Onboarding provides Human Resources team with a gold mine of opportunities to engage their employees with relevant content about the company, get them assimilated culturally into the organization and build an organizational or career roadmap for them to enable them to envisage a long-term future with the company.
There has been a huge paradigm shift towards HR Tech in recent years with all functions of Human Resources⎯Talent Acquisition, Performance Management, Employee Rewards and Benefits, Exit, Payroll, Attendance, and what not. The way enterprise solutions have taken over how business functions are performed, and Human Resource is no exception. The choice is simple⎯automate business processes or get left behind by the competition.
Amongst the hassle of daily HR functions being automated in the HR Tech domain, the Onboarding and Pre-Onboarding phase of a new hire’s journey often gets neglected. A survey conducted states that 22% of organizations do not have an onboarding program in place while more than 50% are not completely satisfied with its implementation and results.
Trendy employee experience can be one of the major aspects of onboarding that helps new hires achieve organizational milestones. However, employers and HR Communities alike are not much familiar with this term. Employee experience is the encapsulated feeling that emerges while working at an organization especially during the time of onboarding and based on an employee’s observations. It is the view of the relationship between the individual and the organization. The journey of creating employee experience starts from the time of interviewing and onboarding the candidates. Employee experience is not static. Organizations need to focus on employee experience to create a journey for the employee that not only makes work feel like their second home but also drives improvement in key HR metrics such as engagement, retention, and productivity.
Why Look at Onboarding heading into 2020?
Let’s break it down. Organizations that are looking at Onboarding to improve overall HR and organizational efficiency are going to benefit in ways more than one. Leaders in Human Resource would agree that enabling new hires – irrespective of seniority – is one of the biggest challenges that the HR Function is faced with. In the Indian Subcontinent itself, around $5 Billion are spent on keeping unproductive employees who do not understand their roles. Not only does productivity decide the course of how that Department or team is performing, but it also sets the predicament for how much time and money is spent on training and enabling these new hires.
From an engagement perspective, Onboarding provides Human Resource with a gold mine of opportunities to engage their employees with relevant content about the company, get them assimilated culturally into the organization and build an organizational or career roadmap for them to enable them to envisage a long-term future with the company.
A survey conducted by KPMG in 2018-19 showed that ‘the average annual voluntary attrition is 13.1 % for 2018-19’. Considering that 20% of this attrition takes place during the first 45 days of joining, successful Onboarding can go a long way in achieving a significant reduction in early attrition and consequently drive up the average retention period of an employee. The work of an organization’s Talent Acquisition and Recruitment team can be undone just because Onboarding is not being taken care of.
Best practices to make a positive impact on Onboarding
Successful onboarding is often the missing link between a successful new hire or not. With the exorbitant cost of hiring and talent shortage looming across the business leaders should recognize the fact that integrating new hires in the organization is a crucial step to make them successful. Used with proper structure and involvement from key stakeholders, structured onboarding will result in a faster learning curve, more engagement with new hires and faster productivity. This is one investment that will continue to reap benefits for the long term.
Based on research across geographies, industries and size of the organizations, following emerged as ingredients of a successful onboarding program.
- A written plan for success – First 100-day plan, 30-60-90-day plan, etc.
- Stakeholder meetings – Pre-planned calendarized meetings
- Coaching and support – from reporting manager, HR, Mentor
- Online tools to understand policies, etc.
- Training – Skills, Behaviours, Processes, Products, etc.
- Regular Feedback and support
Employee experience and overall efficiency in processes can be an overpowering influence in the journey of a new hire that should not be ignored. A carefully curated experience right from the acceptance of the offer letter to the day of joining can create an overall experience that turns new hires into lasting employees who positively influence the top and bottom-line in an organization.
How MyJoining can help
MyJoining is an Onboarding framework that captures the candidate journey from the acceptance of offer letter till the end of the new hire’s Onboarding. Our penultimate aim is to be able to provide a double-sided benefit in terms of Digitization of Processes such as Background Verification, Forms and Documents, Asset Allocation, maintaining candidate files, and structuring an Onboarding plan with appropriate workflows and real-time reporting. The second facet is the engagement wherein the receptivity of the new hire in the initial stages is capitalized on and productivity gains are witnessed. We help with acclimatization, faster time-to productivity and cultural assimilation of the new hire.
In terms of business benefits, MyJoining can be leveraged for the enhancement of key pain areas of the HR Department including lower no-shows, preventing early attrition, stronger employer branding, enhanced learning and integrations with other modules of HR Tech to make Onboarding a seamless experience for the candidate and HR alike. In a survey conduced by us with various HR Leaders and Industry Practitioners, one key finding was that more than 95% of the respondents wanted more visibility into the Onboarding process and predictive analytics in terms of candidates that are likely to join. MyJoining gives complete visibility and control to the HR function.
About the author :
Manuj founded Orane Consulting in 2009 and with his remarkable leadership, he has defined the strategic direction of the Company, establishing Orane a strong player in SAP Services, Product Development and digital transformation. He understands the unique challenges and opportunities across Hi-Tech, manufacturing, utilities, transportation, aviation, financials, insurance, hospitality and services industries. Having more than two decade of experience in client interaction, identifying client business needs, challenges, forecasting requirements, he is seen by the customers as a trusted advisor providing appropriate business solutions and digital strategy. His leadership style encourages entrepreneurial culture that is goals driven, based on respect for people, freedom of thought, expression and action along with globalized business processes, practices and organizational structure that help create transparency and drive accountability within the organization. His leadership is evident in the progressive work environment at Orane, where qualified and experienced people bring depth and maturity while retaining focus on flexibility, innovation and integrity which are the core elements of the entrepreneurial DNA of the organization. Manuj holds a Bachelor’s in Mathematics from HNB University and a Master’s in Business Administration from Institute of Management Technology.
