Employee Onboarding

A personalized employee onboarding process isn’t just a nice-to-have — it’s key to setting new hires up for success. Generic onboarding programs often fall flat, leaving employees feeling disconnected and disengaged. By customizing the experience to each individual, you can boost engagement, speed up productivity, and lay the groundwork for lasting success. In this blog, we’ll show you how to create an onboarding process that truly welcomes and empowers every new team member from day one.

Understanding the importance of personalized onboarding  

The first days and weeks at a new job are critical for setting the tone of a new hire's experience. A well-executed onboarding process not only helps employees adapt to their roles and the company culture but also significantly impacts their long-term engagement and retention. Yet, many organizations still rely on a one-size-fits-all approach to onboarding, which fails to address each new hire’s unique needs, backgrounds, and expectations. Unsurprisingly, this can lead to lower engagement, decreased productivity, and higher turnover rates. 

Personalized onboarding is the solution to this challenge. By tailoring the onboarding process to the individual needs of each employee, organizations can create a more welcoming, supportive, and constructive experience. 

Benefits of a tailored approach 

A tailored onboarding process offers several key benefits that can enhance the overall employee experience: 

• Increased engagement and motivation 

Personalized onboarding programs consider each new hire’s unique strengths, interests, and aspirations. By aligning the onboarding experience with these factors, employees are more likely to feel valued and motivated to contribute to the organization. 

• Faster integration 

Customizing onboarding to individual needs ensures quicker new hire integration, reduces the learning curve and enables them to become productive members of the team sooner. 

• Improved retention rates 

Employees who feel supported and understood during onboarding are more likely to stay with the company long-term. A personalized approach helps build a strong foundation of trust and commitment, which is crucial for reducing turnover. 

• Better role fit 

By tailoring the onboarding process, companies can ensure that employees are not only well-prepared for their roles but also positioned to excel in them. This leads to higher job satisfaction and performance. 

• Enhanced employer brand 

Companies that invest in personalized onboarding demonstrate their commitment to employee development and well-being. This can significantly boost the organization’s reputation as an employer of choice. 

Common pitfalls of generic employee onboarding processes

While the benefits of personalized onboarding are clear, many companies still rely on generic onboarding processes that fall short in meeting the diverse needs of their employees. A glaring issue with generic onboarding is the lack of individual focus. When all new hires are treated the same, regardless of their backgrounds, experiences, or roles, it can lead to disengagement and frustration, as employees may feel their unique needs are overlooked and they are seen as “just another number.” 

A one-size-fits-all approach often results in overwhelming information delivery. New hires are bombarded with a lot of information quickly, leading to cognitive overload and making it difficult to retain the essential details that pertain to their role. This is compounded by inadequate role-specific training, where the necessary, specialized training for success in a particular role may be missing. As a result, new hires might feel confused and lack the confidence needed to perform their job duties effectively. 

Poor cultural integration is another common pitfall of generic onboarding. When the process fails to address new hires’ cultural fit, they may struggle to align with the company’s values and work environment, leading to feelings of isolation and dissatisfaction. 

Lastly, standardized onboarding often lacks effective feedback mechanisms. Without gathering input from new hires, companies miss the opportunity to identify and address potential issues early on, which can negatively impact employee satisfaction and long-term success. 

Steps to develop a tailored onboarding plan 

Creating a personalized onboarding process doesn’t have to be complicated. By following these straightforward steps, you can set your new hires up for success from day one: 

1. Understand each new hire’s needs Begin by gathering basic information about each new hire’s background, experience, and expectations. Use simple pre-boarding surveys or quick one-on-one chats to get a sense of their career goals, preferred learning style, and any specific concerns. This initial step will give you the insights you need to tailor their onboarding experience effectively. 
   
   Here are some example questions for a first one-on-one meeting with a new employee. 

2. Personalize onboarding content. With the information you’ve gathered, adjust the onboarding content to better suit each new hire. This might mean tweaking the training schedule, providing additional resources, or focusing on areas relevant to their role. The goal is to make the onboarding experience feel relevant and supportive. 

3. Include role-specific training. Ensure that your onboarding plan includes training directly related to the new hire’s job responsibilities. This can be as simple as arranging for them to shadow a colleague, participate in relevant projects, or receive hands-on training. The idea is to give them the tools they need to succeed in their specific role from the start. 

4. Encourage cultural integration. Help new hires feel like part of the team by fostering connections with their colleagues and immersing them in the company culture. Introduce them to key team members, invite them to social activities, and share the organization’s values and mission. Pairing them with a buddy or mentor can also help them navigate their first few months more comfortably. 

5. Set clear expectations. Right from the beginning, set clear and achievable goals for the onboarding process. Break down what the new hire should accomplish in their first weeks and months and check in regularly to monitor progress. This ensures that both you and the new hire have a clear roadmap to follow. 

6. Use simple tools for personalization Leverage user-friendly tools and technology to help personalize the onboarding experience. Platforms like Workleap Onboarding can make it easy to track progress, gather feedback, and deliver customized content. 

7. Continuously improve based on feedback. After onboarding is underway, seek feedback from new hires and their managers to see how the process is working. Use short surveys or informal check-ins to gather insights. Then, adjust as needed to keep your onboarding program effective and relevant. 

Tools and resources for personalized employee onboarding 

Creating a personalized onboarding process can be made easier with the right tools and resources. Here are some options to consider: 

Onboarding software 

Different onboarding software solutions are available that can help automate and personalize the onboarding process. These platforms often include features like pre-boarding checklists, customizable training modules, and progress tracking.  

Employee feedback tools 

Tools like Workleap Officevibe allow HR teams to gather real-time feedback from new hires and track their engagement throughout the onboarding process. This feedback can be used to make immediate improvements and ensure that the onboarding experience meets each employee's needs. 

Learning management systems (LMS) 

An LMS can deliver personalized training content to new hires, allowing them to learn at their own pace and focus on the areas that are most relevant to their role. LMS platforms often include features like quizzes, assessments, and progress tracking to ensure that new hires master the necessary skills. 

Mentorship programs 

Implementing a mentorship program can provide new hires with personalized guidance and support as they navigate their first few months on the job. Mentors can offer insights into the company culture, answer questions, and provide feedback on performance. 

 Onboarding checklists 

Customizable onboarding checklists can help ensure that all necessary tasks are completed in a timely manner. These checklists can be tailored to the specific needs of each new hire and include items like paperwork, training sessions, and introductions to key team members. 
 
Share this simple employee onboarding template with your team leaders. It includes a checklist and sample activities to help them map out preboarding through to the 1-year mark. 

Onboarding videos 

Video content is always more engaging. Walking your new hires through products, safety protocols, and more via video is a great way to engage them on their first day. Welcome videos from their manager, peers, or even the CEO are also a great touch! 

Here are five onboarding video templates to get you started.  

Measuring the success of your employee onboarding process 

Once you’ve updated your HR onboarding strategies, measuring success through key performance indicators (KPIs) is essential. Here are some metrics to track: 

Best practices for personalized employee onboarding 

To create an effective, tailored onboarding process for your team, consider these best practices: 

1. Start early with preboarding 

Begin the onboarding process before the new hire’s first day by providing them with key information and resources. This can include sending them a welcome package, setting up their workstations, and introducing them to their team members. 
 
Learn more why preboarding is the mission-critical first step to accelerate new hire productivity.  

2. Create a welcoming environment 

Ensure that new hires feel welcomed and supported from day one. This can involve arranging a team lunch, decorating their workspace, or sending a personalized welcome message from the CEO. 

Keep it relevant: Video is an excellent way to make welcome messages personal and genuine in hybrid work environments. Discover five ways to wow new hires with welcome videos. 

3. Provide ongoing support 

New hire integration doesn't end after the first week or month. Continue to provide support and guidance to new hires as they settle into their roles. This can include regular check-ins via one-on-ones, ongoing training, and opportunities for career development. 

4. Involve the whole team 

Involve colleagues, managers, and other stakeholders in the onboarding process to make it a team effort. This can help new hires build relationships and feel more connected to the organization. 

5. Adapt to feedback 

Continuously refine and improve your onboarding process based on feedback from new hires and managers. This will ensure that the process remains relevant and effective over time. 

