Introduction
Starting a new role is always stressful. Whether you’re new to a company — or changing roles, jobs, departments, or locations — learning new processes and adjusting to different expectations is challenging and can be an uncomfortable experience. But it can also be so much more. Transitions are periods of great opportunity that provide a chance to start afresh and to make needed changes in an organization. But they are also periods of acute vulnerability because you lack established working relationships and a detailed understanding of your new role.
Companies that recognize both the opportunities and the challenges new hires face can set the stage for sustained employee engagement and build the right culture — before that hire sets foot through the door on their first day. Onboarding that focuses on reducing stress and providing a smooth transition means greater employee engagement, better performance, and higher retention. According to a survey by the SHRM foundation, 69 percent of employees surveyed were more likely to stay with the company for at least 3 years after a great onboarding experience.
Research and conventional wisdom both suggest that employees get about 90 days to prove themselves in a new job. The faster new hires feel welcome and prepared for their jobs, the faster they will be able to successfully contribute to the firm’s mission. The strategic use of onboarding by talent managers helps new hires and those transitioning internally to adjust to social and performance aspects of their new jobs quickly and smoothly. It engages hires and shapes employee experience over the course of their journey at a company.
Employee experience is the totality of an employee’s experiences, so it encompasses all of the narrower aspects of how an employee perceives his everyday life at the office, both good and bad. Understanding the connection between a well-designed onboarding process and the employee experience helps you assign onboarding the priority it rightly deserves in your talent management strategy.
In this e-book we’ll cover how you can bolster your process and elevate the employee experience to get it where it needs to be, and where your new hires expect it to be. You’ll discover how organizations can create successful onboarding with Click Boarding as part of an integrated employee experience. A holistic onboarding experience that stems from understanding what new hires value — and one that gives them access to the information they need — increases their comfort level and enables them to engage in the company culture.
Optimizing Every Touchpoint
Companies have long emphasized touchpoints with their customers — the many critical moments when customers interact with the organization and its offerings on their way to purchase and after. When it comes to employee experience, top performing companies provide new hires the same customer-grade experience to reinforce their decision, keep the organization top of mind, and create brand advocates. And today’s hires expect it. Millennials, now surpassing all other generations in the workforce, expect internal tools to optimize their work experience and allow them to be as productive and connected as possible, as soon as possible. Any company concerned with employee retention and engagement must address onboarding in a way that provides the kind of employee experience new hires want and expect. It’s no longer an option.
Bettering the employee experience demands a systematic and comprehensive approach, with sustained employee engagement as the goal. We believe the key is continuity, and optimizing every new hire touchpoint to make the experience truly integrated.
Click Boarding helps you create a repeatable, optimized experience from pre-boarding to offboarding that:
- Integrates new employees with a new company or team, and its culture
- Gives employees the tools and info needed to become productive team members
- Minimizes employee anxiety and increases comfort — showing them that you do care about their success within your business
- Lets new hires work in the way they want, with US based support for both candidates and clients to help facilitate conversations
- Provides candidates a self-guided and empowering experience from the beginning
- Integrates with existing ATS, HRIS and CRA solutions so both HR and new hires experience a streamlined process
- Enables faster assimilation, quicker time to productivity and results delivered faster
- Ensures that new hires hit each touchpoint in the process without skipping or missing a thing
Don’t just meet expectations. Exceed them.
The new generations expect a consumer-grade experience from pre-hire to retire.
Motivate New Hires to Engage
Any strategy designed to engage hires in their work starts with onboarding. It’s an opportunity to provide an awesome first impression of your company, internal teams, and culture — serving as an immediate validation for new and transitioning employees on their career decision. It also adds increasing value to the culture and employer, and is the first step to motivating employees.
How can onboarding be applied to intrinsically engage new hires? Companies can start by taking a step back and examining what employees need to feel engaged and satisfied with their work. A recent SHRM study found that respectful treatment of employees at all levels and fairness and openness were top contributors to employee satisfaction. With these factors in mind:
- Onboarding and training can help employees strive for improvement and to achieve maximum potential.
- Career development is a primary driver of employee satisfaction, and promoting internal mobility leads to better cross-functional communication and retention.
- Clear and open communication on the part of the employer and through onboarding instills a sense of trust.
- A a lack of communication when transitioning to a new team or department creates a bad employee experience and results in loss of productivity, engagement, and growth.
To provide lasting motivation, take a page from top-performing companies who consider the employee experience for the entire workforce at all stages from pre-hire to retire. Personalization, assigning mentors, providing check-in milestones, and showcasing success stories are just a few of the ways onboarding can borrow from the customer experience to further engage employees.
How can you create a compliant process, and how does onboarding fit into the equation?
An Exceptional Onboarding Experience
The Click Boarding onboarding experience is personalized, guides employee self-service, and gives employees access to the documents and information they need — when they need it. Employees get at-a-click information about company culture, job expectations, and the critical processes and procedures they need to feel comfortable and at home. With Click Boarding you’ll create exceptional onboarding by providing:
- Guided Experiences: A guided HR experience with cascading data that prevents redundant data entry
- Secure Platform: A secure, mobile-first experience so documents can be completed by employees on their preferred devices
- Easy & Accurate: Simplification of complex government forms so they can be completed more easily and with greater accuracy
- Centralized Access: A central location for important documents and easy form completion to help new hires feel supported
- Trackable & Taskable: The ability for administrators to track progress, assign tasks, and follow up with hires from a single place
- Personalized & Branded: An engaging and personalized experience to make new employees feel welcome and comfortable
About Click Boarding
Click Boarding is an onboarding platform that takes the stress out of employees’ first days — and beyond. The platform delivers a guided experience that removes HR burdens and minimizes employee anxiety related to any transition or internal mobility, from being a new hire, to being promoted, to changing roles or offboarding.
