Why invest in onboarding software? [+ 4 tools]

Your onboarding experience is your employee’s first look at the culture and practices of your company.

A poor employee onboarding process can leave a bad impression on your organization and your new employees. Even worse, it can set the new hires up for failure. Your new employees could leave your company within a short period because of low morale and low employee engagement, for example.

These impressions and experiences can be costly to your company because the time, money, and effort you spend on recruiting and training will go to waste. As a consequence, you’ll spend that same amount of time, money, and effort on hiring and training more new employees. It’s a dastardly cycle.

This why you should have trustworthy onboarding software for an effective onboarding process.

What is onboarding software?

Onboarding software, sometimes part of a human resources information system (HRIS) or workforce management system, organizes and coordinates the onboarding process for new team members.

It makes the administrative work of the hiring manager easier, as well as eases the transition of new hires into their roles. For instance, it streamlines the entire process by getting rid of unnecessary paperwork.

Also, onboarding software makes it possible for new employees to communicate with their employer before their start date, ensuring they will can ask questions and integrate better into their new team.

6 onboarding software benefits

1. Better employee experience

Talented employees have no shortage of job opportunities available to them. Therefore, if they don’t have a good experience at your company, they’ll quickly look for another job.

Moreover, having an efficient onboarding process will set the tone for the employee experience. In other words, new hires will see that you care about their experience at your organization—from day one.

2. Simplified paperwork

There’s so much paperwork during the onboarding process, but you don’t have to overwhelm your new hires with documents on their first day. From day one, automated onboarding software will prevent unnecessary documentation and back-and-forth. Some software solutions make it even easier for recruiters to keep hiring processes paperless.

3. Heightened employee engagement

Engaged employees will go above and beyond in their duties, ensuring higher productivity, profitability, and lower absenteeism with a higher retention rate. As a result, proper onboarding can help employees feel more connected to your company and its vision, mission, and values.

4. Guaranteed accuracy

Hectic documentation can cause compliance problems. By automating your onboarding process, you leave little room for error.

5. Higher talent attraction

Unsatisfied employees may make their opinions known and tarnish the reputation of your company. In contrast, most new hires will recommend an employer to a friend or a family member after their onboarding process. Ultimately, a great onboarding process that offers an efficient employee experience and employee lifecycle can go a long way in helping you attract the best candidates.

6. Increased productivity

New employees need time to become productive because it takes time to settle into a new role. For this reason, proper onboarding can speed up this process, reducing the time needed to settle in and improving productivity.

Also, effective onboarding software helps the new employees become acclimated to the company and ensure relationship building between workers.

How to use onboarding solutions

Managing new employee paperwork

New employee paperwork never seems to end. But with onboarding software, hiring managers can keep all documents in one place, thereby reducing the time spent filling in redundant information.

Documenting employment compliance

Documenting employment compliance can be a complicated process. But onboarding software can help ensure your company uses the most recent forms. It thoroughly explains and guides employees while filling them out, from state tax forms to e-verify automation. Thus, new employee onboarding software can help your company remain compliant and save time while being user-friendly.

Background checks

Carrying out background checks is vital to keeping your business and employees safe and protected. With onboarding software, you can request background checks with one click—making HR processes that much easier. Your team will receive automatic updates as soon as the new employee passes the inspection, for instance.

Automatic processes

Onboarding software will make it possible for your company to set up various automated tasks so that you can set them up once and then forget about them. Further, your company can define a process for each department, including providing deadlines and reminders for the team with particular directions for each stage. This feature works with everything from employee handbooks to benefits enrollment.

And since the management system is a tool for both the employee and employer, both have access to vital employment information.

Reporting processes

Do you know where your new hire is in the onboarding process? Or do you know who will be training them on the intranet tomorrow? Anyone with the proper access can view information about a new hire’s next step and what they’ve completed with an onboarding system. This functionality can also help audit the onboarding team’s performance, helping to improve the onboarding process as a whole.

Best employee onboarding software

1. BambooHR

This software is easy to use. It covers everything an organization might need, including onboarding tools, an integrated applicant tracking system, electronic signatures (e-signatures), databases, and performance management. BambooHR stands out due to its in-depth content and webinar libraries.

2. Zenefits

Zenefits provides standard onboarding data collection and document management features. It also has an employee self-service portal, making it possible for employees to submit documents and managers to track their progress.

3. Gusto

This application streamlines the HR operations of small businesses. It takes over all the paperwork, allowing users to store and share documents online. Users can also request e-signatures instantly from any location. Additionally, you can customize offer letter templates that reflect your style and culture.

4. ClearCompany

This software assists startups and small businesses by streamlining essential business operations, from recruiting and onboarding to managing performance and goal tracking. New hires get a personalized portal that provides them all the information and documents they need for their first day.

Conclusion

By having the right onboarding software, your new employees will have a smooth and efficient transition. Business owners no longer need to depend on personnel, especially human resources, to train and keep track of new employees. Retention rates will be higher, and you’ll boost morale within your organization.

New employees will be able to take their place in your company more efficiently with an onboarding program. This efficiency will enable them to contribute their skills and knowledge to your organization and provide you with more value and returns within a shorter period.

How Vendr can help

Vendr keeps your SaaS stack continuously organized and offers workflows and automation to collaboratively manage, control, and track changes across your company, including your HR software. For example, Vendr automatically creates email accounts, SSO credentials, and more, taking the busywork out of onboarding.

Also, Vendr's system-of-record provides a complete, real-time view of the tools used by which department, at what level, and through which license, assisting teams to select the new hire’s tools to be productive on their first day. And with automated workflows, you can store and reuse new hire onboarding templates to further streamline your onboarding tasks.

To learn more about how Vendr can help your HR team create a better onboarding (or offboarding) process, request a demo today.