Lecture 5: Automated Employee Onboarding

Overview

In this lecture student, will be introduce to Automated Employee Onboarding

Application which allow managers succeeding in the quest to find the right candidate
despite the talent crunch has become more important than ever. But after finding the right
person, an even larger challenge begins. After devoting endless hours searching for,
identifying, interviewing, and recruiting the right talent, if the new hire ends up quitting
for a greener landscape, all your hard work will go down the drain, and you are back to
step one.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this lecture students, will be able to get knowledge about:
▪ What is Employee Onboarding?
▪ Why Efficient Employee Onboarding Matters
▪ Benefits of Using Employee Onboarding Automation
▪ Employee Onboarding Process Flow
▪ Status of Employee Onboarding before HR Software
▪ How to Take Employee Onboarding Checklists to the Next Level
▪ Best Practices For A Smooth Onboarding Process
▪ Paperless Onboarding
▪ Benefits of Paperless Onboarding Process

Discussion

Introduction

HR Managers face numerous challenges on a day-to-day basis, but none more intense
than recruitment and employee onboarding. The demand is insatiable, but the talent pool
continues to shrink steadily. Succeeding in the quest to find the right candidate despite
the talent crunch has become more important than ever. But after finding the right
person, an even larger challenge begins. After devoting endless hours searching for,
identifying, interviewing, and recruiting the right talent, if the new hire ends up quitting
for a greener landscape, all your hard work will go down the drain, and you are back to
step one. Or, what if a candidate accepts an offer, confirms the notice period, agrees to a
date of joining, but backs out at the last minute? Can a more structured employee
onboarding implemented using a defined employee onboarding process really prevent
something like this? Would it really increase employee engagement, invoke a sense of
loyalty in new hires and in turn, improve employee retention rate?
What is Employee Onboarding?

The definition of employee onboarding differs from one organization to another. While
the process tends to be almost similar, the time-period and tasks involved make each
onboarding program unique.
While a few HR managers seem to consider employee onboarding process as simply the
new hire paperwork, more savvy and committed team members have a different
perspective on the employee onboarding meaning. They consider the entire period from
the time an offer is released to the moment where an employee becomes a productive
contributor to the organization as a part of employee onboarding.
Onboarding spans from the minute you make an offer to the time the employee starts
genuinely producing in a role.
Every process that falls within that time period including the orientation program, the
training plan, setting up performance metrics, and a feedback loop is segmented under
the definition of onboarding.
What is employee onboarding process?
Employee Onboarding is the process of introducing new employees to the organization’s
environment and culture. However, the time taken to achieve that might vary from one
organization to another.
A few organizations consider onboarding a one-day affair whereas others stretch it out
for 18 months. However, for nearly all organizations, the employee onboarding process
starts right after the offer letter is sent to a prospective employee. Here’s an in-depth look
at the onboarding process flow.

Why Efficient Employee Onboarding Matters

Employee onboarding is the first interaction an employee has with the organization right
after the lengthy interview process.
• If the experience fails to live up to expectations, then your employee might regret their
decision to accept the job offer.
• The negative impression left by a poor onboarding process might affect their
perceptions, give them prejudiced notions about the organization, and ultimately
cause them to quit early.
• A solid employee onboarding process is necessary to help your new hires settle down
in their jobs, get to know the organization, obtain clarity on their job objectives, and
forge a good relationship with other employees.
• A memorable onboarding experience not only makes employees feel welcome but
also helps them gel with the existing organizational family faster.
• HR managers are burdened with enough as it is. Just the thought of tackling the
humongous amount of paperwork involved in the onboarding process is enough to
induce nightmares.
 So, streamlining employee the onboarding process not only impresses new employees
but also reduces the workload of the HR team.

