Top-notch onboarding is a key to employee engagement and retention. Without the right approach, simple mistakes could lead to serious financial consequences resulting in high employee churn.
According to Glassdoor research, companies with a strong onboarding process can improve the retention of new hires by 82% and increase productivity by 70%.
HR leaders can struggle with improving and updating their onboarding programs. With the right onboarding software, it's possible to streamline the onboarding process, increase employee satisfaction rates, and improve business operations.
Let's take a closer look at what the right onboarding software can do for your company.
What Is Onboarding Software?
Onboarding software is a program or a set of programs designed to facilitate the induction of new hires. Depending on the features an onboarding software offers, it can provide a variety of services, including:
- Eliminating tedious manual processes that include high volumes of paperwork.
- Assisting new hires through each step of the orientation.
- Helping with benefits enrollment.
- Reporting onboarding progress to management teams.
- Implementing I-9 and E-Verify verification.
- Managing onboarding and compliance documentation.
- Working with electronic signatures.
With comprehensive onboarding software, an employer can create multiple onboarding templates for different employer groups. While it may take some time to learn how to work with such software, it will eventually become the driving force behind a seamless onboarding process.
The data collected during the onboarding process remains in the software. Even after onboarding is completed, the program can be used to:
- Assign new responsibilities to existing employees.
- Manage payroll and benefits.
- Ensure HR compliance.
- Create templates for further onboarding efforts.
- Provide information for HR analytics.
In short, onboarding software is a useful data collection and automation tool that helps companies across all industries streamline the onboarding process without inflating their HR departments and budgets.
5 Benefits of Modern Onboarding Software
If you are deciding whether to take advantage of onboarding software for your company, consider the following benefits. Keep in mind that, unlike dated onboarding software with limited functions and integration issues, modern programs are highly versatile.
Employee Satisfaction
According to a Gallup study, 88% of employees think that employers do a poor job with onboarding. Meanwhile, an average company loses 1 in 6 of their new hires each month for the first three months.
A time-consuming, manual onboarding process takes a toll on new hires. Instead of finding their bearings in the new workplace, these employees have to wait for the paperwork to go through. A poorly organized onboarding process is one of the reasons why companies struggle with employee retention.
Onboarding software doesn't just speed up onboarding. It simplifies the process and demonstrates the high levels of technology used by the company. Quick onboarding can be a decisive factor for top talent in search of a new job.
Expedited Process
Onboarding software can speed up a variety of onboarding-related processes. Forms can be sent to employees instantaneously. Employees can sift through new hire information and training videos on their own time and ask questions with a quick email or phone call. New hires enter information electronically once, avoiding loads of paperwork, duplicate data, lost documents, and more.
During the initial stages of onboarding, HR specialists spend a tremendous amount of time obtaining, sending, tracking, checking, and filing paperwork. This delays the new hires from actually starting their work. Any errors that occur during this process take additional time to resolve. They can take even longer to rectify once the onboarding process is over.
With electronic onboarding software, the employee has full autonomy of data entry. Once the data is in the system, designated HR specialists can set up benefits, manage payroll, assign responsibilities, and more.
Organized Data
When it comes to data organization, HR leaders that don't have access to proper onboarding software have to deal with errors, lost files, and related delays.
If you work in a compliance-heavy industry like government contracting, poor HR data organization could keep you from winning the desired contract.
Onboarding software keeps data organized during the onboarding process and beyond. Once the information is in the database, your department can start working on payroll, benefits enrollment, and more. Data organization can go a long way toward keeping new hires satisfied and increasing retention rates.
Less Downtime
Manual onboarding is time-consuming for all parties involved. In small companies, these delays could cause downtime. HR leaders who deal with a significant number of responsibilities can't always focus on other tasks while performing onboarding duties. Dealing with distractions could lead to costly errors.
The right onboarding software is a trustworthy technology source that reduces manual involvement and allows you to focus on other important tasks. It also cuts the time-to-productivity for new employees, allowing them to contribute to the company's profitability as soon as possible.
Compliance
In many industries, HR rules and regulations change constantly. Maintaining compliance during the onboarding process is vital to avoiding fines and maintaining a good company reputation.
With a manual onboarding process, it's easy to make mistakes and miss compliance issues. A simple error could cost the company thousands of dollars. Electronic onboarding is designed to keep your onboarding process compliant and help the company abide by the rules.
Ultimately, onboarding software allows you to streamline your onboarding activities, so employees can enter the training process as soon as possible and start contributing to your company's success.
How to Streamline Onboarding with Payroll Network
Our HR Advisor team can help your company implement industry-leading HR technology, including electronic onboarding.
We don't just help you stay compliant, save time and money, and focus on core tasks — our experts give you an opportunity to take full advantage of a comprehensive HCM solutions that delivers payroll, talent, time, tax, HR, benefits, compliance and workforce management in a single system.
If you'd like to learn more about improving your onboarding process, please contact us at any convenient time.
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