Onboarding Software

Human resource employees are vital to the stability of a business. This team of employees keeps a company on solid ground with hiring, firing, and keeping up with government regulations. In order to keep their heads screwed on tight, they need an efficient employee training plan in place to assure that everyone in the company stays in compliance with regulations. A huge contributor to any employee training plan? A great employee onboarding software.

Tips to improve the onboarding process

When onboarding new hires, the process should be simple, but thorough. Using the right HR software is crucial to ensuring a smooth onboarding process. There are many advantages in choosing to automate onboarding. A human resources department can concentrate on strategic tasks, manual input, the possibility of human error is eliminated, and confidentiality is secure. Automated onboarding also enhances applicant tracking, efficiently collects data, and saves time.

There are many advantages to the new hire as well. An automated onboarding system helps streamline paperwork. In many cases, the new hire can complete their documents at home. This gives the company more time to concentrate on the employee, focusing on the tasks related to their job. Training modules can also be assigned ahead of time, and the system can track which ones are complete, which ones are not, and where the employee has deficiencies. This creates a stress-free experience for everyone.

How can this process be improved?

One of the key elements in creating a good onboarding experience lies with the employees. There must be buy-in across the company. When all the employees are aligned, it helps the new employee feel welcomed. It would be beneficial to have internal focus groups where the employees discuss their onboarding experiences and what could have been done to make them better. This helps the human resources department understand where the deficiencies are to make improvements. Once this information has been collected, they can work with the right teammates to ensure these elements are also incorporated into onboarding.

The main thing is to make sure everyone is on the same page. Most human resources departments have certain people assigned to select tasks. It is up to the team to create a checklist or flowchart of the entire process to ensure the onboarding process includes every position and every scenario. The most important element of the onboarding process is documentation. The system should have upload capabilities to ensure new employees are able to upload documents to maintain confidentiality. The system should also be equipped with alerts to notify the new employee when certain requirements have not been fulfilled. The human resources team should receive one on their end as well to maintain follow-up.

The human resources department should automate everything they can. Once this process is in place, the next step would be to do something special for the new employee to make them feel at home. This could be personalizing their video with their name, having a free lunch once they have signed all their new hire paperwork, or a special email to all the employees to welcome them to the team. It is also up to the human resources department and the management team to help the new employee understand what will help them be successful, and provide all the tools and encouragement for them to do so.

Finding the Right Onboarding Software

There is a myriad of onboarding software. Free or SaaS is probably your best bet. Though, if your company plans to grow, or is already pretty big, your company likely needs a software-as-a-service (SaaS) onboarding software. When it comes to finding the right software to fit seamlessly into onboarding systems, your human resources department needs to define what that software looks like.

Without looking anything up, think about the things your human resources department needs to make employee and onboarding easier within human resources management. This can look something like the ease of delivery, tracking, creating, etc. There will also be an abundance of employee onboarding software reviews; that way, your team can find another business in a similar situation. Once you’ve compiled your list, look online for an onboarding software comparison. These comparisons will have onboarding software pricing, free trials, and a list of features and functions.

How Employee Onboarding Software Helps HR Teams

Lifting the weight of a clunky learning management system will free up much time and many resources for an HR team. Electronic onboarding, or elearning for onboarding, is often supplemented by on-site training. Many companies use it to brief and assess incoming employees on the basic processes and procedures in the company. For example, at Lessonly, all of our incoming employees use our product even before their first day. New employees are assigned a “My First Day at Lessonly” course. This course explains the office layout, how to use the coffee maker, proper clothing attire, and so on.

In addition to easy learning for onboarding, great learning materials should be incorporated into ongoing training. No one learns something perfectly the first time. It takes repetition and immersion. And information is changing all the time. It’s important to keep materials and employees updated at a cadence. A great learning platform will allow for this.

The point is, if you can deliver great learning material to learners and track their progress along the way, you’re steps ahead of all those companies training for days on-site and leaving retention levels to ambiguity.

Learners Learn Better With Lessonly

At Lessonly, we pride ourselves on making a product for the end-user: the learner. We believe to have a company grow as quickly as it wants, that company has to start with teaching its people effectively. A lot of that weight lies on strategic human resources management. If a human resources department functions extremely well with onboarding, its benefits will show throughout the company.

On the flip side, a learner that’s not embracing learning isn’t going to learn. Forcing a learner to take lessons will be even more ineffective. That’s a hard part of the learning process puzzle that HR teams have to solve. How can we use software to do more than check a completion box? How can the learning process be easy for us and fun for learners? Lessonly’s interface is intuitive — from both user sides. Learners love the ease of access and mobility, and administrators love the automated functions for assigning and tracking.

A human resources management software in combination with an electronic onboarding software like Lessonly can significantly simplify the day-to-day tasks in a person’s human resources career and improve it along the way. When this is the case, HR employees can pay closer attention to the individuals they’re working with rather than the system they’re trying to manage. Think about this long-term. Instead of taking a month to onboard a group of employees, you might be taking two weeks. Instead of spending money flying new employees to HQ for overwhelming, bulk training, your company will save travel expenses, and retention can be assessed along the way.

Lessonly’s SaaS onboarding tools equip anyone with the fluidity to create, deliver, and track amazing learning content — no human resources management degree required. Whether it’s explaining electronic new hire paperwork, delivering an employee onboarding application, or finalizing onboarding learning with a red carpet onboarding review, Lesson.ly puts the power of easy learning in your hands.