Benefits of Using Employee Onboarding Automation

To avoid last-minute confusions and compliance issues, you need to have a solid
employee onboarding process. Here’s what an efficient an employee onboarding
software does:
• Gives you a clearly outlined onboarding template
• Minimizes the chaos made by paperwork
• Shortens the employee onboarding lifecycle
• Reduces manual intervention and human errors
• Lessens the workload of the HR team
• Provides a consistent experience to all new hires
• Injects transparency into the process flow

Employee Onboarding Process Flow

1. Releasing the offer

Employee onboarding process starts right after the recruitment phase. Once an employee
is selected, an HR manager sends a warm welcome email with a few essential documents
like the offer letter, links to fill out digital onboarding forms, and policy documents.
Keeping the approach transparent familiarizes the employee with the organization’s
culture and lets them know what to expect.
2. Offer acceptance
Once the employee accepts the offer, the best organizations will schedule a quick call to
review the forms, benefits, policies, and set expectations. Keeping the new hires engaged
will affirm their choice to accept the offer, and forge strong emotional ties with the
organization. This is the right time to start sketching the agenda for employee orientation.
3. Waiting period
Just because an employee accepted the offer doesn’t promise that they’ll turn up for the
date of joining. During the waiting period, the employee might be open to offers from
other potential employers as well. So, it is critical to build a good rapport with the
employee. Let the employee know they’re valued. It's a good idea to also plan the waiting
period when you're designing your employee onboarding process
4. The day of joining
On the first day, most new hires have mixed emotions. They feel anxious, happy, excited,
and nervous at the same time. So, the primary duty of HR managers is to ensure that the
new hires feel welcome and comfortable. Invoking a sense of belonging in new hires will
make them feel more committed and focus better on their work.
Having a handy employee onboarding checklist will relieve the stress of HR staff. Here
are a few things to do before the day of joining:
• Keep the orientation schedule ready
 • Assign IT assets (workstation, email access, etc.)
• Obtain necessary office supplies (furniture, keys, access card, etc.)
• Set up a salary account
• Assign a mentor or go-to-person who can help the employee settle down
5. Coordinating with other departments
It is essential to coordinate with key stakeholders (co-workers and managers) and notify
them of the start date of the new hire. HR staff may enlist the help of other employees to
decorate the new employee’s cubicle, organize one-on-one welcome meetings, and
schedule an orientation session.
6. Training and orientation
Orientation sessions give the new hire an overview of the organization’s culture and an
insight into company goals. This phase offers new hires relevant information about the
teams within the company, team processes, and company policies. This is the right time
to set role-based goals and objectives for the next 30/ 60/ 90 days to show the new hires
what they need to focus on.
Since a major portion of employees require some essential training to get started, most
organizations schedule the training program to bring their employees up to speed
quickly. Doing an assessment of skills will help them employers gauge the new hires
knowledge and ability and develop a personalized role-specific training plan in-tune
with their skill set.
7. The first quarter
The major objective of this period is to review the expectations of the organizations and
the employee and ensure they match. This phase needs to be filled with active dialogues
about the progress and continued efforts of the new hire in becoming an integral part of
the organization.
Here is an employee onboarding checklist list of to-do tasks that HR staff and the
managers need to do for retaining the new hires long:
• Discuss the employee's experience and check if it matches their expectations
• Review their performance and offer feedback
• Check whether the employee has any concerns or issues
• Talk about career planning and progression
• Retrieve feedback about onboarding and any suggestions
• Identify if they need any additional training

Reinventing employee onboarding through automation

No matter how big the company, HR leaders tend to have too much on their plates. They
spend enough time scavenging for the right resources, and by the time the onboarding
starts, they are downright exhausted. Rather than adding to their fatigue by forcing them
to do things the old fashioned way, automating the process can reduce their workload by
a considerable amount.
Using HR workflow automation software, you can ditch the onboarding checklist and
forms and eliminate manual dependency in the employee onboarding process.
With automated employee workflow, the complex approval process can be simplified
and streamlined. Also, the workflow would be mostly transparent, so retrieving
information about the status or pinpointing the troubles would be a breeze.
With an automated onboarding app at work, you don’t have to chase after new hires and
managers to complete the tasks assigned to them. The system takes care of it. Automatic
notifications are sent to the right people who cause a delay in the workflow. The only
time you have to intervene is when the system hits a roadblock.
In order to automate the workflow, you don’t have to invest a huge sum in an HR
Management Software or depend on the IT team to develop sophisticated software. A
simple workflow tool can automate the entire employee onboarding process end-to-end.
Even HR staff with little to no technology exposure can create an automated workflow
from scratch using the drag-and-drop interface or customize one of the
predefined onboarding templates to suit their needs.
A good onboarding tool should give new employees a dose of motivation to explore the
new organizational territory without a hint of hesitation.
With an automated onboarding process, new hires can spend less time buried under
paperwork and use more time towards understanding the organizational values,
exploring the workplace, and making new friends.
Tired of spending too much time on the employee onboarding? Is your IT Staff stretched
too thin to customize a product for you? Looking for a simple and sleek tool which does
the job efficiently? Kissflow HR Cloud is the answer to all your employee onboarding
problems. Get a free demo to see how our employee onboarding app could make your
problems fade like fog.
An automated onboarding process is a sigh of relief to HR representatives. In reality,
these new employee onboarding techniques benefit teams beyond the HR department;
those in Finance and Operations, for example, can concentrate on more strategic tasks
with the help of modern HR management systems. The advantages of using an HR cloud
for employee onboarding can have a huge impact on the company, which in the end can
boost overall performance.

