What is onboarding?
Onboarding is a hectic process that consumes a lot of time and efforts of the HR. From scheduling interviews to sending out offer letters, everything is to be taken care of timely and cautiously.
Keeping in mind the length of the process, if carried out manually, it might waste a ton of paper along with the precious time and efforts of the team that can be put to other areas of focus.
To eliminate the waste, chaos, time taken and efforts put in the process of onboarding, the organization is opting for a modern and technological approach to carry out the operation more effectively and efficiently.
What are the steps of onboarding?
As discussed, onboarding is one of the most crucial and lengthy processes that takes place in an organization with a lot of steps to be performed systematically. The steps involved in the activity are:
1. Pre-boarding
Pre-boarding starts after the candidate formally accepts the proposal offered to them. They haven’t started working for the company yet but their job role here is secured and the company is ready for the candidate to join. This step involves signing official documents, arranging training, workspace and providing information regarding the company’s terms and policies.
2. Welcoming
This step helps the company to make the newbie feel engaged and comfortable in the workspace and with the coworkers they have to work with. Introducing them to the team, giving a tour of the office, making them aware about the facilities being offered and giving them the lists of tasks to be done for a strong start at the work, welcoming process is all about making the employee feel at home and not left out.
3. Training
To ensure maximum productivity and efficiency in newly hired staff, training and development for making them familiar with the technologies used in the company along with the process to be followed to carry out certain tasks in specific ways is very important. This minimizes the chances of mistakes and vanishes the confusion pertaining in the heads of newly hired employees regarding the work.
4. Transitioning
The final phase starts after the employee is all trained and set to take up the work all on their own. The manager lists out the tasks and goals to be achieved by the employee and he/ she starts working accordingly.
What is employee onboarding software?
An employee onboarding software is a tool that automates every task related to the onboarding process, from candidate management to screening the relevant ones from the sea of applications to scheduling interviews to sending out offer letters, everything is taken care of on computers without any chaos and delay.
This tool ensures not only the smooth happening of the onboarding process but also lifts a ton of burden off the HR managers, sparing their time and efforts and allowing them to be more efficient in other tasks.
Features of an employee onboarding software?
To make the procedure easier for the organization, it’s important to ensure that the right software has been chosen to carry out the process that goes along with the needs and policies of the company.
Some of the features that a good onboarding software portrays are:
1. Automated profile creation
An employee onboarding software creates an automated profile of the newbie with all the necessary information regarding them along with their documents put together under one roof eliminating any sort of confusion and misunderstanding in future.
Automated profile creation with Zimyo
2. Multiple user friendly
Make sure the software you opt for is compatible with carrying the information of loads of users to eliminate any sort of problem in future while expanding your organization.
3. Pre onboarding
To create an impact on the newbies and minimize the risks of misunderstandings and confusion in their mind regarding the job role and organization culture, provide your candidates with an overview of the company’s working and detailed view of their job with the help of the onboarding software. This step also involves the background check and verification of the candidate that also takes place automatically without any man made mistake.
4. Screening applications
As applying for the jobs have become a piece of cake nowadays with online portals, the companies are flooded with thousands of applications containing useless and irrelevant applications as well. It’s not easy for the HRs to go through every application to shortlist the relevant ones. To overcome this challenge, an employee onboarding software screens out the irrelevant applications and shortlists the potential candidates according to the job requirements.
5. E- signature
Banish the use of ink and paper and go completely paperless with digital ways of confirming a signatory’s identity with the help of electronic signatures. This saves time as well as cost of the company along with promoting eco friendliness.
6. Offer letters
An employee onboarding software sends out customized offer letters to every candidate selected along with the option to either accept or decline the proposal. The form is sent digitally through e-mail again promoting paperless onboarding, saving time and effort engaged in preparing a hardcopy for each candidate and sending it out to them.
Benefit of an employee onboarding software
To have an organized and systematic onboarding process without any chaos and errors is a necessity nowadays for your organization to have an upper hand in this competitive era.
This not only helps in smoothening out the working of the company from the inside but also strengthens the goodwill and image that the company holds in the outer world.
A disorganized onboarding process reflects the image of the company to be having poor management skills along with increasing the burden upon the HRs to go through the messy and chaotic process to reach the final step.
Having an organized and systematic onboarding process helps in overcoming all these challenges and also creates a positive impact on the newbies as they do not have to tackle with any chaos or misunderstandings and every doubt of theirs is clarified pre hand.
Some other benefits are:
1. Reduces the cost
2. Saves time and effort of the HRs
3. Improves productivity of the company as a whole
4. Makes the newbie feel comfortable and engaged
5. Eases the anxiety among the new hired
6. Reduces the burden of managers
7. Timely execution of each step without any delay
8. Promotes eco friendliness with paperless onboarding process
How to choose an employee onboarding software?
As a number of companies are available today in the market providing softwares for smooth functioning of your organization, it must get really hectic and overwhelming to choose the best one available that fits best with your organizational needs.
To help you with this, we are going to share certain tips to be kept in mind while looking for employee onboarding software for your organization.
1. Identify your requirements
The very first step must be to analyze your organization’s needs as to how much and what information you need to be accessible to your new employees along with the size of your organization and your training needs. It’s essential to look for the features that work best for your organization instead of looking for a software with maximum features.
2. Trial
Before proceeding with finalizing your purchase, make sure to ask the company for a free trial for a few days. This way you can put the software into action and check your company’s compatibility with the software and the features it provides.
3. Budget- friendly
There are many softwares available in the market varying in prices. It’s vital to choose one that fits under your company’s budget. Before you start looking for a software, keep in mind a budget that your company can afford and look for the softwares lying under that price range. This will save you a lot of time and won’t make the process chaotic by cutting down the list to half.
Automate your onboarding
4. Device compatibility
Before opting for a software, make sure it is multiple device friendly and easily accessible through devices other than laptops like tabs, mobile phones etc to make the information available on fingertips.
5. Review the customer experiences
Before finalizing an onboarding software, make sure you do your research and review the experiences existing customers have with that software. Companies may boast about their softwares to increase its sales but reviewing customer experiences takes you down the truth lane regarding the working of that software and the features it offers.
Wrapping up
As discussed, it’s vital to have a shift from paper onboarding to automated onboarding process to make your organization successful in this technology led era.
If we talk about the best, Zimyo is known for #1 employee experience and is gaining an upper edge in the market of softwares with its HR software inbuilt with numerous features that deals with the needs and wants of every sort of organization. The software provides all the necessary features that companies look for in the most affordable price, making it budget friendly and a must consideration if looking for an employee onboarding software.
