Paperless onboarding: a proven strategy for getting new hires off to a flying start

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By Iolanda Hazell

Imagine you could design the ideal new employee on-boarding experience. What would it look like?
 
It’s a question that keeps HR practitioners like myself up at night. After many years working with businesses of all sizes, it’s clear what we all want is a way to save time, budget and eliminate the overwhelming paperwork.

So in this post, I’m going to share with you the key features you need to look out for when you are considering the move from paper-based systems to a digital experience. Yes, you can finally throw the filing cabinet out!

In the last couple of articles, I’ve covered the importance of having an on-boarding process, the best practices of Fortune 500 firms and the technology hacks you can use to make your process faster.

There are many tools out there for you to design your own process from free document templates like the ones I’ve shared to a range of different SAAS (software as a service) platforms.

The bottleneck to growth

Whilst you can probably manage initially with using document templates and email when you are a start-up, if you want to future proof your HR, you need to use software which grows with your business.

On-boarding alone as a HR process requires a high level of administrative time and effort. There are tax forms, salary forms, employee handbooks, non-disclosure agreements, benefits enrollment to name but a few documents.

And that’s just for the first day. There’s also the first 90 days to plan for which is a critical time-frame for retaining talent.

The true cost of head hours spent on managing the completion of all the administrative aspects of on-boarding for each employee can start to add up very quickly.

As mentioned in this blog post, not having an efficient process can dramatically affect productivity and your bottom line.

If your business is in a growth stage, on-boarding a number of new hires at the same time can quickly become a bottleneck.

Let’s say you hire 10 new employees in the next 6 months, and it takes 12 hours of admin time just to process the initial paperwork. That equates to 120 head hours or 3 weeks of time!

Moving to a digital system will clearly save your business time and money.

The three must-have features

Here are just three of the must have features you should look out for when researching a HR software solution.

1. A human-friendly interface

The emphasis here is on friendly. The platform you use should be intuitive and enable you and your new hire to easily see what you need to do next.

This can be as simple as having a welcome message or video onscreen like the one below as a nice way to start.

2. Customisable steps

Every business is unique and at different stages of the organisational life-cycle. With any HR software solution, being able to personalise the process is key. The platform should grow with your business.

3. Provide a shared employee experience

On-boarding is a shared experience between the new hire, employer and HR. It is a way to position your company’s brand and retain talent within the business.

In addition to giving your HR team the tools to track and report on on-boarding, the system should be a portal for your new hire to learn more about your business and values.

In the two-minute video below, you can see watch how easy it is to use a HR software solution like the Pulse Human Capital Management On-boarding Module to welcome a new hire to your business.

Any system or platform will only be truly effective if you know how to best customise it to suit your business. If you don’t have previous experience, access to a specialist will also be invaluable.

If you would like to learn more about how to use technology to make managing your on-boarding process a faster experience get in touch for a no obligations call or sign up for a demo here.

About Pulse Software

Pulse Software is a leading business process management solution provider. Pulse aligns people with industry leading solutions for government agencies and private enterprises.

For more information call 1300 363 325 or email sales@pulsesoftware.com