Status of Employee Onboarding before HR Software

An Onboarding new employee is a tedious process involving a lot of people and

resources. For just one candidate, an entire host of small tasks have to be completed as
part of the employee onboarding checklist, for example:
▪ Schedule meetings specifically for new hires
▪ Spend time and money to print several company policies and forms that are to be
read and signed as part of the new hire onboarding process
▪ Distribute forms such as surveys, made specifically for the purpose of employee
onboarding in-person
▪ Manually key in employee data onto a computer
▪ Closely monitor the process and review the gathered data to avoid mistakes when
onboarding new employees
▪ Assess new hires individually
▪ Pair new hires with a peer (e.g. mentorship program, buddy system) as part of the
HR onboarding process
▪ Prepare visual aids and other training modules for employee onboarding
requirement
▪ Organize orientation workshops to run tests, impart about company policies, and
discuss ideas with the new hires for a stricter employee onboarding process
▪ But there are additional risks involved with the process, such as:
▪ HR might lose some employee forms and have to repeat the entire process again.
▪ It’s highly likely that some of the new recruits will give wrong inputs than what
was asked of them, or the HR person might type them wrong when they manually
transcribe it in the computer.
▪ The new hires can grow impatient and the back and forth onboarding might drain
their productivity even before they start working on a project.
▪ Onboarding new employees don’t have to be a groan-inducing process. More and
more companies are opting for automated onboarding apps because of the
obvious improvements in new hire satisfaction, performance, as well as the
general efficiency of the company.
▪ HR Automated Onboarding Benefits:
▪ For the company:
▪ The company is able to save money. This is definitely something that management
board in every company loves to hear. Onboarding automation eliminates the
redundancy that paperwork brings to a process. On average, companies have
about 15 to 20 forms and papers to read, review, and sign as part of standard HR
onboarding procedures. Not anymore.
▪ The company is able to save time. HR onboarding usually takes a toll on those
with administrative roles. The new employee onboarding process can save a lot of
time as it frees the HR staff from spending too much time with the new hires.
▪ The company is able to collect data more efficiently. With automated onboarding
process, you can gather information about the new hires more efficiently. You can
also store the collected data in a secure place or integrate with other HR software.
▪ The company is able to reduce errors. This goes with the cost-effectively of
automated employee onboarding. Onboarding workflow automation brings the
precision of a machine to the process of onboarding new employees. There are set
parameters to an automated process which eliminates the chances of errors by a
big margin.
▪ The company has a better sense of security. Employee onboarding can be a
sensitive process as it includes important employee data. With onboarding
automation, companies can ensure that all information collected while onboarding
new employees stays confidential and locked in a virtual database and out of reach
from any kind of physical access.
▪ For the new hire:
 ▪ The new hire is less likely to be overwhelmed. An integral part of onboarding new
employees is giving them the right kind of information at the right time.
Automated HR platforms are able to release modules and other aid on schedule,
and can also track progress and learning milestones.
▪ The new hire feels fulfilled. The traditional form of onboarding new employees
usually leads to an ugly imbalance where some new hires receive a great
onboarding experience while others get a hurried walkthrough.
Automated onboarding software can ensure that the employee onboarding
process is consistent for every new person that joins the team.
▪ The new hire can focus on tasks related to his or her jobs. The faster the onboarding
process is over, the sooner a new person can start working on a team. Automated
onboarding workflow shortens the time for a person to transition from training to
start working on their very first assignment. The new hire can spend time to get
familiar with their work and meet the cadence of their team to make meaning
contribution.
▪ The new hire feels empowered. The rote way of employee onboarding can be
extremely demanding of a new hire’s time. With automation, onboarding new
employees become a stress-free experience where both the new hire and the
administrators have their own time to complete and facilitate tasks respectively
through software.
▪ At the end of the day, an employee onboarding process is just a means to the end.
When the process is fast and efficient, it gives the new staff the confidence to learn
the nuances of their new job quickly and make a difference in their team.
▪ Employee onboarding automation doesn’t have to be what it once was—messy,
stressful, and time-consuming. With great onboarding solution to automate your
onboarding process your business can manage the entire process with more
control.