Tailored for long-term success 

Investing in a tailored onboarding process not only boosts engagement and productivity but also strengthens your company’s culture and long-term success. By continually refining the experience, you ensure ev

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Onboarding is your one shot to integrate an employee properly into your culture.

Employee onboarding is incredibly important, but hard to get right. You spend all of this time, energy and money on hiring an employee only to leave them high and dry when they start work.

You know that if you can successfully onboard a new employee with a structured plan, they’ll be more productive, more likely to stay at your company, and more engaged.

But for some reason, you often get onboarding wrong.

Your intentions are good, and while you’d love to spend a dedicated three months making sure a new employee is onboarded properly, you just don’t have the time. You needed someone up and running yesterday.

So, your onboarding process ends up lasting for about a week, if you’re lucky. You promise you’ll do better next time, but you never make it a priority.

This is a huge mistake.

Onboarding is your one shot to integrate an employee properly into your culture.

It’s a way to ensure that they’re successful long term, and have all of the resources they need to be an effective, autonomous, productive employee.

We put together a complete guide to teach you everything you need to know about onboarding new employees, so you can be sure that each new hire is successful.

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Employee onboarding statistics

In our research report, the State of Employee Engagement, we found that onboarding was a major problem at many companies all over the world.

The report updates in real-time, but as of December 2016, when we ask employees “Does your organization have a great hiring and onboarding process?” we find that a massive 51% of people think their company’s process could be improved.

This is a huge opportunity for organizations to increase employee engagement.

The biggest onboarding mistakes

Onboarding is the most important part of the employee lifecycle.

You only get one chance to make a first impression, so you’ll want to make sure your onboarding is done right.

The more confusion there is in the process, the more likely an employee is to take longer to ramp up, have the wrong impression of the company, or even worse, quit.

Here are a few of the biggest mistakes that are commonly made with the onboarding process that you’ll want to avoid.

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Not setting clear expectations

The key thing you want to avoid for any employee, especially at the beginning, is confusion.

If an employee is confused, they’ll spend unnecessary time and energy wondering and worrying about what they’re doing.

Also, at the beginning, all an employee wants to do is impress their new boss. It’s tough to know if you’re impressing them if you don’t know exactly what’s expected of you.

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How to fix this: The fix for this is simple. Make sure employees are 100% clear from the beginning what their goals and expectations are. Using something like OKRs to set goals is a great way to create that clarity.

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Not giving onboarding enough time

This is probably the most common mistake made with employee onboarding.

I understand why this happens, but you’re doing a huge disservice to your employees by not giving them enough time.

The problem is, managers want their new employees to be up and running as quickly as possible, so they don’t invest the right amount of time in developing them.

But remember, short term pain, long term gain.

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How to fix this: This is easier said than done, but what you need to do is be patient with your employees. Understand that it’s going to take some time to develop them. Be ready to invest time and money so that they’ll be way more productive long term.

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Not having a process

Onboarding is what sets you up for long term success in a company, meaning that it’s so important you take it seriously.

Part of taking it seriously is ensuring that you have a formal process for onboarding. Make sure you have things like:

• A checklist
• A plan
• Goals
• Checkins

Having a process will make scaling and improving easier for you, and you’ll be able to find problems in the process faster.

How to fix this: Work with multiple members of your team to create a formal process that everyone can agree on. You can have different owners for each step of the process.

Having too much of a process

While having a process is important, it’s also important to make sure each employee is coached and trained the way they want to be.

Each employee is unique, and so you might want to adjust your process depending on their preference. Some employees will require more feedback, and others will want to learn about their role in a different way, so it’s a good idea for you to adjust.

Try to personalize the onboarding process as much as possible.

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How to fix this: Don’t get into the mindset of following the process word for word. It’s okay to use it as a guide, but then adjust accordingly. Be mindful of what your new employees would want to make them the most successful.

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Not collecting feedback

If you don’t collect feedback about your onboarding process, how will you know if it’s any good?

Many managers make the mistake of assuming that it’s their job to get an employee up to speed quickly, train them how they’ve done things, and move on.

But if you do that, then what was the point of hiring someone in the first place?

You want to make sure that employees are actually getting value out of the program so that when new employees join, their experience will be even better.

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How to fix this: Collect frequent feedback from new employees about how their onboarding is going. At the beginning, feel free to check in every day (you want to check in more often at the beginning). Then, I would check in at the end of week one, week two, month one, month two, and month three as a minimum.

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Not doing anything before an employee starts

A new employee should already have had some interaction with your company before their first day.

While you don’t want them to feel overwhelmed or like they have work to do before they even start, sending them helpful guides, company history information or links that might help them is a great idea.

You could send them a friendly email letting them know how excited you are for them to join, you could send them a “welcome package”, or even simply let them know what to bring on the first day to help ease them in.

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How to fix this: The key here is to remove any of that fear or nervousness that a new employee likely has. Get creative, but remember to show them how excited you are for them to join, send them helpful links, and make sure they know what to expect when they arrive.

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6 crucial onboarding best practices

Sourcing and hiring someone is an incredibly difficult task.

Once that’s done, and you’ve found someone who you think is right for the job, you need to make sure their first few months at the company are amazing.

You don’t want them to quit after all you went through to get them on the team, so follow these tips to ensure a successful employee onboarding.

Take your time

This is by far and away the most important tip for employee onboarding.

The process takes a minimum of three months to complete, but most companies don’t give their employees more than a week.

They want their new hires to be up and running as quickly as possible, but you don’t want a half-baked employee working on the team.

There is so much that a new employee needs to understand. The ins and outs of your company, its culture, your product/service, how the team works, the voice and tone, the tools to use, etc.

More than anything, you need to understand that it takes time, so you have to be patient.

The longer someone has to get up to speed, the faster they will reach full productivity.

Establish clear goals

While you need to take your time and exercise patience with new employees, one way to get them up to speed faster is by establishing clear goals for their first three months and checking in on them frequently.

This helps them focus on the right things and gives them a target to aim for.

The worst thing you can do is have a new employee just sitting there twiddling their thumbs, so setting goals early on is a good way to keep them working on what’s important.

It’s also a great way to ensure that you’re both on the same page and that there’s no confusion. One of the biggest concerns for any new employee is if they’re doing what you want, so setting goals helps makes sure this happens.

Remember to check in on the goals frequently. Ideally, at least every two weeks.

Set up a mentor

Mentorship programs are great for any employee, at any stage in their lifecycle, but during onboarding they’re even more effective.

When first starting out, employees might be nervous, confused, and overwhelmed. Providing them with a mentor is the perfect way to ensure they have someone to help them through this intimidating process.

Asking questions can be tough for anyone, but for a nervous new employee, it’s good to know they have someone they can go to directly.

Plus, it lets the mentor focus exclusively on onboarding that new employee, making the process even smoother. With multiple people, it wouldn’t be easy to pinpoint where the issues in the onboarding process are.

Make their first week amazing

You only get one chance at a first impression, so you want a new employee to have an amazing experience joining your company and the team.

Ideally, you’ve had contact with them before they even start, but you want to make sure that when they first arrive, they start off on the right foot. You need to understand how nervous and how shy they’ll be.

Make sure that everything they need for work is set up on day one (you’d be surprised how often this is forgotten about).

The secret to getting this right is to be mindful. Think about the new employee and take care of them.

Then make sure to do things like:

• Decorate their desk with goodies
• Take them out for lunch
• Introduce them to everyone the team (have them spend some time with each team to understand what they do)
• Give them swag if you have any
• Invite and include them in meetings

Check in frequently

Remember, there’s no such thing as too much communication.

At the beginning of the onboarding process, it’s incredibly important to check in often to see how things are going.

This is the exact process I would use to make sure you’re checking in often enough.

• Check in every single day the first week (10-15 minutes each day).
• Hold an end of week review at the end of week one. Recap the week, and then plan the following week.
• Repeat this process each week for the first month.
• Recap at the end of month three, but still check in every now and then.

Examples of a good employee onboarding process

Let’s learn from the best.

Companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter are well-known for their culture, and have successfully onboarded thousands of employees.

