Onboarding – If You’re Not, You Should Be, and Here’s Why

Bringing employees into your business can be exciting and terrifying all at once. If you’ve always been hiring, you may have something like a “new employee orientation checklist” and feel like your current process is good enough. Maybe you’re new to this process and have sourced guidance from business and government resources designed to support the growth of your business. Where ever you happen to be, it’s time to take it to the next level and swap out that New Employee Orientation to Employee Onboarding. Much more than orientation, onboarding provides opportunity to enhance the experience and interactions of the people impacted by your business decisions. Think about the impact of arriving to your new office on your first day of work. When you approach your new desk, you notice an envelope addressed to you. Upon opening, you find a note “Welcome to the Team” signed by each of your new coworkers. Something so simple can make an impactful impression. Now, take a moment to think about the person or people who are responsible to complete the new employee orientation. Those HR Professionals who are expected to not only leave that card on the desk but also to buy the cards and gather the team signatures. That person is already tasked with all of the regular compliance requirements of bringing on a new employee. The forms, explanations, verifications, and authorizations for things like:

• Taxation (federal and provincial tax forms)
• Payroll information
• Personal information (address, SIN, DOB)
• Emergency contact and health information

What happens when the forms are returned completely illegible? Or, when the new employee arrives on their first day and the person responsible to complete New Employee Orientation has been called away unexpectedly? Though only 2 of the many issues that may arise during an onboarding/orientation process; in both situations, there is impact on the people involved in the success of your business. And of course waste revenue generating resources.

1. Whether you have 2 or 2000 employees, the person who is responsible to receive, verify, key-in, and process these employee forms is already overloaded. An Illegible employee form is only one example of wasted time and complete distraction from productive work.
2. If the new employee’s contact person is not available on their first day, or if pieces of their experience are missing (materials, uniform parts, office space, etc.), the first impression may be lasting but not in a way endorsed by onboarding professionals.

You can gain control of your onboarding by implementing a paperless process. Not only will your HR experts be able to read and quickly process all required paperwork but, the experience you want to provide your new employees can be programmed and repeated with each new hire. Gone are the days where the first day (or several days) of work are dedicated to orientation. Learn more about effective Onboarding – Contact SmartHire® today!