Employee onboarding needs to be carried out smoothly and seamlessly. However, employers are still facing numerous challenges regarding employee onboarding. Smooth transition and fruitful integration into a new company require identifying these challenges and addressing them.
From exasperating manual processes to lack of visibility in the process, employee onboarding has numerous pitfalls that can hinder the company’s growth of an organisation. Onboarding does not have a defined timeline, so one can not hire and forget about the employee within a week. Until the new joinee is not comfortable in the role, the process must continue.
Employee onboarding should emphasise reducing paperwork and enhancing the employee engagement rate to boost productivity by 70% and the retention rate by 82%. (https://b2b-assets.glassdoor.com/the-true-cost-of-a-bad-hire.pdf)
Here are a few challenges that need to be addressed to ensure a smooth employee onboarding
1. The inefficient and cumbersome manual onboarding process
From the employee application to onboarding, a lot of cumbersome paperwork is required. Companies rely on paper-based processes and manual intervention for benefits, payroll, certificate verification, address verification, vendor due diligence, etc. Automating this will ease the process and leave a long-lasting impression from day one. A technologically advanced tool will also empower HR to manage and track the end-to-end process from a single place, highlighting the problem areas. Employees who have not completed their formalities or applicants who have left a process halfway will get automated reminders to complete their tasks. This is better than having to track and follow up manually.
2. Bombarding the new joinees with information on day one
The first day at work is overwhelming for the new hire – new workplace, unfamiliar culture, new colleagues, ambiguity about the role etc. It is not right to expect them to absorb and retain crucial information about the position, job, company, and culture on the very first day. While it is tempting to bring the employee up to speed, especially in a fast-paced company, it could be a bit too much to handle. The employee already has documents to fill, numerous names to memorise, several applications to get familiar with, and huge shoes to fill. Achieving all this on day one is impossible.
3. Lack of Role Clarity
A common onboarding challenge is the lack of clarity new hires have in their role. There could be a mismatch between the expectation and reality, and you may be disappointed. This point can be addressed during the employee screening process to see if the applicants’ credentials and past experience are in sync with the current job requirements. Secondly, a discussion between the new hire and the leaders should be held to chart out their career plan and explain how the current role will lift their career.
4. Assuming the recently acquired skills will be relevant forever
Providing the new hire with the skills required to outshine in their role is essential, but it is not a one time process. Even the brightest hires need training from time to time to ensure continuous learning and upskilling. Refresher courses to reinforce initial training are as crucial as carrying them out during induction.
5. Not providing the relevant content for the specific roles.
The onboarding process needs to be tailor-made to be relevant for specific job roles. Training each hire for everything is not sensible and an overkill. For instance, if someone is hired for a sales role, they need to be trained on how to sell the product and learn about it; training them about where to market it or customise it is irrelevant. All processes and applications for which the new employee will be trained should draw a parallel. Providing them with redundant information could suggest that their fundamental roles will differ from what they were hired to do, potentially decreasing employee retention.
Embracing Digital Onboarding & Acquisition solutions is the first step toward addressing onboarding challenges. You can scale up, speed up and transform the employee onboarding experience by digitally authenticating and creating customisable workflows for specific business needs. This eliminates errors and delays as you leverage the power of artificial intelligence and take real-time decisions to make the onboarding journey noteworthy, secure and speedy.
Especially in today’s post-pandemic world, where everything is remote and contactless, employee onboarding must be fruitful and smooth. Being able to onboard and verify new hires instantly, conveniently without any paperwork and even remotely should be easy and non-time consuming. With technology in place, you can save up to 90% of the time spent onboarding and bring down operational costs by up to 70%. Not only do you eliminate risks like bad hires and frauds, but can also scale up the employee onboarding process without compromising on security.