As a source of inspiration, here are examples of the onboarding process at some of the most notable companies in the world.

Twitter

Twitter’s onboarding starts before you even walk in the door. This is an important lesson for companies: don’t start your onboarding on an employee’s first day, start it as soon as they accept the offer.

They have a program called “Yes To Desk” which outlines everything that needs to be done from the time an employee says yes to when they arrive at their desk.

Things like making sure their computer, emails, and any tools they’ll need are set up, their desk is filled with swag like t-shirts, and there’s something celebrating their arrival, like a bottle of wine.

One of the smartest things they do is how they plan the first day. From a Quora answer about their onboarding:

They’re always improving, talking to people every one or three months to see what, if anything, should be changed.

Facebook

One of the best and most noteworthy examples is Facebook’s Bootcamp, a six week intensive course for engineers to learn the ropes at Facebook. Here’s a quote from the Facebook post that talks about how it works:

By centralizing the mentoring and onboarding responsibilities, we’ve greatly decreased the costs hiring has on the rest of the organization in terms of time spent showing people the ropes and keeping our standards consistent.

In this video, Jocelyn Goldfein from Facebook explains how their Facebook Bootcamp works:

IBM

IBM’s onboarding program, Succeeding@IBM, is known as one of the best onboarding processes of any company.

What makes it so exemplary is that it lasts for two years.

At most companies, you’re lucky if onboarding lasts more than two weeks. IBM’s two-year rollout ensures that their employees have enough time to learn everything they need to know, slowly and comfortably.

The onboarding process comes with a ton of technology to make things simpler for the employee, like internal social networks to meet coworkers, career plans, mentoring, and training.

Warby Parker

From a New York Times article detailing their onboarding program:

One of the coolest things they do in their onboarding program is something called “Lunch Roulette”, where a software application randomly selects two groups of four people (no more than one person per department) to go to lunch on the company’s tab.

Zappos

All Zappos employees go through a four week training program similar to Facebook’s bootcamp.

From Zappos’ onboarding document:

And of course, they famously offer new hires $4,000 to quit in order to make sure that employees are joining the team because they want to be there, not for the money.

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Key takeaways

• Start your onboarding before an employee’s first day.
• Do whatever you can to make them feel comfortable.
• Make sure everything is properly set up for them (their desk, computer, etc.)
• Be patient, and give employees more than enough time to ramp up.

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Collecting feedback during onboarding

Getting feedback on the onboarding process is the only way to know if employees are actually benefitting from it.

You can have the slickest process and the most robust training program, but if employees don’t find it useful, then you’re just wasting time and money.

You always want to be getting better, and you should empower each new employee to help you improve for when new ones come on board.

Check in often.

Ideally, very often at the beginning (every day during their first week), then check in at the end of week one, week two, etc.

Using onboarding surveys is a great way to get consistent feedback on the process and organize it in an easy way.

In your onboarding survey, ask how they think you can make the whole process better, with questions like:

• If there was one thing you would change about the way your onboarding is going, what would it be?
• Is the onboarding too overwhelming for you?
• What can I do to make your onboarding more successful?
• Have you met some of the coworkers? If so, were they nice to you?
• Did we make you feel welcome on your first day?
• So far, is the job what you expected it to be?
• So far, what part of the onboarding process has been the most effective/beneficial?

Many organizations miss out on an incredible opportunity by not collecting feedback during this crucial moment.

It’s possible that during those first few days they’re questioning their decision of having joined your organization. It’s during that vulnerable moment when they need reassurance more than ever.

You want to make it as smooth and comfortable for the employee as possible, to ensure that they grasp everything.

They also have a fresh set of eyes, so they’re perfect for telling you what’s wrong with the process.

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A smart idea that I once heard from HubSpot, a company that’s well-known for their amazing culture, is that they make each new employee responsible for improving the onboarding process for the next employee that joins.

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Employee onboarding template

There’s a lot to remember to make sure you have a good onboarding process set up, so I’ve prepared a template that you can use to make your life easier.

I tried to keep it as simple as possible. There are many things that you should keep in mind with onboarding, but here are 9 crucial points that will make your new employee onboarding a breeze.

As an HR manager, you know how challenging it can be to onboard new hires. It's a time-consuming and often overwhelming process that can lead to low employee engagement, productivity, and retention. The barrage of paperwork, meetings, and HR jargon on their very first day can leave new employees feeling frustrated and disoriented.

But what happens after the first day? What if you don't have a clear understanding of how new hires are engaging with the onboarding process or where they're getting stuck? This lack of insight can make it difficult to identify which departments are struggling with onboarding and why certain employees are leaving after only a short period.

These are the questions that can keep you up at night. Without clear data on your onboarding process, you can't make informed decisions to improve it. This guessing game can leave you struggling to understand why new hires are leaving or which departments are experiencing difficulties.

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What's in this article

• Why Measuring Your Onboarding Process is Important
• 🎉 Introducing Onboarding Pulse Surveys and Reports 📊
• [Actionable Tips] Leveraging Survey Insights to Improve Your Onboarding Process

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By improving your onboarding process, you can boost employee engagement, productivity, and retention. So it's essential to have a clear understanding of what's going on during the onboarding process. That way, you can identify any areas that need improvement and make data-driven decisions to create a more effective, stronger onboarding process.

Why Measuring Your Onboarding Process is Important

Measuring the success of your onboarding process is crucial to ensure that your new hires feel supported and engaged from day one. It's no secret that first impressions matter, and this is especially true in the workplace. In fact, up to 20% of employee turnover happens in the first 45 days, which is why it's essential to get onboarding right.

Tracking the performance of your onboarding process helps you identify areas that need improvement, and make proactive adjustments to ensure that your new hires are set up for success.

You'll also be able to customize your onboarding process to meet the specific needs of your organization and ensure that your new hires are getting the support they need to thrive.

As an HR manager, making proactive and guided adjustments to your onboarding process can make a big difference in your ability to excel at your job. With a well-designed onboarding process, you'll be able to attract and retain top talent, increase employee engagement, and drive business success.

🎉 Introducing Onboarding Pulse Surveys and Reports 📊

Making sure new employees feel welcome and supported when they start working is really important, but it can be hard to know how well you're doing it. One way to figure it out is to measure how effective your onboarding process is, but that can be a bit overwhelming. Luckily, Workleap Onboarding has just the solution for you: Onboarding Pulses and Surveys. These tools make it easier to evaluate your onboarding process and know where to focus your efforts for improvement.

With Workleap Onboarding and our Pulse Surveys and Reports, you can create an outstanding onboarding process by leveraging the helpful feedback it provides. Say goodbye to the guesswork and hello to a goldmine of insights.

We understand that it can be difficult to figure out where to begin when it comes to gathering feedback. That's why we've got your back. We have made it easy for you to gather valuable insights with our onboarding plans. Each plan includes a Default survey that is already enabled for all new onboarding plans you start right out of the box. This survey will help you collect tailored feedback from new hires, hiring managers, and other stakeholders involved in the process without any extra effort on your part.

With this new feature, you'll be able to identify trends, understand how new hires are engaging with the process, and discover any gaps or pain points in your onboarding process. It's like having a GPS for your process, providing real-time feedback and ensuring everyone knows where they are and where they need to go.

But that's not all - our detailed analytics and reports will give you a better understanding of your employees' needs, preferences, and opinions, allowing you to make data-driven decisions to improve your onboarding process. Don't let gaps in your process go unnoticed - use our Onboarding Pulse Surveys and Reports to uncover and address them.

[Actionable Tips] Leveraging Survey Insights to Improve Your Onboarding Process

Here are some tips and tricks for leveraging insights from onboarding surveys to improve your process:

• Identify common themes: Look for patterns and trends in the feedback you receive from new hires. Are there certain aspects of the onboarding process that consistently receive negative feedback? Are there areas that employees consistently rate highly? Use this information to prioritize areas for improvement.
• Share feedback with key stakeholders: Make sure to share the feedback you receive with other key stakeholders, such as hiring managers, trainers, and HR staff. This will help ensure that everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goals.
• Take action: Once you've identified areas for improvement, take action to address them. This could mean making changes to your training materials, revising your orientation process, or improving communication with new hires.
• Evaluate progress: Continuously evaluate the impact of the changes you make. Use follow-up surveys, send the same questions at different time intervals or other feedback mechanisms to determine if the changes you've made have had a positive impact on the onboarding process.
• Communicate progress: Don't forget to communicate progress to key stakeholders and employees. Let them know about the changes you've made and how they've helped improve the onboarding experience. Taking screenshots of the Reports Onboarding generates can also help you present your successes with visuals.

