Lucas Noah There has been a significant paradigm shift in the world of work. Employees are performing more and more tasks wherever they may happen to be located. People are also being hired to fill positions for which they will never set foot in an office. This has introduced a need for change in the way HR functions. One the most significant changes in this regard is automating employee onboarding procedures.
What is Onboarding Automation?
The practice of guiding new hires through the onboarding experience sans manual effort on your part is referred to as automated onboarding. The reduced effort — once it’s set up — is an obvious benefit. Additionally, automated onboarding can help ensure a positive first impression upon new hires.
Deploying an Okta integration network enables you to automate training functions as well as send reminders and connect newly hired people with their colleagues—with no physical effort. New recruits will perceive these processes as reliable, personalized, and immediate solutions to issues they may have while getting established with your company.
Key Benefits of Automated Onboarding
Perhaps the best way to highlight the benefits of automated onboarding is to consider its analog corollary. Some of the primary issues with that method are data fragmentation, minimal control, inter-departmental communication breakdowns and the sheer amount of time the process can consume.
Conversely, automated onboarding encourages self-service support among new hires. Moreover, it delivers faster issue resolution, fewer inquiries to which your staff must respond and, at the same time, more human connection. Automated onboarding also tracks and documents processes as they’re completed, so you can ensure new hires get everything they need.
And, of course, along with all of this added efficiency comes lower costs, less wasted time, and increased productivity.
Automated Onboarding Examples
Pre-boarding - Using an integration-led automation platform, you can trigger the creation of a profile for the new person, which sets up their Okta user account and sends them a welcome email message. Their IT service management account is also established, which generates a ticket to ensure that appropriate onboarding activities are tracked and fulfilled.
App Provisioning - Upon the generation of a hire notice, the system requests the new hire’s manager to indicate the apps to which they should have access. This, in turn, alerts the BT team regarding the manager’s choices. The designation can be reviewed to ensure that licensing requirements are met and inform the hiring manager when these tasks are completed.
Orientation Scheduling – Taking note of all employees starting on the same day, the system can automatically set up an orientation meeting and send invites to the new hires. In so doing, they are also added to a channel in your communications platform.
Social Gathering – The new hire is invited to a luncheon meeting with a key team member, with details for joining the meeting using Zoom or a similar communications platform. Acceptance triggers the issuance of a gift card for the lunch on the morning of their first day. This gives new hires an opportunity to get to know the person with whom they’ll work most closely. This works just as well for remote workers as it does in-office.
In Summary
Automating employee onboarding is a relatively simple task. You need only identify the processes you’d like to automate, prioritize them according to perceived benefit, and work with your BT or chosen supplier to implement the automations.
In so doing, hiring documentation will be processed faster, as employee data will be entered automatically. This also accelerates benefits enrollment. Your HR team will have more time to address concerns such as outreach that require personal attention and serving as a beneficial resource for new hires. Fledgling employees will feel more welcomed, as they will experience enhanced human interaction. And, you’ll have ready access to any feedback, enabling you to exercise more agility in your onboarding processes.