The Employee Onboarding Process in Kissflow’s HR Cloud

Although businesses have little to no change in their onboarding process, there has been
a drastic change in the demands and expectations of today’s workforce. Employees seek
a personalized and seamless onboarding experience that is free from arduous paperwork
and manual effort. Here, soloed systems and manual processes fall short of their
expectations threatening employee dissatisfaction.
Businesses need to create a dynamic onboarding process that keeps employees engaged
and happy right from their first day at work. To create a good first impression,
organizations need to move away from their manual processes and implement an HR
management suite that automates every step of the onboarding process in an effective
way.
Kissflow’s HR Cloud lets you harness the power of technology to better understand the
needs of your new hires and keep them engaged.
Here are the functionalities that help businesses automate their onboarding process in
the blink of an eye.
1. Personalized experience
Onboarding checklists tend to make onboarding monotonous. Kissflow’s HR Cloud
allows HR leaders create a dynamic onboarding process that gives every new hire a
positive onboarding experience.
2. Standardized process
With Kissflow’s HR Cloud, businesses can streamline their employee onboarding process
workflow, make approvals conditional, and monitor the progress. Get alerts about any
issues that require quick action.
3. Easy integration
Eliminate data redundancy and human errors by connecting easily with your third-party
software solutions (ERP, accounting system, payroll software) to create employee
records, capture salary information, and more.
4. Efficient collaboration
The onboarding process isn’t just about a sequence of tasks. It is a dynamic process that
grows and changes as the organization does. Having a place to discuss these changes in
the context of the onboarding process is imperative. Use an in-built collaboration tool to
initiate conversations among step owners, share best practices, and give announcements
on changes to the process.
5. Improved accuracy
Organizations need a user-friendly onboarding module that encourages user adoption
while employees and new hires need access to employee self-service portal where they
can manage their personal and professional information on their own.
Successful employee onboarding is essential to keep your workforce engaged and happy.
The key is to implement a user-friendly employee onboarding software that not only
automates the process but also enables user adoption while minimizing risks. Rather than
opting for a standalone onboarding system, businesses can benefit from an all-in-one HR
management system like Kissflow’s HR Cloud. Get started today and see how it
makes HR management easy and effective.

