Top 5 Ways Companies Are Affected by Onboarding

Modern onboarding has been a boon to the employee experience – it improves engagement, decreases the learning curve to full productivity, and accelerates new hire integration and team cohesion. However, the benefits (and potential pitfalls) of onboarding don’t stop at the employee level, there are many ways the entire company is influenced by onboarding.

Here are the top 5:

1. Brand Perception

In the age of instantaneous internet reviews, your employees are talking. New hires could be tweeting about the incredibly thoughtful welcome box they received, filled with company swag and thoughtful treats or about how lousy their first day was. Being intentional about your onboarding helps positively solidify your brand in your new hire’s mind.

2. Employee Data

Employers are responsible for collecting significant personal data from each employee, and most of it is collected during the onboarding period. Once collected, the employer is responsible and liable for protecting the data and keeping it safe. Email and manual storage screams for an audit and/or a data breach which yields hefty fines and negative publicity. A centralized, cloud-based, secure repository that is GDPR and SOC 2 Type 2 compliant is an employer’s best bet to prevent a data breach.

3. Employee Churn

Employees like interviewing for new jobs about as much as employers like spending the time and effort to find ideal candidates. However, poor onboarding makes new employees question their decision to join the company and increases the likelihood of them leaving. Great onboarding makes new hires feel good about their decision, helps them get acclimated, and makes them want to stick around. This provides you with a steady state of loyal employees, instead of a revolving door of candidates.

4. Compliance Exposure

Between local and state tax regulations, remote worker considerations, and the many required forms, being compliant is a constant and ongoing challenge with high stakes. An automated system with best practice workflows and forms built in can mitigate these risks but a paper-based, manual system leaves companies perpetually at risk.

5. Pay Day

New hires rely on HR to process their employee profile so they can be paid on time. Manual onboarding can lead to delays in profiles being entered into HRIS systems, which leads to payroll delays, unhappy new hires, and compliance issues. Not to mention – what a terrible first impression! Don’t kid yourself, one of the main reasons your new hire got a job was for a paycheck! Automated onboarding ensures all employee data flows seamlessly between systems so new hires are never paid late.

Onboarding is so much more than an HR function. The effects of onboarding, good or bad, ripple out in waves, leaving trails of consequences for poor onboarding and happy new hires in the wake of great onboarding.

HR Tech 2019

We had an amazing time at HR Tech this year! It was wonderful seeing everyone again – each year just feels more and more like a family reunion.

As you may recall, we were nominated for the best next technology award in 2017. We’ve expanded since then! Our team has grown – we’ve added additional staff in product, service, implementation, and sales. We’ve created a new product offering – offboarding. If you haven’t heard about it yet have a look!

We thoroughly enjoyed getting to spend some time with our clients and meet potential new clients. Judy B. Lodanosky of SKF gave us a glowing review and was kind enough to let us film it. She said,

“One of the things we’re most excited about with Click Boarding is the ability of our production workers to do onboarding via their mobile phone. Our Salt Lake City location is saving tons of time – about 45 minutes on paperwork per new hire.”

Check it out:

Can’t wait to see you all at the next conference!

Top 5 Onboarding Secret Weapons       

Onboarding used to be merely an exercise in compliance and admin, designed to get new employees into the system. While those are important pieces, they are but a few components of successfully onboarding an engaged new hire who feels valued, integrated, and confident.

Great onboarding has the power to elevate the new hire experience, super charge their productivity, and make them feel like an invaluable part of the team. While poor onboarding can drive new hires to panic and scramble to look for a new job.

The real secret weapons of onboarding are:

1. Company Culture

Your new hire has read your company reviews online and gleaned as much as possible from the interview, but they still only have a scant notion of your company culture. Help them understand it by including a video during onboarding, actively talking about it, and inviting them to company traditions – such as monthly celebrations or volunteer events.  

New hires can’t feel like part of the team until they understand the company culture, and onboarding is the perfect time to teach them about it.

2. Socialization

The nerves of starting a new role are very real, and one of the easiest ways to combat this is to mobilize your new hire’s social circle. Plan a team lunch, coordinate a mentor, and link the new hire up with an ‘onboarding buddy’ to help make them feel connected.

It’s best to inform them during the preboarding phase so they can look forward to these activities instead of wondering if they will be sitting alone during their first lunch.

3. Productivity

Intelligent onboarding engages new hires before their first day so that all compliance, benefit, and admin paperwork can be completed before they step foot in your office. It also ensures your new hire has everything they need to be productive from day one – from laptops to security clearance.

4. Expectations

Every new employee worries if they are doing enough, and to varying degrees, many new employees worry if they are enough when starting a new job. By weaving expectations into the onboarding process your new hire never has to wonder if they are on track – all the expectations are clearly laid out for them.

5. Values

Your company values and mission are at the heart of your organization. A company-wide, standardized onboarding program ensures that every new employee receives the same message about your mission and values.

Onboarding should be so much more than an exercise in compliance and administrative paperwork. Include these five elements in your onboarding program and watch your new hire retention and engagement soar.

One simple way to accelerate senior leader onboarding

What’s the difference between regular onboarding and senior leader onboarding? The stakes are even higher, much higher. Senior leaders understand the massive expectations of them, especially when they join a new organization, and the 10X magnifier on their every move. Their onboarding process needs to be comprehensive and precise to protect these talented additions from unintentional gaffes (hello…going to work in a suit on the first day when everyone else is in hoodies) and dings to their authority before they’ve even gotten their feet wet.

Senior leaders have ascended the ranks and achieved expert status, but they’re not experts in your company yet. They don’t know your culture, your office quirks, and much more. They need a guide to get them up to speed, fast.

Enter, modern onboarding: Senior Leader Edition.

Just like regular onboarding, the process needs to be an automated, seamless journey that intuitively guides them into the organization. It also needs to be complete but concise, since their time is not only valuable but limited and typically spread thin. The big difference from standard onboarding is the depth, breadth, and level of detail needed to be included to empower them to succeed from day 1.

Each senior leader should be provided a digital repository (and potentially even an old school binder) filled with critical information. It should include major initiatives and current status, information about their direct reports and admin, and department-specific information.  This dossier – essentially their cheat sheet to the organization – ensures they have all the knowledge they need to be successful and feel prepared for this new role and company experience. You don’t want them to be blindsided by something they could have been prepared for with a bit of upfront insider information.

Senior leaders are under immense scrutiny when joining a new organization. Their peers are wondering if they’ve got the chops, their direct reports are questioning their competence and authority, and the leader is wondering if they can do the job and if take the role was the right choice.

Remember: knowledge is power. Equipping your new senior leaders with this dossier prepares them, demonstrates your genuine investment in them, and helps quell the nerves they’re likely facing about this big change. Your senior leaders may be able to recover from an unintentional blunder due to poor onboarding, but they really shouldn’t have to.