Did you know that new hires at a company or organization are only 25 percent productive for the first month after completing the employee onboarding process? Starting a new job is often intimidating and overwhelming for most people, but making use of employee onboarding software goes a long way when it comes to a quick and efficient hiring process.
It should come as no surprise that there are a number of things that you should do to get your new employees up to speed once they sign on to work with you. Automated employee onboarding is a great start, but you should also work to show off the company culture when you hire employees to work at your place of business.
The good news is that you’ve come to the perfect place to hone your employee onboarding process and begin retaining your best talent. Keep reading this article to learn all about employee onboarding software and its benefits today!
1. Automated Employee Onboarding
It might sound cliche, but employee onboarding software has changed the game when it comes to the employee onboarding process. It is huge for getting your employees up to speed. One of the most important parts of your onboarding process is the first email that welcomes your new hire to your business or organization.
Going with employee onboarding software will give you access to a number of great email templates to use when you hire employees for your company. You can also create your own if you want a more tailored or personalized feeling with it. These emails are vital for giving your new employees all of the information that they’ll need when starting a job with you.
It is a great way to make your new hires feel special and important. It is efficient and is a great way to build a strong relationship with your new employee right off the bat.
2. Easy New Hire Forms
One of the worst parts of the new hire onboarding process is filling out all of the necessary paperwork in order to get started. These documents take a while to put together and they’re confusing for your new hire to fill out. Even worse, most businesses wait until the first day on the job to have you fill these forms out rather than having you take care of them through email.
You’ll also gain the ability to make your own new hire forms when you get employee onboarding software. If you work in a niche industry and there aren’t any templates out there that cover all of your bases then it is great to know that you can create your own.
These documents will be easy to read and follow, and they’re accessible through all types of devices. Your new hire can take care of the new hire forms over the smartphone or tablet if they choose.
3. Paperless Process
There is a big push to do what you can to help save the environment and cut back on waste. One of the best things that businesses can do is cut back on the amount of paper that they use. Getting employee onboarding software is great for the environment because it allows you to become paperless when you’re going through the hiring process.
Your new hire can access these important documents and work through them all before e-signing them. Not only does this save a ton of paper but it also saves your business a bunch of time.
It is also great for a world that is becoming increasingly remote. If you’re hiring a new employee on a remote basis then you can have them access these documents and e-sign them remotely with no problems thanks to your employee onboarding software.
4. Personalized New Hire Portal
Your business’s employee onboarding software should also come with some useful extras, like a personalized new hire portal. This personalized portal will have all of the important and relevant information about the business that a new hire could want. You can also list specific tasks that your new hire needs to complete in order to progress through the onboarding process.
This portal is a valuable resource that you need to make good use of in order to keep your best new hires. Having everything that the new hire needs in one place make life easier for you as well as your new employee.
5. Track Employee Onboarding Progress
One useful thing that many businesses love about getting employee onboarding software is the ability to track the progress of your new hire when they’re going through each step of getting up to speed. You don’t want to lose sleep at night because you’re worrying that you missed an important step of the onboarding process.
Having a checklist that helps you monitor where your new hire is during their onboarding journey makes it easy to keep tabs on their progress and offer assistance to them along the way. It is one of the many great ways that you can get more from your employee onboarding software.
You can also create custom parts of your checklist that fit your business model. You could put an item on the checklist that relates to introducing your new hire to their coworkers and management team. If you have lunch one day with the new hire during the first week then make sure that you include that step in your onboarding checklist.
6. Easy Notifications
Reminders are another useful aspect of the employee onboarding process, and they’re something that you can set up when you’re using automated employee onboarding. Having these notifications will keep your new hire on schedule when it comes to getting up to speed and performing their new job at the highest levels.
These notifications are also great for helping the new hire understand where they’re at in the new hire process. It is up to you to decide if you want to send these notifications manually or set them up to get sent out automatically.
The best options for employee onboarding software provide options for notifying your employees. Some will allow you to send push notifications right to the new hire’s smartphone or mobile devices. Others will allow you to combine that with emails that get sent automatically to the new hire’s email address.