By following these tips and tricks, you can use insights from onboarding surveys to continuously improve your onboarding process and provide a better experience for new hires.

Optimizing your onboarding process is crucial for creating a positive experience for new hires and setting them up for success in their role. By leveraging tools like Workleap and our Onboarding Pulse Surveys and Reports, HR managers gain valuable insights and make proactive adjustments to improve their process over time. By investing in a world-class onboarding process, companies reduce turnover, increase productivity, employee engagement, and ultimately drive business success.

A strong onboarding can increase employee time-to-productivity by a staggering 70% (and retention by 82%). So, what constitutes a mighty onboarding? And how do you know if your company has one?

In this article, we explore a 3-step strategy that ensures those crucial first 90 days set your new hires — and your organization — up for success.

Why an organized onboarding is so important 

The first 90 days of employment are pivotal for new hires, setting the stage for their future at your company. A well-structured onboarding program does more than ramp up productivity — it also instills a strong sense of loyalty and belonging. This period is critical because it significantly influences job satisfaction and employee performance metrics while concurrently lowering turnover rates.

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) notes that 54% of businesses observe a boost in employee engagement with a solid onboarding strategy in place. And organizations with structured onboarding programs enjoy a 60% year-over-year improvement in revenue per full-time employee and a 63 percent year-over-year improvement in customer satisfaction. 

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Having a structured onboarding program leads to 

77%

of new hires hitting their first performance milestone

54%

boost to employee engagement

60%

YoY improvement in revenue

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Remember: onboarding isn't just for new hires. This process is equally crucial for employees transitioning to new roles within the company (cross-boarding) or returning from an extended leave. Adapting these onboarding strategies to fit various employee scenarios can further enhance their effectiveness and ensure all team members successfully integrate into their new roles.

Step 1: Preboarding

Why preboarding is mission-critical 

To have a well-oiled onboarding program, you can't overlook preboarding. Preboarding is a crucial phase of the employee onboarding process that occurs after a new hire has accepted their job offer but before their official start date. It serves as a bridge between the hiring process and the formal onboarding program, helping keep new hires enthusiastic, informed, and ready to contribute from their very first day on the job. And it pays off, 83% of high-performing organizations begin onboarding before the new hire's first day. 

Preboarding enhances employee engagement. By initiating contact before a new hire's first day, companies demonstrate that they value their new employees, which can boost excitement and commitment. This early engagement establishes a positive tone and shows the organization's proactive approach to making sure the new hire feels welcomed.  

It can also reduce anxiety for new hires. Knowing what to expect on the first day, understanding the company culture, and having a clear picture of their role and responsibilities can help mitigate the nervousness that often accompanies starting a new job. This clarity and preparation make the transition smoother and less daunting. 

Unsurprisingly, preboarding also leads to faster productivity. When new hires are familiar with the company's tools, processes, and expectations from the get-go, they can hit the ground running. This familiarity allows them to contribute more effectively and quickly, reducing the usual ramp-up time needed to reach full productivity. 

Lastly, a well-executed preboarding experience can lead to improved retention rates. The initial interactions and preparations during preboarding help build a foundation of job satisfaction and commitment to the company, which are crucial in retaining talent. When employees feel prepared and valued from the start, they are more likely to stay with the company long-term. 

How to actively engage your new hires (and your team) before day one 

Key components of preboarding include: 

• Communication: Regular, personalized communication, such as welcome emails and updates about the company, helps keep new hires engaged. 
• Documentation: Providing necessary forms and documents beforehand can streamline the administrative process, allowing the first day to focus more on integration and less on paperwork. 
• Access to tools: Granting access to company systems, email, and other tools early can help new hires familiarize themselves with essential technology and platforms. 
• Introduction to team and culture: Sharing information about team structures, company culture, and values can help new hires feel connected and understand their new work environment. 
• Training materials: Offering initial training materials or resources can help new hires learn about their roles and responsibilities ahead of time. 

{emphasize}📝 Follow this employee preboarding checklist to plan the welcome and bring your newcomer up to speed. {emphasize}

While the new hire is the focus of this process, remember to prepare your team(s) for their arrival as well. Before your newcomer joins, consider holding a team meeting with your employees to address any questions they have about their new colleague's position and how it will affect their own roles and responsibilities. Alternatively, if a group setting doesn't fit your scenario, consider adding it as a talking point in your next one-on-one meeting with your employees. 

Step 2: Mentorship

Double the value: Assigning mentors or buddies to newcomers 

Assigning a mentor or buddy to a new hire is an absolute must. Doing so enriches the onboarding process for everyone involved: new hire, mentor, and your organization. No wonder high-performing organizations are 2.5x more likely to assign a mentor or coach during the onboarding process.

Mentorship in onboarding: 

• Accelerates the learning curve: Mentors and buddies can provide one-on-one guidance, helping new hires understand their roles and responsibilities faster and more effectively. 
• Enhances social integration: A mentor or buddy acts as a social anchor, introducing new hires to team members and helping them navigate the organization's social dynamics. 
• Increased confidence: Regular support and feedback from an experienced colleague can boost a new hire's confidence in their skills and role within the company. 
• Higher job satisfaction and retention: Having a reliable point of contact for questions and concerns can improve job satisfaction. This support can significantly reduce feelings of isolation and the likelihood of early turnover. 
• Channels culture: Mentors and buddies are culture carriers, imparting company values, expectations, and norms to new hires in a more personal and relatable way. 

Choosing the right partnership is clutch. Take some time to think about the fit during preboarding, referring to these tips to help guide you in creating the best experience possible: 

{emphasize}

Checklist for selecting and pairing mentors for new hires 

• Align on goals and values: Make sure that the mentor or buddy shares the company's values and understands the mentorship program's goals. This alignment helps transmit the right message and culture to the new hire. 
• Consider personality and communication styles: Match mentors and buddies with new hires based on compatible personalities and communication styles. This compatibility can make the relationship more productive and enjoyable for both parties. 
• Experience and expertise: Choose mentors with a proven track record in their roles and possess the skills and knowledge the new hire needs to learn. This relevance ensures that the mentor is well-equipped to guide the new employee. 
• Training for mentors/buddies: Provide training to mentors and buddies on how to effectively support new hires. This training should cover communication skills, confidentiality, and how to provide constructive feedback. 
• Regular check-ins: Establish a system for regular check-ins between the mentor or buddy and the new hire and between the mentor and manager or HR. This system helps monitor progress, solve issues, and adjust the pairing if necessary. 
• Feedback loop: Create a feedback loop where new hires can provide their input on the mentorship experience. This feedback is crucial for improving the program and making necessary adjustments. 

{emphasize}

Step 3: The onboarding plan

How to structure onboarding plans 

Once you've lined up all your preboarding activities, it's time to get to the employee's first day and beyond. A structured onboarding plan should encompass orientation, training sessions, and goal setting to guide new hires through their initial months. 

Orientation 

Orientation is often the new hire's first formal experience within the organization. This includes: 

• Introduction to the company's history, culture, and values 
• Overview of organizational structure and key personnel 
• Administrative setup, such as HR documentation and IT accounts 

Training 

Training brings new hires up to speed in their specific roles and the tools they will be using. Practical training sessions might include: 

• Role-specific training to understand job responsibilities 
• Technology training on company software and tools 
• Compliance and security training relevant to the industry and job 

Goal setting 

Set clear, achievable goals to help new hires focus and understand what is expected of them. Goals should be: 

• Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound (SMART) 
• Aligned with team and organizational objectives 
• Discussed and agreed upon with their manager or mentor 

{emphasize}Learn more about how to set onboarding goals (and why they're so essential). {emphasize}

Feedback and evaluation 

Regular feedback sessions are crucial to ensure the newcome integrates well and addresses any concerns they might have. This could involve: 

• Weekly or bi-weekly check-ins with a manager or mentor 
• Formal reviews at 30, 60, and 90 days 
• Integrating into the performance management system, setting expectations for their roles and the metrics by which they will be evaluated 

Team integration 

Planned activities that help new hires build relationships with colleagues can be very beneficial. These might include: 

• Team lunches or social events 
• Collaborative projects to foster team interaction 
• Introduction meetings with key team members across the department 

A well-rounded onboarding plan that covers these components ensures that new hires are well-prepared to begin working and more likely to be engaged and stick with your company for the long run. Each element of the plan should be tailored to fit the specific needs of your organization and the individuals being onboarded. 