How to Take Employee Onboarding Checklists to the Next Level

Employee attrition has always been a major concern for organizations. Nearly 40% of
employee turnover occurs in the first six months or less. Whose fault is this? Should we
blame HR for selecting flakey candidates who don’t understand the role? Is it the training
team’s fault for not bringing them up to par? Or is it the fault of the managers for scaring
away new hires?
But, there’s something even SMBs can do to retain their employees a lot longer: scale up
the onboarding process using a great employee onboarding checklist. A great employee
onboarding process has the power to retain 69% of new hires for at least 3 years. It can
help the organization stem attrition and build a strong foundation of trust. So, an
employee onboarding checklist that does the bare minimum to prepare your new hires
doesn’t cut it.
You need something that will turn your new hires into loyal, long-time, productive
employees for your organization. You need a great onboarding process that churns out
superheroes who become torchbearers of your organization. Here’s how you can take
your employee onboarding checklists to the next level.
• The employee onboarding checklist flow
In many startups and small businesses, the process flow tends to be quite simple. Most
of the time, the entire process is handled by the same person. They scurry around with
an onboarding checklist and try to manage all of the tasks manually. While
onboarding checklists are useful, tracking each task manually is time-consuming and
tedious.
At large enterprises, the entire employee onboarding checklists can cover many
departments and formal training seminars. The process flow tends to be quite
complex with an array of checkpoints. When the dependency on human intervention
is high, the room for errors also increases. If HR managers have to get work done by
tracking the progress manually, every point in the process has the potential for errors,
for data to vanish.
• Common phases of employee onboarding checklist
Every organization has a unique style of working. No matter how your company
executes its employee onboarding, these broadly defined stages are most likely how
things are done. They represent the most common path that onboarding a new
employee takes.
You can think of these stages as a collection of tasks, usually carried out in a sequence
that varies from company to company.
Step 1: Preparation
This takes place before onboarding even starts, and sometimes extends well into
the bulk of the onboarding process, representatives from admin, HR, and L&D, all
schedule and plan out their meetings with the new joined.
Step 2: Orientation
During their first week, you walk new joinees through workplace policies, help
them with paperwork, and welcome them to the organization. Some tasks here
may be carried out by an admin representative, and then L&D can take over,
especially if the company uses complex workplace software/tools.
Step 3: Integration
During integration, new employees meet their team. This is a two-part
introduction, as they learn about the work they will be doing, as well as about the
general culture/atmosphere within the organization.
Step 4: Engagement
Finally, new joinees go from fresh-faced newbie to settled-in employee. At this
stage, they’ve started to build working relationships with teammates, and are
prepared to contribute meaningfully to the organization’s short- and long-term
goals.
 Step 5: Follow-Up
Once the employee has been on boarded, engagement is key to their success. This
is maintained by regular follow-ups conducted by their immediate
superiors/mentors, as well as representatives from HR.
Sample employee onboarding checklist Kissflow HR cloud allows you to turn a
paper-based checklist into an onboarding app and automate your onboarding
process in minutes. Let’s look at a sample new employee onboarding checklist:
▪ Add personal employee information to an organizational database (name,
address, contact)
▪ Add the employee to organizational chart (role, manager, department, start
date, location)
▪ Set a reminder for birthday and work anniversary
▪ Send a welcome note (Include a company swag)
▪ Have the IT department create a new email address for the employee
▪ Add their email address to appropriate email lists
▪ Learn what resources (hardware, software, mobile phone, apps) they would
need

▪ Create a new salary account for the employee (order debit/credit cards)
▪ Ensure IT team has their system and access keys ready (password, wifi access)
▪ Request the admin to allot a cabin and access cards
▪ Get approval from the finance team for resource allotment
▪ Set up meetings with relevant departments (IT, Finance, HR, etc)
▪ Schedule required training (technology or general)
Onboarding workflow automation software will convert your employee
onboarding checklist into live workflows which assigns right tasks and the right
time to the right people while ensuring that nothing is overlooked. Kissflow HR
Cloud offers the same amazing onboarding experience to every new employee.
▪ Automating the employee onboarding checklist
Onboarding is a human-centric process that demands a lot of time and energy, and
technology goes a long way in facilitating it. Manual and repetitive tasks involved in
the process can be automated to improve the experience and relieve stress for both
employees and HR leaders alike.
Automation will seamlessly integrate the various stages of onboarding and enable
effortless collaboration. HR managers can collaborate with stakeholders before
releasing an employee’s offer, and an automated notification can be released to them
all once when the employee accepts the offer.
In an automated employee onboarding template, HR managers have access to check
the status of new hire documentation and verify whether the process follows the pre-
defined onboarding workflow. Any delays or discrepancies will send automated
notifications to all people involved. This added security ensures that the process is
completed within the timeline and maintains the transparency throughout.
▪ Employee onboarding workflow automation
 Kissflow HR Cloud gives you all the flexibility you need to customize your own
unique signature experience to impress your new hires. And best of all, you don’t
need coding expertise to automate your employee onboarding. The only thing every
user needs is an email address. Sign-up for a free demo and get 30-day free trial and
see how easy it is to create an automated employee onboarding solution.
▪ Think You Have the Perfect Onboarding Process?
The tasks involved in recruiting new employees to a business can take up a lot of HR’s
valuable time. But the hard work doesn’t stop when an offer of employment is made
to the successful candidate. This starts the snowball rolling on a ton of activities that
need to be carried out before the new employee’s first day. This avalanche is known
as the employee onboarding process and getting it right is vital for your new hire’s
experience of joining your company and for your company’s image. Looking for
employee onboarding best practices should always be top of mind for HR.

