A quick start guide to Onboarding

Onboarding, orientation, induction – it’s all the same, right?

Wrong. The term ‘onboarding’ is often used interchangeably with induction or orientation, but they are actually quite different.

Onboarding refers to the formalities you go through, such as completing paperwork and confirming certifications to ensure legislative and compliance requirements are met. Commonly, this includes:

  • Employment paperwork, such as tax declarations and superannuation forms
  • Right to work, visa and police/compliance checks
  • Verification of qualifications, certifications and tickets
  • Required learning, such as WHS training

On the other hand, induction or orientation refers to the activities undertaken in the first days of official employment to welcome and familiarise the new hire with the culture, workplace, and team.

So, onboarding is just about formalities?

Wrong. Okay, maybe it’s more about forms than fanfare; no personalised mugs or CEO meet and greets here. However, onboarding is usually the first impression you make on a new hire. And it says a lot about you.
78% of candidates consider the candidate experience as indicative of how your organisation treats its people.
The speed of your onboarding process also impacts when an employee can start and how soon they will get paid, so there’s actually a lot riding on it. And failure to deliver can have a far more memorable impact than not meeting the CEO on day one.

Why is fast, efficient onboarding a must-have?

In a candidate-short market, your speed and efficiency matter a whole lot. If it takes you several days and multiple emails back and forth just to confirm right to work requirements, your candidate may just receive (and take!) another offer.
Only 12% of employees strongly agree that their onboarding process was effective.
Efficient onboarding also creates a great first impression. You can get a candidate up and running and ready to start straight away without wasting their time on back-and-forth communication, double handling of data, lengthy delays or multiple systems and touchpoints.

What makes for great onboarding?

1. Timing is everything
We’ve all been there, on that first day filling out numerous paper or online forms, scanning documents and watching basic training videos. It’s not the start anyone wants, so get the formalities done before the employee starts. You can even start earlier, completing required checks, such as Working with Children and police checks and verifying certificates and tickets before the interview.
Great onboarding is your on-ramp to great induction – getting the formalities done before day one means your candidate can hit the ground running.

2. Make it easy breezy – for you and your candidate

In a digital world, candidates should be able to expect online onboarding, but in many cases, it’s still a paper-based process. This creates a headache for your candidate – and one for you too. There’s scanning on both sides and storage processes to be created and followed. It can be a compliance nightmare.

Even some digital solutions require more work from your team, administering and managing lost passwords, for example. When moving online, look for a simple solution, without passwords or logins, like Onboarded, where candidates complete all requirements via a single, secure and unique URL – no forgotten usernames or passwords on either side!

In addition, look for solutions that integrate with your CRM/ATS solution, meaning documents are uploaded straight to your candidate profile. This will keep all your information in one place and ensure no double handling of data and no room for error. Information comes straight from the candidate to your existing system.

3. Less talk, more action

Onboarding shouldn’t be time-consuming for you or your candidate. And it certainly shouldn’t involve considerable back and forth between the candidate and the recruiter/HR.

Automation is key to keeping the process moving without bottlenecks. A solution like Onboarded streamlines the process, making it easy for candidates to upload documentation from any device with no scanning required. A mobile phone or tablet camera is all they need. And if something hasn’t been done on time, then simple, friendly automated reminders are there to guide them through their next steps.

Keep things simple with an easy process and automated reminders that make life easy for everyone.

So, how can you achieve it?

With Onboarded, of course! (This is the part where we tell you how great Onboarded is, but we’ve decided to outsource and let our clients do the talking instead.)

Quality data, captured anytime, anywhere and on any device

“Everyone has smartphones and the expectation from candidates for things to be simplified and automated is getting greater and greater. Those that do not improve and simplify the process will lose the ability to provide their customers with good quality candidates.

Before we used Onboarded, we were often up to 4 weeks behind in capturing all the details of the new candidates into our systems. We had to not only clear the congestion but also improve the quality of data captured. Onboarded is excellent value based on time savings, but it is the improvement in data quality that makes it essential.”

Richard Walters, National Commercial Manager, Toll People

Save time and money while achieving better outcomes

“(Prior to implementing Onboarded)…candidates would take over 1.5 hours to complete the process. Consultants would interview in pen and paper and do reference checking, and immigration checking was needed. Data entry alone took 25 minutes with an experienced operator per candidate.

Everyone across the business could just see how much time was going to be saved and what this software could do to make our lives easier and alleviate a time-consuming bottleneck.”

When we look at how much we have saved… we can break the figures down all the way. The numbers ($1.2 million per annum) speak for themselves… we couldn’t be happier with those results.”

Lisa Rose, National Improvements and Implementation Manager, National Workforce.

Make life easy for you and your candidates

“Different people have different levels of expertise. We needed to ensure that all candidates could easily complete the process and that it works for blue-collar workers on different devices in remote locations. We had to have it work for everyone.

A number of people in the business have commented that this was the easiest of all the implementations we have ever done. The Onboarded team took the time to sit with our team and those actually performing the role and worked on making their lives easier.”

Megan Kearney, HR Advisor, Spinifex Recruiting

Collect all the information you need fast via a single link

“Digitising the onboarding process was just the logical way forward and Onboarded software helped us achieve this. Now our consultants can trigger the onboarding process with one email and one link.

(Candidates) are no longer in our office for 30-45 minutes doing manual paperwork. Now they complete most of the onboarding electronically and simply attend for a face-to-face interview which takes a maximum of 10-15 minutes which they appreciate.”

Simon Middlebrook, General Manager, Skillforce Recruitment

Integrate onboarding with the tools you already use

“As a business, we want to use one ATS platform that performs all the functionality we need, without being diverted to an external system or software. Currently, we use Jobadder, and with its easy and complete integration with Onboarded, we are able to harness the benefits of streamlined onboarding functions without having to log in to a second system.”

Samie Fogarty, Business Improvement Coordinator, PeopleIN

Ready to get onboard with a better way?

We would love to show you how you can save time and money, and deliver a winning experience. Book your demo here.

  1. Career Builder, Candidate Experience Study 2017
  2. Gallup, State of the American Workplace, 2017