{emphasize}📝 Get planning: Share this simple employee onboarding template with your team leaders. It includes a checklist and sample activities to help them map out preboarding through to the 1-year mark. {emphasize}

Enhancing employee onboarding (and saving HR time) with AI

Much like every other facet of business, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the way companies onboard new employees. How? By automating and personalizing the process. 

Manual data input and paperwork required in onboarding cause wasted time and productivity and risk errors. Research from Career Builder finds that HR managers who don't fully automate lose an average of 14 hours a week manually completing tasks that could be automated. Further, more than a quarter (28%) waste 20 hours or more, and 1 in 10 (11%) spend 30 hours or more! 

AI can analyze large sets of data to tailor onboarding experiences to individual needs, track progress, and predict potential challenges before they arise. Your organization may wish to incorporate AI into its employee onboarding process to help teams save time with tasks, including: 

• Automate administrative, often tedious activities like processing paperwork 
• Personalize learning experiences based on job role or learning style 
• Provide real-time answers to new hire questions via AI-driven chatbots 

Take Workleap's AI Onboarding Wizard, for example. With a simple drag-and-drop, you can transform your old PDF, Word, or Excel onboarding documents into beautiful and engaging digital onboarding experiences. Think of the time your HR team can regain and redirect toward strategic planning. Everyone can benefit from a lighter load.

While it's exciting to embrace AI to refine and enhance your onboarding process, it's also important to keep ethical standards front and center. Explore our detailed one-pager, Ethical AI in Recruitment & Onboarding, to discover key practices for responsibly integrating AI in recruitment and onboarding. This guide will help make sure that your AI implementations not only boost efficiency but also uphold fairness and transparency across your HR operations. 

Workleap: Your strategic partner for streamlined onboarding

As the demands on your HR team continue to expand, aligning with a partner that understands the nuances of effective onboarding can dramatically lighten your team's workload and elevate their success. Workleap stands out, offering tailored solutions that streamline the onboarding process and enhance new hire experiences.  

Consider the experience of Lexop, a fintech startup that restructured and scaled its onboarding processes with Workleap's help. The result was not just more efficient procedures but a remarkable increase in new hire satisfaction — soaring from 72% to an impressive 98% within three months. This success story illustrates how Workleap's simple, focused approach can turn the crucial first days of a new hire into a strategic advantage for your organization.

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Ready to see the results in your organization? Request a demo now and see firsthand how our platform can transform the first 90 days for your new hires.

 {emphasize}

Just like building a strong foundation for a house is crucial to establishing a lasting structure — having a solid employee onboarding phase sets the tone for the rest of an employee’s life cycle.  

Onboarding sows the seeds of employee engagement, productivity, and retention. That said, a Gallup report reveals that only 12% of employees agree their employers do a great job at onboarding. Clearly, there’s room to improve.  

The onboarding process is a critical phase that shouldn’t be slept on. But how can managers tell if their current onboarding process is hitting all the right marks?  

This article looks at ways to evaluate employee onboarding processes, helping you take your own onboarding experiences from good to great. 

The importance of evaluating your onboarding process

Following the guiding principles of continuous performance management, regularly evaluating onboarding processes is critical to ongoing growth. This routine sense check ensures managers have constant visibility of opportunities for improvement so their new employees can thrive and perform at their best as they get up to speed with their new work environment. 

Neglecting such a critical phase of the employee journey can lead to high turnover rates and break the confidence of new hires. And, according to Gallup’s onboarding perspective paper, most managers have no idea what parts of their onboarding programs work and what parts don’t. By continually assessing (and fine-tuning) your onboarding process, you’re ensuring the employee experience standards of your company remain high at all times. 

Onboarding is deeply tied to the overall employee experience. Imagine a new employee welcomed with a comprehensive, personalized, and super-engaging onboarding process. What a great tone this sets!  

Step-by-step employee onboarding evaluation guide

An effective employee onboarding evaluation requires a structured and methodical approach. The following sections offer a template structure to help managers evaluate and enhance their own onboarding processes.  

Jump to: 

• Five steps to conduct an evaluation
• Key areas of onboarding to evaluate 
• Using technology to enhance evaluations 

{emphasize}Remember: These guidelines are meant to serve as a jumping-off point. Don’t hesitate to personalize them to make them fit your team’s realities!{emphasize}

Five steps to conduct an evaluation

Conducting and onboarding process evaluation starts with involving the right people, knowing what data you need to collect and analyze, and making a plan for any needed improvements: 

Step 1: Identify and survey the right stakeholders 

Who better to provide insights on your onboarding process than those who use it, be it directly or indirectly? For a comprehensive understanding of the state of things, look to survey:  

• New employees going through onboarding 
• Employees who have just completed their onboarding 
• Other team managers who oversee onboarding 
• HR managers   

Find in the next section the key areas of the onboarding process to evaluate — and what types of questions to ask these stakeholders! 

Step 2: Analyze onboarding data 

There’s nothing like numbers to reveal objective truths. Review data related to onboarding to identify bottlenecks or inefficiencies, including areas like:

• Onboarding program duration 

• Task completion rates 
• Time-to-productivity 

Consider feedback and data insights to decide the best course of action. Data should be used as a complementary understanding of what's working and what's not.

Step 3: Benchmark against onboarding best practices 

How can managers know what good standing is if they don’t have established benchmarks? Comparing current onboarding best practices against industry standards or company benchmarks can help you identify areas for improvement. 

Step 4: Identify opportunities for automation and integration 

Automation and integration remove unnecessary manual processes to make work less tedious and more productive and streamline the onboarding experience as a whole.  

While certain processes may not cause issues, they may still benefit from improvement. For example, manual bookings for standardized onboarding meetings could be automated — adding one less thing to a manager's plate. Optimize processes, see where they can integrate better with existing systems, and where's an easy upgrade.

Step 5: Create an action plan for improvement 

Every solution needs a next step. Every solution needs a next step. Once an evaluation is complete and you've identified opportunities for improvement, the next step is to develop a strategic action plan to address the gaps and incorporate solutions to improve onboarding where appropriate. Read on to find out more. 

{emphasize}A note on the role of feedback in onboarding evaluations 

While it’s great for managers to self-evaluate employee onboarding processes, getting feedback from multiple perspectives and through multiple ways ensures a comprehensive understanding. 

There’s more than one way to ask for feedback. Managers can gain more understanding of their onboarding process through surveys, one-on-one discussions, or even group feedback sessions.  

Seeking feedback from others who have stakes in onboarding success, such as HR managers and team leaders, could also reveal opportunities for improvement. But more on that in the next section. 

Want the truth? Look at the metrics! Know what else may reveal insights about the efficiency of your onboarding process? Retention and engagement metrics! Data relating to early turnover rates and engagement levels are vital indicators of onboarding success.{emphasize}

Key areas to evaluate  

Breaking down your current onboarding process into its core elements will make evaluating and pinpointing opportunities for improvement that much easier. Generally, these areas would be key to look at: 

Onboarding milestones and timeframe

Consider the entire onboarding journey from an employee’s first day to the last day of onboarding. It’s crucial for milestones to be clear and for the overall timeframe in which they sit to be realistic.  

{emphasize}Questions to ask:

• Are the onboarding goals and milestones well-defined and communicated?
• How does each milestone contribute to the new employee’s integration process? Are they aligned with the organizational goals? 
• Is there sufficient time given to accomplish each milestone? Is there flexibility toward individual progress? 
• Does the overall onboarding plan feel too short or too long? How confident do employees feel once they complete the onboarding phase?{emphasize}

Task management and role clarity 

Onboarding journeys must be easy to track — for managers’ and employees’ sake. Having an efficient onboarding task assignment and management system helps everyone be clear on their roles and stay on target. 