Best Practices for A Smooth Onboarding Process

The key to a memorable and slick onboarding experience for your new hire is
preparation. This means getting started well in advance of their start date to plan and
organize not only the tasks that need to be completed, but how you want the look and
feel of their entry to the company to be. Here are several employee onboarding best
practices you can put into place.
1. Keep in touch
It’s a great idea to reach out to new hires before they start. All too often, individuals are
made a formal offer of employment and then have little or no communication with their
new employer before their first day, which can feel cold and unwelcoming for them. Start
building commitment and engagement early on by sending a welcome email to your new
hires, telling them how excited you are to get them on board, and giving them a taste of
what their induction period will entail.

2. Make their first day memorable

A great first day will give your new hire enthusiasm and a sense of positivity about their
future with you. Think carefully about what you want to introduce them to on their first
day. Obvious practicalities such as IT access need to be arranged, but steer clear of sitting
them in front of a computer for hours.
Another great employee onboarding best practice is a team lunch where they can get to
know their colleagues and take time to relax can be a great way to make the first-day fun
and fruitful. Also consider some one-to-one time with the line manager, giving both the
opportunity to talk about their future hopes and expectations within the role and to go
through their induction and training programme, so they know what to expect during
the coming days and weeks.
3. Communicate the culture early and often
Try not to get too hung up on making sure your new hire is up to speed with the
company’s policies and procedures and instead focus on helping them to understand
your core values and culture. This could include how colleagues communicate with each
other, expectations between employees and managers, customer and client relationships,
etc. Rules and processes can be learned later; if your new hire gets quickly onboard with
the way you do business, they are much likely to succeed in their role.
4. Get to grips with technology
Finally, one of the core employee onboarding best practices is to make sure your
technology is working great before the new hire arrives. HR software offers great
opportunities to support overworked line managers and HR teams with organizing the
onboarding of new employees, rather than relying on manual, paper-based methods
which can let the process down and cause errors or problems before the new hire has
even started.
Improve the Onboarding Process with Kissflow HR Cloud
The above areas are just some ideas for employee onboarding best practices. As you can
see, the tasks vary in scope and usually involve liaison across multiple teams and
individuals, meaning co-coordinating activity and tracking completion can be difficult.
As part of its suite of HR apps, Kissflow HR Cloud offers an onboarding template where
users can set up and customize standard, automated workflows for each of the tasks that
form the complete onboarding process. For example, HR teams can set up workflows to
send personalized welcome emails from a template to new hires in advance of their start
date, or automatically request IT access so it is ready before their first day.
Line managers can use pre-set workflows to arrange their new team member’s induction
by setting up training courses and meetings. And automatic feeds from new employee
records mean the new employee’s details will be pre-populated on holiday and absence
charts, timesheets, etc. for added convenience.
These workflows help to make an otherwise repetitive and messy process, slicker and
more streamlined. The fact that many of the tasks are automated or set by reminders
means it is much less likely something crucial will be missed. This saves the time of line
managers and HR teams and also serves to give the new employee a positive first
impression of their new company.
Capitalize on Employee Onboarding Best Practices With Kissflow
In summary, getting the onboarding process right is critical to set your new employee off
in your organization on the right track. Using workflows in HR software, such as
Kissflow’s onboarding app, allows for greater consistency, higher quality of the
onboarding process and fewer working hours spent carrying out manual tasks.

Paperless Onboarding

With great talent comes great employee onboarding responsibility. Most HR managers
wish they could use the same employee onboarding template for every new hire.
However, there is no such thing as one-size-fits-all when it comes to employee
onboarding. Each onboarding process is unique.
Onboarding is a critical step in the workforce management process. However, when it is
managed manually, it can be often overlooked or poorly handled. As a result, it can give
your new hires a bad first impression. Worst of all, tons of paperwork, missed
information, and busy managers can increase an employee’s time to productivity. It’s for
these reasons why various industries have turned to a singular solution for clean, fast,
and efficient new paperless onboarding. Irrespective of an organization’s size or industry,
all roads lead to one innovation: automated onboarding.

What is paperless onboarding?

