As we’ve shared previously, 22% of turnover happens within the first 45 days of employment. If you think about it, that’s not much time at all for organizations to get new employees to feel well oriented, relatively settled in their new roles, and like they’re becoming part of the company’s DNA.
While you might know that the integration process can take between six months and two years, it’s important to recognize that employees (especially those who know what they want from a job) evidently don’t wait around too long to see whether things will improve if they didn’t get a good first impression.
So, companies truly have to be ‘on their toes’ when it comes to employee onboarding to ensure that they’re able to set the right tone and lay a solid foundation on which they can continue building during the integration process – and this needs to happen sooner rather than later.
With this in mind, you might be wondering how your organization can get its onboarding process up to scratch and up to speed as a way of supporting retention.
Aside from revamping your employee onboarding process, you should seriously look to streamline and automate onboarding.
Across industries, technology is changing the way people get work done, and when it comes to HR, these professionals and business leaders are enjoying the following benefits when they automate onboarding:
Helps HR search for the right candidates and schedule interviews
The right HR software can set the stage for a successful onboarding process by helping organizations search for candidates that would be the best fit in terms of the available role and the company’s culture.
vi’s Applicant Tracking System (ATS) allows you to post new job openings, aimed at a specific audience – for example, internal or external applicants, or headhunters (search firms).
With this system, you can also allow applicants to indicate their availability to come in for an interview, saving you time on phone calls. The scheduling component integrates with Microsoft Outlook, and once an interview has been set, it is automatically booked in the interviewer’s and the applicant’s calendar.
Helps HR identify top-performing candidates
Once you’ve started the recruitment process, it’s important to identify those who are (or those who have the potential to become) top performers. Hiring the right people, of course, increases the chances of a successful onboarding and integration process.
With the right software, organizations can evaluate applicants in a meaningful way and save time by easily gathering the information they need to make informed decisions.
To provide another example, vi’s ATS contains logic to automatically process applicants based on important information like GPA, previous experience, or languages spoken. This helps HR to quickly filter applicants and find the right match.
Enhances the organization’s image from the outset
Employees want to be a part of a modern, tech-savvy company that is focused on giving them a personalized experience. Modern HR software makes this easy to achieve by enabling organizations to present themselves in a way that attracts (and then retains) top performers.
Firstly, to refer back to our example, the ATS plugs into your website and is fully branded to your organization, giving applicants a clean and elegant experience.
Secondly, it contains an applicant correspondence functionality that allows you to create automatic ‘acceptance’, ‘rejection’, and ‘offer’ email and letter templates. All correspondence is automatically generated, and the system tracks the correspondence history.
Not only does this alleviate the pressure on HR to respond to numerous emails, but it plays a big part in establishing a good first impression by being engaging and keeping candidates in the loop with prompt communication.
Speeds up the onboarding process on the whole
Arguably the best ‘pro’ of advanced onboarding software is that it eliminates the need for a number of time-consuming, manual tasks like sending out applications and onboarding forms, or sending managers notifications on which documents or tasks have been completed and which need following up on.
Since HR processes can be admin intensive, this is a welcomed perk of onboarding software. Not only are HR professionals spared the frustration of needing to do repetitive tasks when organizations automate onboarding, but it frees them up to focus on more important matters, like engaging new hires, making them feel genuinely welcome, and helping them get settled into their roles.
Gets employees engaged quickly
Essentially, the aim of the onboarding process is to get employees engaged as soon as possible. This is because engaged employees feel included in the company, feel motivated to perform, and are less likely to start looking for other opportunities. As we saw earlier, organizations can’t waste time getting new hires to feel engaged. Modern onboarding software allows companies to automate onboarding to a significant degree, while ensuring that new hires are given access to what they need to feel like they’re quickly becoming part of the company’s DNA.
vi’s New Hire Integration Software allows you to set up a timeline detailing the key people (integration team members, mentors, sponsors, clients, etc.) that new hires need to meet, as well as the important integration activities they need to complete to become fully integrated. As each upcoming integration activity is due, emails are automatically sent to the person responsible for ensuring that the activity is carried out.
The software also lets you see how far along new hires are in the integration timeline, and you can see a summary of their real-time feedback – how happy they are with your organization and how happy you are with them.
Enables organizations to continuously improve their processes
Since the professional world is always changing, organizations need to be agile and adaptable. With that, and with the aim of proactively fighting attrition, businesses should be willing to continuously improve their talent management strategies – including their onboarding process. Modern HR software helps businesses to do just that by providing data and insight into what has worked in the past, and what can be improved going forward.
vi’s ATS, for example, has a reporting and analytics function that shows your recruiting trends, helping you benchmark success rates and refine your strategy in future, if necessary. With the New Hire Integration Software, you can see how well people are integrating year-over-year and can use this data to continually improve your onboarding and integration process.
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Streamline and automate onboarding with advanced HR technology
Talk to us today about our Applicant Tracking System and our New Hire Integration Software, as well as how our other solutions can help you onboard and integrate your new hires, and nurture them into loyal employees.