How To Choose The Best Employee Onboarding Software

In the first week of a new job, approximately 16% of employees are already thinking about leaving. This is according to a survey of 1,000 people conducted by BambooHR. Nearly 17% of respondents left between the first week and the third month of beginning a new role. And one-third of people surveyed said they had quit within six months. “Job hopping” is a big problem for today’s enterprises. But why are so many new hires giving up and moving on so soon? The problem is likely to be engagement levels. Gallup reports that the majority of millennials (55%) are not engaged in their work. New hires need to be engaged from day one and employee onboarding software is a great way to manage this process.

Dive Deeper: 8 Onboarding Fails That Will Send Your New Hire Running

Why employee onboarding software is so beneficial

Successful employee onboarding is critical for a number of reasons:

1. Retaining the top talent you worked hard to recruit

According to SHRM Foundation’s research, new employees who attended a well-structured orientation program were 69% more likely to remain at the company for three years.

2. Maintaining engagement and commitment

Research shows the benefits of new employee onboarding. When done correctly, it leads to higher job satisfaction, better engagement, organizational commitment, lower turnover, higher performance levels, career effectiveness, and lowered stress.

3. Improving overall business performance

Employee turnover has a huge impact on the bottom line. American Progress found that the cost to replace an employee is between 16 and 21.5% of that position’s salary. With all the serious business benefits attached to effective onboarding, it’s shocking to find that approximately 35% of companies don’t invest in it. The right employee onboarding software is a comparatively small investment that can become a huge benefit to your employee onboarding model and overall HR plan. But with so many options, choosing the right one can be difficult.

How to choose employee onboarding software

Here are our top tips for choosing the employee onboarding software that will help you to achieve your goals and engage new hires.

1. Define your goals

As with any strategic process, the first step is to determine your goals. What are your main objectives for using employee onboarding software? Is it to speed up time-to-competency during the onboarding process? Maybe to cut the costs of updating and maintaining information. Or to gain insights into employee software use and errors. Whatever they may be, consider which aspects of onboarding you want new hires to cover using a digital tool. Then research which solutions provide these things.

2. Set the budget

Employee onboarding software comes in a variety of payment models. First, set the budget. Then decide whether you want a subscription-based solution, pay per use, monthly, or annual payment options.

3. Specify your features

Defining your goals will help you to determine your “must-have” features. Seek these out as a priority and distinguish them from more superfluous features or “nice-to-haves”.

4. Consider integration

Ask yourself whether your onboarding solution can stand alone, or whether it needs to be integrated with other HR software. This is an important step. Consistency within the user interface will help your new hire significantly when learning to navigate multiple different tools. So if you have a lot of apps and software to introduce them to, an integrated employee onboarding software solution is the smarter choice.

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5. Review analytics

It’s important to review the sort of reporting and analytics your software will provide. This is the kind of data that could provide great value to you — and potentially other business departments too. For example, you can learn how users interact with your digital tools and systems. Find out who is completing set goals and who isn’t. This can help you to improve systems and processes, which will have a knock-on effect on performance.

Employee on-boarding presents an awesome opportunity to put the “human” back in HR. Check out this @SHRM article about how @Oracle is setting a great example for this: https://t.co/fu9TMblZ7b#EmployeeOnboarding #HumanizeHR

— Culture Amp (@CultureAmp) December 14, 2018

The right employee onboarding software will supercharge your training strategy

HR experts agree that you must integrate new hires into your company culture and onboard them to tools and processes as quickly as possible. Employee onboarding software is an excellent way to do this. Never forget that you’re onboarding a human being. This person was once the new kid on the playground, and now they probably have that same feeling. You want them to feel comfortable and learn the ropes. They need to understand how the organization operates and know what to expect. This will help them to be productive, fast. Employee onboarding shouldn’t be complicated. It should be quick, simple, meaningful, and stress-free — for you and your new hire. With the right employee onboarding software, you can empower employees to become proficient in complex software systems and company-specific routines quickly and easily.