Employee Onboarding: Checklist & Best Practices to Follow in 2024

Regardless of your industry, onboarding new staff is an essential step with various benefits. An effective onboarding process prepares new hires for easy integration into their jobs and teams. It introduces them to your distinct work culture and sets high standards for their success.

Moreover, learning more about the employee onboarding process flow can enable you to establish a better learning path for employees, identify potential skill gaps, promote employee growth, and ultimately build better teams.

93% of new hires say their onboarding experience will impact whether they stay with the organization.

So, if you want to improve your process, you’re in the right place. This article provides a comprehensive employee onboarding checklist, best practices to follow, and ideal software for onboarding new employees.

This guide will help you create a seamless onboarding experience and unlock the true potential of your employees!

What is the employee onboarding process?

It refers to the process of integrating and familiarizing new employees with their roles and your work culture. An efficient onboarding process for new hires is the best strategy to welcome new hires and ensure long-term employee retention.

The new employee onboarding process consists of a series of set processes designed to introduce new employees to the environment and ethos of a business.

The primary goal is to ensure an effortless transition for new hires, ensuring they quickly adapt, increase productivity, improve work satisfaction, and reduce attrition.  

Organizations with solid onboarding processes were able to increase new hire retention by 82% and improved productivity by 70%.

Effective employee onboarding experience: Does it matter?

“I truly believe that onboarding is an art. Each new employee brings with them the potential to achieve and succeed. To lose the energy of a new hire through poor onboarding is an opportunity lost.” - Sarah Wetzel, Director of Human Resources at engage:BDR

Employee onboarding is the essential first engagement between an employee and the business immediately after the interview process.

• If the experience falls short of expectations, the new employee might regret accepting the job offer.
• A poor onboarding experience can leave a negative impression, forming biased impressions of the business and potentially leading to an early resignation.
• A thorough employee onboarding process ensures a seamless transition and cultivates strong relationships.
• This process allows new hires to get settled into their roles, get clarity on job objectives, become acquainted with the business, and form meaningful connections with coworkers.
• Providing an outstanding onboarding experience makes professionals feel at ease and adapt/adjust more quickly to the business family.

Streamlining the new employee onboarding process delights workers and reduces the stress of paperwork for the HR team.

Employee onboarding checklist

You can set your new staff up for success with a flawless onboarding process flow.

This employee onboarding checklist covers everything from pre-boarding to post-onboarding steps. Following these guidelines can create a positive workplace that promotes engagement and productivity.

1. Release the offer

Employee onboarding begins as soon as your employees are recruited. When an applicant is hired, you can send them an offer letter, policy documents, onboarding forms, and any other paperwork they complete.

Having an honest and transparent stance assists employees in developing trust and adjusting to their new work culture.

Consider the following employee onboarding checklist during the "Releasing the Offer" stage:

• Create a detailed job description.
• Make phone calls to the candidate for better communication.
• Give specific details about the job profile.
• Handle negotiations regarding wages and give extension offers.
• Follow up with applicants to ensure a seamless transition.

2. Provide necessary documentation and equipment

A good employee onboarding process includes presenting fresh hires with the necessary papers and documents and ensuring they have the essential tools and equipment to accomplish their job efficiently.

This includes introducing them to the business's culture and expectations by sharing significant corporate policies, processes, and handbooks. It also entails providing the required tools, such as company-issued gadgets, access cards, software accounts, and any specific tools required for their job.

During the employee onboarding process, it's essential to introduce new staff to technologies that streamline operational efficiency, such as time tracking tools. For teams working in field operations or remote settings, utilizing geofencing employee time tracking software can provide a distinct advantage.

These software solutions help ensure accurate recording of work hours based on geographic locations, which is particularly beneficial for managing mobile workforces and operating across multiple sites.

At this step, you'll want to briefly introduce the benefits they'll receive either now or when they complete training. HR can utilize platforms to manage staff benefits to make this process easier.

For example, they can use something like Oyster to help them onboard new hires internationally, Remote to administer benefits, payroll, and taxes to a global workforce, or WorkTango to cultivate better employee experiences via rewards and recognition.

By taking care of them ahead of time, you exhibit your dedication to their success and make a good first impression. This sets the basis for a smooth transfer, allowing new workers to hit the ground running while contributing to the business's growth.

3. Introduce them to the team and company policies

Once the proposal has been made and accepted, the new employee should be introduced to their team and made aware of the company's rules and regulations. Meetings or virtual meetings with teammates, supervisors, and essential stakeholders are set up at this step.

During these discussions, new hires can learn about their coworkers and their roles and tasks within the firm and establish relationships.

Furthermore, offering an overview of corporate rules is critical to ensuring the fresh recruit knows the expectations, norms, and values that create the organization's working environment.

Providing information on matters such as code of conduct, attire requirements, attendance, communication protocols, and other pertinent policies may fall under this category.

4. Activate email and communication accounts

The next vital step in the new employee onboarding process flow is creating the new staff's email and communication accounts. This includes providing them an official email address, login credentials, and access to all relevant communication tools, like instant messaging platforms or collaborative software.