{emphasize}Questions to ask:

• What current onboarding management system is used? Does it enhance the employee onboarding experience and make task management easy? 
• Are roles, task assignments, and expectations clear, or do new hires sometimes experience uncertainty or confusion? 
• Is the system user-friendly? Does it integrate other tools, resources, or communication channels the new hires need?{emphasize}

Performance and productivity 

The whole point of onboarding is to get new employees up to speed on their roles, responsibilities, and organizational processes as fast as possible — so they can become productive members of your workforce. A good onboarding process contributes positively to performance. 

{emphasize}Questions to ask:

• Does the performance and productivity data of new employees over the first year experience a steep or are there dips in progress? Is there a correlation with specific moments of the onboarding process? 
• How do new employees feel about their performance in the first month compared to three months in? Do they feel confident or need more support? 
• In hindsight, is there any key knowledge that helped unlock performance that should be more emphasized in onboarding?{emphasize}

Employee feedback and engagement 

Feedback reveals important truths. And, while direct feedback through surveys is insightful, employee engagement is a valuable, indirect feedback metric too. 

{emphasize}Questions to ask:

• What channels or tools are available for new employees to provide feedback? Are they properly shared and explained, accessible, and easy to use? 
• Are feedback opportunities for both employees and managers frequent enough? Are they being properly leveraged to gain insights? 
• What are the options for negative feedback? Would anonymous feedback tools help increase response rates? 
• How is indirect feedback, such as engagement metrics, being collected during onboarding?{emphasize}

Retention and early turnover rates 

Retaining top talent begins with effective onboarding. Early turnover rates (turnover observed in new employees) can reveal gaps in your current onboarding process to help prevent future success stories from coming to a premature end. 

{emphasize}Questions to ask:

• What is the current retention rate amongst newly onboarded employees, especially within the first year? 
• During exit interviews, is feedback being asked about the onboarding experience and how this could have impacted the decision to leave? 
• In what ways is the current onboarding process applying long-term retention strategies?{emphasize}

Cultural alignment

Onboarding isn’t just an opportunity to bring employees up to speed with their new responsibilities but also to showcase the company culture — which in turn has a ripple effect on employee morale, performance, and loyalty. 

{emphasize}Questions to ask:

• Does the current onboarding process effectively introduce our company’s values, mission, and culture? 
• Can opportunities for new employees to engage in exciting cultural activities be integrated into the onboarding process? 
• What are new employees’ sense of belonging and connection to the organization after the first month? What about the first six months?{emphasize}

Resources and support involved 

From training materials to mentors, all kinds of resources and support are needed throughout the employee onboarding process and have a great impact on the overall onboarding experience. 

{emphasize}Questions to ask:

• What resources (ex: reading materials, training modules) are available to support new employees in their onboarding? Are all bases covered?  
• Are resources made easily accessible throughout onboarding, or do new employees have a hard time finding them? 
• Are buddies or mentors established and assigned? Are introductions being facilitated in the early stages of onboarding?{emphasize}

Integration with tools and systems 

As with any organizational process, seamless integration is key to enhancing employee and managers' efficiency and overall onboarding experience. The extent to which your onboarding process integrates with existing systems, like HR or communication tools, can reveal where you could upgrade to current standards and revitalize your practices.

{emphasize}Questions to ask:

• Does the onboarding system benefit from additional features, like progress tracking, reporting, and communication channels?  
• How does the integration of existing tools and systems contribute to the effectiveness of the onboarding experience? 
• Does the overall onboarding process help fulfill other organizational agendas, like performance evaluations, project tracking, or team management?{emphasize}

Using technology to enhance onboarding

In a world where there’s a lot of multitasking, technology comes to the rescue to automate tasks to free up bandwidth for more human moments.  

Tools designed for onboarding can address common gaps and inefficiencies in the onboarding process — like lack of clarity and manual processes — and have the ability to enhance how employees experience what is, essentially, the first chapter of their professional journey with you.  

The advantage of a tool like Workleap Onboarding is the integrative elements, making it a turn-key solution to welcome new hires and set them up for success. We’re talking task management to make visibility and better prioritization possible, integration capabilities like an automated meeting booking system, and smart analytics to capture progress and engagement in real-time. Workleap Onboarding also hubs discussion boards so new hires feel empowered to ask questions and surveys to get feedback from everyone involved.  

Implementing changes and measuring success

After conducting an evaluation, it’s essential to set actionable steps towards improving to see better results from future onboarding experiences. Here are some tips: 

Prioritize certain areas first 

Process improvement doesn’t happen overnight — it comes one step at a time. That’s where segmenting the key areas of onboarding, as above, comes in handy. Once you’ve identified the gaps, start by addressing the critical areas where new employees’ productivity, satisfaction, or retention is impacted most. 

{highlight}For example, if new hires have glaring feedback about lacking clarity on their tasks and what’s expected of them, look at that first. There’s no point in looking at a tech upgrade if the foundations of an onboarding plan aren’t well structured first.{highlight}

Implement changes thoughtfully 

Every organization has its own set of realities. You’ll have to consider your company or team's specific needs and limitations before introducing changes to a process. Gradual modifications and open communication are always key to ensuring everyone’s buy-in and minimizing the resistance to changes. 

{highlight}In the case where a more interactive experience might be needed, start with one feature first. Interactive training modules could be introduced gradually, slowly replacing manual training.{highlight}

Set (new) measurable goals 

What are you looking to improve? Whether it's reducing onboarding time, increasing employee engagement, or enhancing role clarity, establishing goals and quantifiable metrics to track progress will help keep the next steps in focus. 

{highlight}If one of the goals set for onboarding improvement is to improve engagement, track metrics like survey participation, onboarding tool usage, and feedback giving to establish how engaged new hires are within different aspects of their onboarding.{highlight}

Track improvement over time 

Success isn’t met overnight. By continuously monitoring the impact of your implemented changes and measuring metrics and feedback against the new goals set out, you’ll be able to effectively gauge if your improvement strategies are working over time. 

{highlight}Let’s say a goal is to improve role clarity. Positive trends in feedback and performance evaluation scores over time would indicate that the changes applied in your onboarding process are successful. But if there’s no improvement or even a decline, you might have to go back to the drawing board.{highlight}

Workleap Onboarding: Your onboarding ally

A great employee experience starts with great onboarding. And continually evaluating and improving your onboarding process will ensure your new employees are set up for lasting success.  

Applying a structured approach to evaluation ensures you don’t miss any blind spots. Having a step-by-step process, evaluating key areas of onboarding one at a time, and engaging in the feedback of others will allow you to make informed decisions as to where to take your onboarding process — it might be to review the basics, or it might be to invest in more advanced solutions like Workleap Onboarding to take things up a notch. 

{emphasize}🤝 Pairing is caring. Workleap Onboarding is a match made in heaven for Officevibe users. It seamlessly integrates with the software to help you build a world-class engagement and performance culture end-to-end. 

Request a demo to see how Workleap software can help you onboard new hires and engage employees.{emphasize}

Making hiring decisions is akin to placing bets on an employee's potential. New hires don't come cheap — there are costs to hiring and training new talent — and every company hopes to see a long and fruitful return on investment (ROI).

But here's the kicker: studies show that about 20% of employee turnover happens in the first 90 days¹, telling us two things: The onboarding phase is a critical period during which new hires commit (or not) to their jobs, and employers should look to invest in this phase if they want their hiring decisions (and spend) to pay off.

This article breaks down the key benefits and ROI possible with strong employee onboarding — and how employers can stack the odds in their favor.

It's time to play smart. The right onboarding strategy and tools to optimize the experience, like Workleap Onboarding, will ensure that every hiring decision becomes a surefire bet.

{emphasize}What's in this article

• The cost of ineffective onboarding
• Key features of Workleap Onboarding that enhance ROI{emphasize}

The cost of ineffective onboarding 

Onboarding is one of the first phases of the employee life cycle, bringing new hires up to speed with their roles, colleagues and teams, company processes, and workplace culture. This introductory phase sets the tone for the rest of their employment — it’s crucial to get it right. 