7. Set Up Deadlines
Getting employee onboarding software is also great because it allows you to set up deadlines for getting through the onboarding process. It is easy to lose track of the little details when it comes to the employee onboarding process, but having the software to help will keep things from slipping through the cracks.
You need to pick out a software option that lays all of the pertinent information out in front of you. Doing this will help you monitor your new hire’s progress and understand if they’re approaching deadlines for getting things done.
8. Helpful Dashboard
Another must-have feature when it comes to employee onboarding software is a helpful dashboard that presents you with all the information that you need to know right off the bat. Unlike going with an employee onboarding service, the software will give you a brief overview of where everything stands each time that you log into the software.
These helpful dashboards also allow you to generate reports as a way to measure the progress of the new employees that you’ve hired for your business. You’ll have a bird’s eye view of the entire process and can step in to help when needed.
9. Centralized Employment Data
Since your business is making the move to a paperless hiring process, you need to make sure that you get an employee onboarding software that works as a data storage option. All of these digital documents will get stored and backed up in the onboarding software so that they’re safe and in one place.
Any time that you need the documents from your new hire’s employment at your business you’ll know where to go. This is true for any employee that works for your business since everything is in one convenient spot. You’ll also get to save a ton of money on little things like paper, paper clips, and filing cabinets since all of your important documents are stored online.
10. Employee Verification Requirements
Another notable perk that comes with getting employee onboarding software is the ability to submit your employee verification requirements for each new hire. There is a law in place that says that you have 3 days to submit an I-9 document after hiring a new employee to work at your organization.
Failure to comply with submitting the I-9 document before the three days pass will leave you subject to hefty fines of $1,000 or more. You can avoid this predicament by investing money towards automated employee onboarding at your business.
A good software program makes it easy to submit all required documents upon hiring a new employee. You’ll also get help going through the process of checking and submitting these documents to avoid making any costly mistakes.
Getting a good software program will allow anyone to examine, edit, and fill out these employment documents from any device. All they’ll need is a strong internet connection and they’re good to go. From there, your HR department will submit those documents to the government and other agencies that need them.
11. Help With Payroll
You should also try to find an employee onboarding software that integrates with your existing payroll software. If you use ADP for your software needs then you should look for a software program that is perfect for your employee onboarding process as well as your payroll management.
This compatibility is a great way to save your business significant amounts of time and money. It is also the only reliable way to ensure that your employees are working with the same information when working on payroll. Managing data updates and creating profiles for new employees has never been easier than with automated employee onboarding.
Best of all, any time you need to enter your new hire into the payroll system their information will populate automatically. It might not sound like much, but the time saved from not having to type it all in each time will take a lot of stress and work off of your payroll team.
12. Additional Integrations
You can also get an onboarding software program that integrates with other tools that your business uses on a daily basis. There are plenty of extensions like those for Google Chrome and other internet browsers. These allow the two systems to work seamlessly together.
Having these extensions is a great way to decrease the burden that your employees deal with each day. Happier and fresher employees will provide better work and create a strong workplace culture.
Look to integrate your employee onboarding software with your recruitment software as well as your applicant tracking program. It is also a great compliment to the program that you use to conduct background checks on potential employees and new hires.
These integrations are sure to make your business a more efficient and successful place to work for everyone that is involved. Little things like that will go a long way with retaining your best employees and getting your new employees up to speed in no time.
Invest in Employee Onboarding Software Today
Employee onboarding software is a game-changer when it comes to running a business. It helps with getting everyone up to speed when you hire employees to work for you. Automated employee onboarding helps because you’ll send welcome emails and all pertinent information to new hires as soon as they’re brought on board with your company.
Make sure that you integrate your employee onboarding software with your payroll software. Start using the digital document and e-sign features to start onboarding your employees through email as soon as they’re hired. You can also use the helpful employee onboarding checklist to track all of the progress that your new hires make during the hiring process.