Organizations facilitate easy and effective communication within the workforce by enabling these accounts as soon as possible. It allows employees to communicate with their coworkers, exchange data, cooperate on projects, and successfully participate in the team.

Effective communication is the foundation of an efficient workplace, and ensuring that email and communication accounts are activated is critical to facilitating seamless interaction and information sharing.

5. Provision applications to the users

The provisioning of apps to users is a critical component of the employee onboarding process. It entails giving new employees access to the software apps and tools they need to accomplish their responsibilities.

This involves giving individuals accounts and access to particular applications or systems related to their roles, such as project management tools, customer relationship management (CRM) software, time tracking systems, or any other software needed to complete their tasks.

By providing access to these applications, businesses can ensure that their employees have the resources and technology they need to do their jobs efficiently, resulting in increased productivity and enhanced success.

6. Start training the employee

During the first few months of employment, providing specialized education and role-specific training sessions customized to the new workers is critical. This goes beyond basic orientation training and includes more in-depth and specialized programs for growth.

Many businesses perform talent assessments to assess the new hire's skills and expertise to guarantee a smooth transition. This assessment assists businesses in developing a customized training plan that matches the employee's skill set, allowing them to quickly acquire the abilities required for their work.

Organizations that provide role-specific training enable employees to gain the required knowledge while tracking their progress. This approach encourages ongoing growth and development, allowing employees to excel in their roles.

With an effective employee onboarding process for new hires, you can ensure a smooth transition for new employees and long-term retention.

Why should you automate user provisioning?

According to Aberdeen Group research, having a uniform onboarding procedure boosts new hire retention by 50%.

User provisioning includes the process of granting and revoking access to users for various apps based on their roles and responsibilities in the organization.

Gone are the days of traditional user provisioning. Spreadsheets are no longer used for handling applications associated with certain positions and departments. The traditional method of manually granting access to every application for new employees, involving IT and HR staff, is a time-consuming and labor-intensive procedure.

However, with the arrival of automated user provisioning, situations have changed. HR teams no longer have to rely on spreadsheets and visit each application to provision users; instead, they can use automated systems to perform the tasks rapidly.

Benefits of automated user provisioning

Automating onboarding tasks also results in an 18% improvement in initial performance and a 16% increase in the retention rate for new hires.

Automated user provisioning is the best way to onboard a new employee. As a matter of fact, it presents significant advantages.

Increased operational efficiency

Automating user provisioning removes laborious procedures, saving IT and HR teams time and effort. Automated workflows guarantee rapid and precise provisioning, allowing staff to access resources from the start and simplifying offboarding operations.

Enhanced security and compliance

Automated user provisioning eliminates human mistakes, ensuring uniform and policy-compliant access permissions. Role-based access control helps firms implement security measures and conform with regulations by reducing the risk of unauthorized access and data breaches.

Enhanced user experience

Automated provisioning delivers a seamless onboarding experience, allowing users to access apps and resources quickly. Self-service capabilities enable users to take charge of access requests, password resets, and profile updates, increasing productivity and user satisfaction.

Centralized user management

Automated provisioning simplifies user management operations by centralizing user information and access rights. IT and HR personnel can simply examine and manage user profiles, permissions, and changes from a single interface. Comprehensive reporting and auditing tools increase transparency and aid in compliance monitoring.

Automate employee onboarding with CloudEagle

Are you wondering what the ideal employee onboarding software will be in 2023?

CloudEagle is a comprehensive SaaS management software with automated provisioning and deprovisioning modules to simplify user onboarding and offboarding. Businesses can utilize CloudEagle to automate the onboarding and offboarding of users, increasing efficiency and security.

User Provisioning and Deprovisioning Made Simple

IT and HR teams can use the auto-provisioning rules of CloudEagle that automatically suggest relevant applications based on employee role and department to onboard users quickly.

Likewise, CloudEagle will retrieve all the user data and their access and organize them in one place, so you can easily deprovision users with just a click.

Custom Workflows and Smooth Integration

This software for onboarding new employees integrates with Single Sign-On (SSO) and Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS) to collect information about apps, users, and access controls.

Businesses can use CloudEagle's auto-provisioning workflow to provision users to relevant applications quickly. This guarantees that staff have the tools to do their jobs effectively from the start.

Here's how Remediant automated user provisioning with CloudEagle →

Conclusion

An effective new employee onboarding process is crucial for the company's long-term success. Onboarding is more than just documentation and orientation; it is an opportunity for both businesses and employees to establish a strong relationship from the start.

In this article, we explored the employee onboarding checklist and outlined the best practices HR teams can implement in 2023 to optimize and streamline the onboarding process.

Furthermore, using CloudEagle, the ideal software for onboarding new employees, businesses can automate onboarding and offboarding procedures, saving time and freeing IT and HR professionals to focus on more strategic goals.

Using CloudEagle, you can have a flawless employee onboarding experience while freeing your organization from traditional onboarding processes and security threats.

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