Traditional onboarding processes are associated with many inefficiencies, such as wasted time and resources and running the risk of early turnover. Often too short and lacking depth and support, new employees are left in the dark rather than shown the ropes correctly. Managers suffer, too: they need more structure, the right tools, and enough time to provide new hires the onboarding experience they deserve. 

Poor onboarding practices can cost employers — up to 200% of the employee's salary each time. There’s a clear opportunity to build better employee experiences and cut the cost of lost productivity and early turnover by improving the onboarding experience. 

Here's where onboarding solutions for HR like Workleap Onboarding come in. 

Key features of Workleap Onboarding that enhance ROI

Workleap Onboarding optimizes the onboarding journey, enabling managers to automate manual processes to design meaningful and engaging onboarding experiences for new hires. Its key features include: 

• Newcomer’s hub: Provides a centralized platform for new employees, where onboarding tasks and resources sit under one roof, preventing overwhelm and accelerating productivity. 

• Task management & onboarding plans: Customized onboarding plans and organized tasks ensure a clear path forward for new employees so they can hit the ground running and contribute to their team's success.  

• Reusable onboarding templates: Templates save HR managers time and ensure consistency across onboarding experiences — and ours can be personalized to each employee’s unique needs. 

• Feedback and reaction features: Immediate feedback is gold, helping address issues without delay to get back on track. Open feedback between managers and new hires also ensures a continuous improvement of the onboarding process.  

• Integration capabilities: Supporting over 50 HRIS systems and integrating existing collaboration tools like Slack or Teams streamlines processes, and enhances the new hire experience.  

Memorable employee experiences start with great onboarding — and it’s possible to find a turn-key solution that maximizes employee onboarding ROI from day one. 

If you’ve ever assembled a piece of boxed furniture, you know that clear guidance (and moral support) is key to your success. The same is true of employee onboarding, but outdated practices and unclear processes often lead to confusion and disengagement. This can hinder promising new hires from reaching their full potential—or worse, lead them back out the door.

Onboarding software helps you alleviate your HR and management team’s workload and promotes a faster time to productivity for new hires. It also allows you to get more team members involved in the process and creates a smoother takeoff all around.

Let’s dig into what onboarding software is, how it can help alleviate common challenges, and the benefits it provides for your business.

‍

What is onboarding software? A brief overview

Onboarding software is a digital tool that supports a smoother ramp-up for new hires joining your company. These platforms offer features like personalized onboarding plans, automated workflows, centralized assets, and integrations with other HR systems. Some also provide tools specifically for reboarding employees returning from leaves or cross-boarding employees when they switch roles or get promoted.

{emphasize}Think your onboarding process is up to date? Think again. Gallup finds that only 12% of employees strongly agree their organization does a great job of onboarding new employees. There’s always room for improvement, and the right technology can support you in getting there.{emphasize}

Onboarding platforms help you kick old-school methods to the curb and provide a more modern and agile onboarding experience for new hires. But not all of them are built the same—for example, what sets Workleap Onboarding apart is that it’s:

• Simple and low-touch: Set it and forget it—the system’s smart automations take over tedious (yet essential) admin tasks like scheduling meetings.
• Collaborative and current: Interactive and engaging for the modern worker, with built-in video recording and participation options for various team members.
• Ready to connect: Integrations with key HR systems like BambooHR, ADP, HiBob, and other HRIS keep employee data well-managed and reduce app-switching.
• Self-serve and fuss-free: Easy to get set up independently and intuitive to navigate, with support available when you need it.
• Available free, forever: Small teams and businesses can benefit from onboarding software without breaking the bank.

But before we go too much deeper into it, let’s explore some of the challenges businesses currently face with traditional onboarding methods.

The challenges of traditional onboarding

Traditional onboarding practices tend to consist of piles of paperwork, outdated slide decks, and awkward intro meetings. While some companies see this as ‘good enough’, a better alternative exists—and sticking it out can lead to some serious consequences, like:

• Disengagement occurs because employees don’t build a connection with the company mission, their teammates, or their role. (Extra challenging for hybrid and remote companies!)
• Information overload leads to ineffective knowledge transfer because it’s hard to parse out what’s important and what’s not.
• Tedious administrative tasks take up precious time, and employees are busy creating accounts rather than learning about the company.
• Managers and HR staff also get bogged down in the busy work, shuffling through folders instead of showing up to support their new team members.
• Documentation isn’t kept up to date or organized, and new hires end up referring to retired processes or policies.
• Nothing changes because there’s no feedback system in place to guide your efforts to improve the onboarding process.

How an employee starts their time at your company has a big impact on their long-term success, engagement, satisfaction, and retention.

{emphasize}According to Gallup:

• 61% of employees who reported an exceptional onboarding experience said they felt fully prepared and supported to excel in their new role.
• Employees who have an exceptional onboarding experience are 3.3x as likely to say that their job is as good or better than expected.{emphasize}

Onboarding software can help you create a more cohesive, modern, and engaging welcome for new staff joining your team. While it’s true that new work tools can come with an adjustment period, the payoff of onboarding software is totally worth it.

4 key benefits of onboarding software

Here are just a few of the major benefits that come with implementing onboarding software at your business:

1. Streamlining administrative tasks

For new employees, hiring managers, and your HR team alike, the automation that onboarding software offers is a game changer. These platforms can alleviate the grunt work of managing documents, scheduling time, and knowing what to tackle next. By taking on the admin tasks it gives everyone the space to focus on those crucial human interactions that make the difference between a good first few weeks and a great first few weeks on the job.

{emphasize}Workleap Onboarding offers features like:

• Centralized document management to keep files organized, updated, and accessible
• Automated workflows that send updates and schedule meetings on your behalf
• Integrations with your HRIS and other HR systems for improved data governance{emphasize}

These all make time-consuming manual work a thing of the past. Your new hires can focus on settling into their role, managers can be more present for their team, and your HR department will be on the ball with more strategic initiatives.

2. Personalizing the onboarding journey

Every new joiner has a specific role, a specialized skill set, and individual goals and objectives. Generic onboarding flows can feel disconnected from someone’s personal perspective and place within your organization. Onboarding software helps you custom-tailor each employee’s experience, showing them that you recognize what makes them unique.

{emphasize}Workleap Onboarding offers features like:

• Adjustable timelines so new hires can manage their own schedule and workload
• Role-specific content that better speaks to their position within the organization
• Tailored learning paths to create a clear career trajectory from the outset{emphasize}

Factors like this establish you as an employer who understands the value of each employee and trusts them to be autonomous. Plus, it helps new hires see a future with your company, which makes people more likely to stick around in the long run.

3. Enhancing engagement and connectivity

You can create a more engaging onboarding experience by adding interactive training modules and other dynamic elements in new hire workflows. This is especially powerful for remote employee onboarding and fostering connections among distributed workers. An onboarding platform can become like a community hub, giving new employees a clear space to interact with their team, manager, and collaborators.

{emphasize}Workleap Onboarding offers features like:

• Virtual introductions that showcase your team’s personality and build connections
• Team collaboration tools like mentor pairing to set new hires up with a buddy or guide
• Interactive guides to capture people’s attention and improve information retention{emphasize}

These elements make for a more human and interesting experience. It’s easy to feel disconnected when you’re not in a room with people, and creating a virtual social space helps new hires feel like they’re part of the team.

4. Continuous feedback and adaptation

What’s better than a well-crafted onboarding program? One that evolves over time and gets better with each iteration. Onboarding software helps you collect feedback from new hires about their experience, providing you with crucial insights into what’s working well and where there’s opportunities for improvement.

{emphasize}Workleap Onboarding offers features like:

• Real-time tracking of new hire progress to get a sense of timelines and work styles
• Automated surveys to gather data and feedback on the onboarding experience
• Commenting and reactions to collect micro-feedback and user signals{emphasize}

You can rely on the clear and comprehensive reports provided in the platform not just to help you measure your onboarding process but also to inform its evolution. That way, you won’t have to do a major overhaul down the line because you’ll be fine-tuning it consistently.

