating tasks, leading to a much less tedious process. What’s more, it enables you to create automated workflows that instantly inform new hires of their pending tasks so they know precisely which steps to take and there’s no confusion over their to-do list.
Some onboarding softwares will also include offboarding tools, enabling you to collect valuable testimonials when an employee leaves the business, helping you to make informed changes to the onboarding journey.
All of this is crucial to controlling the public narrative about your company. Word of mouth is one of the most important channels an employer has to craft their brand image, so the opinion of your employees is incredibly important!
3. Improves Productivity
The faster you are able to educate and upskill your new employees, the better. This goes for both the individual themselves and the team as a whole. For this reason, you want to provide all of the resources and tools you can to support productivity from day one.
Yet, reports have shown that new worker productivity sits at about 25% during their first 30 days in a new job, suggesting that new hires often don’t receive the help and support they need to fulfill their responsibilities. Uncertainty in a new role can lead to under-performance, especially when managers and team members are busy with their own work.
With onboarding software, you can clarify tasks and set deadlines to integrate new staff instantly and empower them to hit the ground running. You don’t even have to wait until new hires start thanks to preboarding workflows that ensure the admin is done and dusted before day one. Onboarding workflows can then be assigned to individuals so that they receive direct notifications of pending tasks, removing any bottlenecks that could be created by teams being preoccupied.
Onboarding with Factorial
Factorial is the all-in-one HR software that integrates manual processes into integrated, effective ones. With their ATS and onboarding tools, you can recruit candidates seamlessly and transition them into new hires within a few clicks. Their user-friendly platform uses personal data stored from recruitment to create new employees in seconds.
What’s more, you can then assign pre-boarding workflows to new hires so that admin is out of the way before day one and they can hit the ground running from their first day. Once they’ve started at the company, you can automate onboarding workflows and delegate tasks to individuals with instant email notifications. All of these actions are centralised in the Welcome Space for new team members for clarity and simplicity.
You can book a free demo to speak to an expert about how Factorial’s onboarding software can work for your organisation.
