Hi and welcome to another episode of my tips series!
My name is Anwar Khalil, the CEO & founder at MyRecruitment+ and today, I’m going to share with you some tech stuff from the R&D lab, but also the knowledge from hundreds of client meetings that myself and my team have had, with HR and IT decision makers.
So basically I’m going to make you the DIY Queen, King, and connoisseur of paperless Onboarding software… so strap yourself in for the ride and please don’t forget to share this article if you feel that you enjoyed it or learned something from it 🙂
How onboarding Software works?
Tip # 1 – Automating the creation of the on-boarding pack
OK, with this one, what you don’t want is to have to copy and paste the candidate and position information into the contract, letter of offer, forms etc.
What you want is a click, click and click and that’s it – an entire onboarding pack including a letter of offer/contract, forms, induction videos etc… all personalized and ready to go.
What I mean by ready to go is that all the information that has so far been collected during the requisition and
recruitment process… should get transferred into the on-boarding pack, and find itself inserted in all the right places across those documents.
Of course there might be additional information that hasn’t been collected yet, but this still needs to be populated in the contract for example… and so you should be able to type it in through a simple UI instead of scrolling through a crazy, 30-page contract… find where the info needs to go, type and save – this should be something from the past.
Tip # 2 – Digital signing
Digital signing is pivotal to an
onboarding technology – please run away if the technology you’re looking at, still doesn’t have full digital signing implemented and embedded organically right through it.
Signing a contract or letter of offer, is, in fact, the Achilles’ heels of an efficient, quick onboarding process, the biggest bottleneck and the most likely point of dropoff!
Please remember, attaching the letter of offer as a PDF into an email is not Digital on-boarding… because they still have to print, sign, scan and send back.
I remember in my past life, I was finishing up a contract at IBM, and so I’d verbally accepted another contract to work at some company in the Sydney CBD area. The recruitment consultant said me that my on-boarding pack is on its way in the mail (snail mail that is!). A week later, and I still hadn’t seen the on-boarding pack… and in the meantime, another consultant came up to Chatswood, met with me over lunch, took me through the contract and within an hour I had my signature on it and the deal was sealed. The speed of execution and the pleasant experience won in that case and the first consultant lost approximately a 10K deal.
Tip # 3 – Option for contract variation (cross-boarding)
The on-boarding software you decide to go with should have an option for contract variations – yes it’s true that there is lots of overlap between onboarding and cross-boarding (contract variations)… however I believe we here at MyRecruitment+ spent days and days working on the subtle differences the two tasks require, before our clients were satisfied and happy to start using it for cross-boarding purposes.
For example, you don’t want the language in the communication messages (SMS, emails etc) neither in the UX, to be saying the words “onboarding” or “new employment” etc… so this is a small example of some of the subtlfe differences I was referring to.
Tip # 4 – Auto-notify internal stakeholders like procurement, IT etc.
Various stakeholders in your organization might want to be notified of the fact that a new person is starting and that they might need a workspace, desk, computer, login details, and access to networks, software systems, emails… etc….
Some of these stakeholders want to know as much ahead of time as possible, but some of them are ok to be notified towards the end of the hiring and at the point when the candidate signs their contract and completed their pack.
So the notification system has to be flexible so it can easily be customized to suit your environment and also please your spoiled managers and executives 🙂
Tip # 5 – Option for Off-boarding
Please refer to my comments about the option for cross-boarding in terms of there are lots of overlap between onboarding and off-boarding features, and here are some the main features to look for – notify the right people at the right time regarding the exit details and dates so they can decommission certain things / terminate access to certain things / return allocated assets such as laptops or phones.
Tip # 6 – Forms are 100% online
Make sure the technology you’re thinking of picking, is a proper online platform that has all the standard and your own custom forms online as opposed to PDF attachments that candidates have to download, fill out and then upload. This is a completely different world and I seriously would be insulting your intelligence if I began to describe the advantages of the online forms vs. the PDF attachments… but I just wanted to remind you and make sure it’s on the list.
Tip # 7 – Branded candidate portal
Branded and self-customisable candidate portal or what we call the candidate’s workbench is very important, because up until the candidate has signed their contract and completed their pack, there is still a huge risk of drop-off… not as if signing contracts these days, are 100% stopping some candidates of still changing their minds… but nevertheless, during this delicate pre-signing time, your on-boarding technology, your communication messages, your personal support and communication skills are all tools that should and need to reenforce to the candidate that they’ve chosen the right company. This way, with smooth, impressive modern platform and world-class communication skills from HR, together the candidate continues to go through, the, in the best of times unpleasant exercise of reading legal contracts and fill out forms and watching induction and fire exit strategy videos.
Tip # 8 – Integration: ATO, Payroll, HRMS, HRIS
8.1 – Integration with the ATO
You should no longer need to send the paper-based Tax Declaration form, in a snail mail to the ATO and hope for the best. A modern onboarding platform should allow you to submit this form electronically and with a few clicks only, straight to the ATO and get a confirmation too.
8.2 – Integration with HRMS/HRIS/Payroll
Once the candidate has completed their on-boarding pack, the technology should allow HR/Payroll to transfer all the already entered details from requisition, recruitment, and on-boarding… all relevant information from those 3 phases, should be transferred to your HRMS, HRIS or Payroll in a few clicks. Please make sure that this option is available as it can save tons of time and error-prone data entry.
Tip # 9 – Allow video content to cater for induction materials
The onboarding platform should allow the pack to also contain video content and be able to track the candidate’s footprint and record what the candidate has watched and what they didn’t.
Tip # 10 – Countdown timer to urge candidates and reduce drop-offs
This is really important and it should work just like ticket-purchasing websites like airline tickets and others – the countdown creates an urgency in the psychology of the candidate so they magically find the required time to complete your pack and guess what… just in the nick of time – how surprising – right 🙂