Furthermore, we find that, sometimes, human resources responsibilities can be overwhelming and with the abundance of work comes the opportunity for details to slip through the cracks. Many of our clients have shifted the learning experience with Lesson.ly. Instead of depending on an HR department solely for learning materials, administrators of Lessonly can assign department managers to be in charge of learners.

What this looks like: Instead of having someone in HR come up with learning material that explains a sales role (for example), the sales director themselves becomes a creator and manager to a group of learners. This makes for more detailed content and opens the door to a democratized learning approach. Another example would be within an HR department. The head of HR can build human resources courses to train their own employees.

Getting Started with SaaS Onboarding Best Practices

Using a SaaS learning platform may be new to your company, but there are SaaS onboarding examples everywhere. Software-as-a-service shouldn’t intimidate anyone. In fact, a SaaS onboarding process is much simpler than having to manage and maintain your own onboarding software before establishing effective training.

The first step to ensuring great onboarding material? A SaaS onboarding checklist. This list should be composed of thorough information accessible online: new hire paperwork, company overview, permissions, job description, etc. When you cover all your own bases, you set your learners up for a home run.

Let’s face it – onboarding is important. Companies can’t afford to ignore the onboarding process, because 22% of staff turnover occurs within the first 45 days. In fact, 91% of workers retained through their first year said they had an efficient onboarding process which contributed to their experience. 69% of new hires are more likely to remain with a company if they have a well-structured onboarding process.

When getting ready for new team members, there should be a pre-boarding, and onboarding experience. While automating the onboarding experience, make sure they have a snapshot of the company culture. Before they start, have them come in and spend a day with a management employee to become acclimated to the environment. Even if it’s a small to mid-size business, having onboarding software can help schedule the pre-boarding experience into the HR cloud. The software should be able to automatically conduct background checks to make sure the employee is cleared for their first day. Not only does this keep the potential employee in the loop, but if there are any issues, it won’t be a situation where they have to come in and feel embarrassed.

The system should also be engaging and user-friendly. The HR team should be able to format the pre-boarding process where the employee will have their first day’s schedule, where to park, what to bring, who will meet them in reception, and whether lunch will be provided. The employee should already have gone through and signed the handbook, payroll forms, and benefits documents in the portal. This allows the human resources department to have their credentials already prepared, including e-mail address, login information, building access, any hardware or software they will need, and the supplies that will help them successfully perform their role.

It’s also important to set expectations and milestones early by creating an environment where they feel comfortable and excited about how they will contribute to the organization. Prior to their first day, an onboarding system will allow the employee to contact human resources and ask questions via the platform, bridging any communication gaps that may exist. For many new employees, this raises the bar and gives them a sense of confidence that they have made the right decision to join your organization. It is always a good idea to review and refine the onboarding process on a regular basis to ensure all needs are being met.

The first day should be memorable. That means the entire team should be onboarded with the new employee. A pre-set schedule to meet each team member, with the time and their role should be distributed to both the team and the new employee, further enhancing their onboarding experience.

Benefits of Optimizing the Onboarding Process with Software

Using employee onboarding software helps to create a seamless transition into the new role. It helps attract and retain talent, engage employees from the very beginning, and builds trust and alignment among team members. One of the main goals of using onboarding software is to decrease turnover while assisting the human resources department in focusing on their strategic needs. This is a key factor in performance management, helping new employees succeed at every touchpoint.

Onboarding software also helps with compliance. Human resources must comply with state and federal regulations. Utilizing this software make sure all paperwork is in order, such as I-9 paperwork, and tax information. The employee is also able to get the information they need about benefits they are eligible for and those timelines. They can also receive training on their new role through the platform.

This helps with employee engagement and connection. The software allows the employees to connect both internally and externally with the tools and resources they will need to be successful within the organization. This provides clarity on what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and in keeping the process in place.

Consider this: onboarding software makes things simple. It’s less work, avoiding the expense of printing and extra employees to make sure everything is in compliance. This software makes sure all documents are available to the new hire at any time, giving them additional time to complete what they need. Everything can be done prior to them stepping into the office, which calculates to a lower cost per hire.

The integration of an onboarding software program helps make things easier for the team, and memorable for the new employee. This also creates a more personal experience. When all the paperwork has been taken care of in the very beginning, new employees can jump right into getting acclimated with company culture. New hires will also be able to speak in-depth to employees to establish team dynamics and workflow.

An onboarding software also helps managers track the new hire in developing their goals for productivity and track their training. It helps establish high-level performance management, reducing the time it would usually take with paperwork. The beauty of an online system is that the employee is more engaged with the process from the very beginning. They get to see first-hand how the company operates – from the employee handbook, mission and value statements, to how their introduction is handled. Companies who value their employees’ onboarding experience make it immersive, with live video and presentations that take the employee on a journey through the company.

Training with interactive content, games and real-time tasks also allow new hires to get a snapshot of what they will be doing once they are officially on the job. These onboarding tools are no longer an option, they are a necessity. The overall goal is to boost the growth of the business. Creating a seamless and memorable onboarding experience achieves that, promoting engagement in a number of ways. A report by Gallup notes that companies with highly engaged employees have 147% higher earnings per share than their competition.

The more a company realizes how important the onboarding process is, the more interactive the onboarding process can become. The key is prioritizing the employee experience to engage the new hire from the beginning. This translates into better retention, happier employees and a robust bottom line.

Our site has a more in-depth look at onboarding best practices or take a tour today.