Hiring is hard work right now, with talent shortages across a number of industries. But landing a great candidate isn’t the end of the story, as employers also need to ensure that their onboarding processes are up to scratch.
Slowly but surely, organisations are starting to see the benefits of automating onboarding. It saves time, money and resources, and delivers a more consistent experience across the board. But it also has considerable benefits for new hires too.
Let’s take a look at some of the key ways that automation can improve the employee onboarding experience:
Better access to complete information
The onboarding and induction process can be extremely daunting for new hires. It’s a whirlwind of paperwork, policies and a bombardment of information.
Automated processes and platforms can help to ease this information overload, by giving new team members a central point to access what they need – when they need it. They won’t need to search their emails or contact multiple colleagues, but can instead read up on company policies and processes at their own pace.
Automated systems can also set out a clear timeline and reminders for check-ins between employees and managers, training, performance reviews.
Faster, more efficient inductions
According to software solutions specialist Chetu, new hires have over 50 new tasks to complete during their first few weeks. These range from setting up new email accounts to training.
Automation can help to organise these tasks and free up staff time. Employees don’t have to wait for someone to have a free moment to set them up on a new system, or find the right person to ask about filling in a particular form.
It can all be done on one central platform, where the employee is guided through the process. This speeds up inductions and makes them far less chaotic, which leads neatly to the next key benefit on our list.
A more positive onboarding experience
Without organisation and planning, onboarding can be unpleasant for new employees. It can be confusing and overwhelming, where the employee isn’t sure what they’re supposed to be doing or what information they need.
Automation helps to make the employee onboarding process more consistent. This means you can design a custom process from start to finish, and let automated tools handle the rest.
A boost for employee retention
Arguably the most important reason to improve the employee onboarding experience is staff retention.
Research from Gallup found that a huge 88% of employees don’t have a positive opinion of their company’s onboarding program. And a further study by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) found that employee turnover within the first 18 months of joining an organisation can be as high as 50%.
The reason for this is engagement, or lack of it. New hires come through the door full of expectations, so they can be disappointed easily. A bad onboarding process prevents any kind of emotional bond from forming between the employee and the company – and this can have a major impact on retention.
Need help hiring? Get in touch with our expert team here at Fairmont Recruitment.