Paperless onboarding is the process of using employee onboarding software or a unified

HR management solution to speed up and streamline the process. These onboarding
tools take a fresh approach to onboarding to making it flexible, automatic, and personal.
As a result, it improves employee engagement, reduces ramp time, and ensures process
compliance.
How to make paperless onboarding a reality
The real challenge is implementing an effective paperless onboarding process in the
paper-heavy world of HR. However, if you plan ahead properly, you can make your
onboarding process paperless in a short amount of time.
Since most onboarding tasks are a bit repetitive, the associated workflows lend
themselves into automated processes. With advanced onboarding software, digital
onboarding forms, dynamic HR workflows, and cloud-based storage, the onboarding
process can be processed without any paper.
Best practices of paperless onboarding
Using paperless onboarding platforms like Kissflow HR Cloud businesses can make
employee onboarding a unified part of their talent management strategy. However, even
with the best tool in the market, businesses can have trouble retrieving the ROI if they
miss out to follow some best employee onboarding practices:
▪ Revise procedures and policies to authorize paperless onboarding
▪ Re-evaluate the list of stakeholders involved in the process
▪ Review the existing onboarding process and eliminate redundant steps
▪ Sketch out the final onboarding process flow
▪ Create paperless onboarding templates and workflows with automation
▪ Test it rigorously with the help of other business users
▪ Arrange proper change management training to stakeholders
▪ Implement the system, collect feedback from users, and keep improving the
process

Benefits of Paperless Onboarding Process

Modern technology is rapidly changing employee expectations, and businesses need to

keep up with those demands and reduce turnover. Paperless onboarding helps
businesses fulfill those expectations.
The benefits of making onboarding paperless have been extolled numerous times: it saves
time, reduces cost, ensures efficiency, and speeds up ramp time. However here are a few
more benefits of implementing paperless employee onboarding software:
1. Digitize onboarding forms
With digital employee onboarding forms, HR professionals can create and manage
onboarding documents, eliminate the need to print, scan, and manually key in
confidential employee information.
Additionally, online onboarding forms increase accuracy and ensure consistency in the
onboarding process. Using an all-in-one HR suite like Kissflow HR Cloud, organizations
can customize the onboarding form to fit their unique business needs.
2. Create dynamic onboarding workflows
Since the onboarding process is unique for every new hire, businesses need the option to
design dynamic onboarding workflows that give every new hire memorable onboarding
experience. These onboarding workflows act like onboarding checklists which guide the
new hire through every step of the process to eventually become a productive team
member.
Kissflow HR Cloud’s onboarding module comes with a progress bar and automated
notification to help stakeholders keep track of the process. Businesses can make the
onboarding process compliant by enforcing business rules, setting conditions, and
restricting visibility.
3. Integrate onboarding with other HR processes
Employee onboarding is not an isolated process. It is interconnected with other HR
processes like training management, performance appraisals, employee self-service, and
more.
Once an employee is an onboarding, businesses can organize role-specific training, set
short term performance goals, and allow employees to manage their profile. All these
activities will improve employee engagement and motivate them to stay for the long haul.
Some HR platforms like Kissflow HR Cloud offer businesses the means to integrate with
third-party systems of their choice. It’s built-in connect makes the process of integrating
with a third-party application as easy as installing a social network app.
4. Access everything through a single onboarding platform
One of the best things about paperless onboarding is the process of visibility it offers. The
dashboard in HR tools allows process administrators like HR leaders to view processes
in real-time, reassign tasks, measure the processing speed, and identify pain points, and
so on.
They can even get a clear picture of where a process is stalled and who is responsible for
it. This ensures transparency and encourages accountability in a team. Powerful features
like these help your HR department transform from just another overworked team to an
innovative workspace.
Go paperless today
Paperless onboarding fulfills the strategic aspects of onboarding such as engagement and
orientation without compromising tactical aspects compliance and integration with other
tools. The end-to-end automation of onboarding process makes employees happy and
delivers better business results.
Kissflow HR Cloud’s built-in onboarding module provides businesses the ultimate
employee onboarding platform to fulfill the expectations of their modern workforce. It
helps organizations turn new hires into productive employees in no time at all. If you’re
on the lookout for a powerful onboarding module, sign-up for a free trial and see how
silky smooth onboarding can be.