How Lexop modernized its onboarding with Workleap Onboarding

Fintech startup Lexop recently found itself struggling to keep up with the demands of its manual onboarding process during a period of rapid growth. Personalizing onboarding plans for each new hire and crafting an engaging remote onboarding experience was taking too much precious time away from hiring managers and their people ops team.

Not wanting to sacrifice an exceptional experience for new employees, Lexop turned to Workleap Onboarding for support. Some of the top features that strengthened their onboarding process were:

• Customizable onboarding plan templates to speed up planning
• Video requests to gather custom intros from multiple team members
• Automated notifications and reminders to keep everyone in the loop

Workleap Onboarding made for an easier process among the HR team, but also an improved experience for new hires:

I am really glad that Lexop used Workleap Onboarding as an onboarding tool. It made my life a lot easier.

Sukritha SK QA Specialist at Lexop

{emphasize}Lexop was able to hit growth objectives while getting newbies up and running smoothly by implementing Workleap Onboarding.

In 18 months, they achieved a:

• 200% increase in headcount (37 new hires)
• 100% employee retention rate
• 98% new hire satisfaction rate

Now, those are some results worth celebrating!{emphasize}

Onboarding software gets new hires up to speed—quickly

If you want your employees to achieve their highest potential and help you outperform the competition, it’s essential to give them a rock-solid onboarding experience. Onboarding software streamlines your workflow and helps foster clarity, alignment, and connection. This builds engagement and trust early on, empowering new hires to do their best work.

To experience the power of onboarding software first-hand, book a free demo of Workleap Onboarding. We’ll be happy to walk you through the features that will impact your team the most and help you see how the right tool can transform your onboarding process!

Are you geared up to embrace the new wave of talent? Gen Z has entered the (workforce) chat and is bringing a new set of expectations and values that are reshaping the traditional onboarding process.

Ambitious, autonomous, and adaptable, the new generation of workers has a fresh outlook on what it means to be a good employee—and what it takes to stick with a great employer. 

Companies, it's time to buckle up for this shift (if you haven't already) because the future of your business depends on Gen Z. And guess what? It all starts with how you onboard them.

Let's explore how you can adapt your onboarding to resonate with the Connected Generation. 

‍

Gen Z at work: A digital-first, knowledge-hungry generation

Gen Z is taking the workforce by storm and is set to make up a larger portion of workers than boomers within the next year. Employees from the Connected Generation have a fresh perspective on work; their approach is digital-first, hungry for knowledge, and authentic to who they are.

What does this mean for how you run your business? You’ll want to consider these differences in your onboarding experience because how employees start out at your company sets the tone for their entire tenure. Gen Z isn’t afraid to make a move when the vibes aren’t right, so a proactive engagement and retention strategy is clutch.

Let’s break down what makes Gen Z stand out from other generations and how that translates to their expectations when starting a new job.

Digitally adept, expecting seamless experiences 

Having grown up in the digital age, Gen Z workers have an inherent comfort and fluency with technology. They’re adept at virtual collaboration and leveraging digital tools in their work. As AI continues to grow its presence in workplaces, it also presents a promising opportunity. Gen Z workers are perfectly primed to experiment, run tests, and develop best practices for how these tools can contribute to your business success.  

So what’s the catch? Gen Z is tech-savvy by nature and quick to adapt to new tools and software—but they’re also partial to apps that provide a flawless user experience and quick to forgo a new tool if it doesn’t deliver. You might not have to train them on your tech stack, but if you’re working with old-school systems, it could lead to frustration. 

{emphasize}How to incorporate this in your onboarding: 

• Implement friendly digital forms in place of tedious paperwork, and strive for a straightforward IT setup with minimal manual intervention. 
• Consolidate and simplify your tech stack with tools like password managers, automation, and platform integrations. 
• Bring onboarding activities together in a single space, making it easy for new hires to find the information, tools, and tasks they need to accomplish. 
• Share how your business has incorporated new forms of technology like AI into workflows and your goals for the future in this area.{emphasize}

Ever-connected and eager to learn 

Gen Z is accustomed to constant connectivity through smartphones and social media, which has shaped their communication style. They prefer instant messaging and interactive experiences to hefty email threads. Voice notes and screen recordings are familiar territory and video communications are expected to be short and sweet. 

Having grown up with instant access to information at their fingertips, Gen Z is also used to finding what they’re looking for easily and independently. Continuous learning comes naturally to them and is something they expect from their job. 

{emphasize}How to incorporate this in your onboarding: 

• Open up the lines for communication, and make it clear who they can go to for what (for example, their manager, teammates, or the IT or HR team). 
• Make learning materials more interactive, either through video, quizzes, or by enabling comments, tagging, emoji reactions, etc. 
• Set up easily accessible and searchable FAQs so new hires can find answers to their questions independently.{emphasize}

Dynamic, authentic, and looking to belong 

Baby boomers were encouraged to climb the corporate ladder. Gen X was spurred to seek out stability. And while millennials were promised they could do what they love, Gen Z has been told they can be who they are. 

This generation knows that we’re all much more than our job title—both outside of the office and within it. They want their employer to reflect that message and to stand for something beyond the company mission. So, your employee experience needs to demonstrate your company values in action, tap into people’s strengths, embrace people’s differences, and foster a sense of belonging from the outset. 

{emphasize}How to incorporate this in your onboarding: 

• Present your company values during the onboarding process, and share examples of tangible actions you’ve taken to live them. This is extra important when it comes to your commitment to being a socially responsible business. 
• Demonstrate to new employees how you build a culture of belonging and encourage staff to connect beyond their job functions. Do you have a company book club? Do employees host lunch-and-learns about non-work related topics? Are there Slack threads for specific interest groups that new hires can join? 
• Highlight how you spark growth and development and tap into employee strengths. How do you create unique, personalized growth paths for team members? What are your opportunities and processes for internal mobility?{emphasize}

Memorable onboarding processes aren’t built overnight. Depending on where your business stands today, it might feel like you have a lot of work ahead of you to achieve a Gen Z-friendly workflow. However, employee onboarding software can help you expedite the process and give your new hires a better experience sooner rather than later. 

Productivity boost: How employee onboarding software can help you deliver on Gen Z’s expectations 

To usher in the digital natives, it only makes sense to leverage technology.

Employee onboarding software like Workleap Onboarding can: 

• Offload the manual work of getting new employees set up 
• Centralize their onboarding tasks 
• Create a more cohesive, streamlined experience 

All this helps new recruits hit the ground running, shortening their time to high performance and driving long-term success.

Let’s explore some key ways onboarding software can help you attune your onboarding experience to Gen Z's expectations… 

Flexibility and personalization 

Rigid schedules and one-size-fits-all solutions are no match for Gen Z. Rather than time blocking every hour of their first few weeks, provide them with a flexible checklist of tasks to accomplish and leave it up to them to organize their calendar. This demonstrates that you trust them to be accountable and gives them a sense of autonomy while still providing the structure they need to achieve their goals. 

You can also create a customized onboarding experience based on an employee’s role, their team, and even personal factors about them. Taking into account what makes someone unique and crafting a personalized onboarding plan just for them shows them they’re seen and valued. It will make them feel understood and cared for as an individual. 

{emphasize}See how Workleap Onboarding creates a more flexible, custom experience for every new hire with task checklists and personalized onboarding plans.{emphasize}

Feedback and recognition 

Gen Z appreciates receiving regular feedback and recognition. They want to know how they're performing, what they’re doing well, and where they could focus on improving. Sharing feedback is easy through Workleap Onboarding, and you can keep it in context alongside the employee’s tasks, goals, and accomplishments. What better way to encourage your new employees and show them that they’re doing a great job? 

Just as important as providing feedback to new hires is receiving it from them. You can easily collect employee feedback with Workleap Onboarding’s automated surveys, providing a straightforward way for new joiners to share feedback on things like: 

• What worked well 
• What needed to be clarified 
• What needed to be more helpful 

This helps you improve the onboarding process for your next new hire, and can spark meaningful conversations with your new team member. 

Mentorship opportunities 

Access to experienced colleagues and the opportunity to learn from mentors in their area of expertise is very valued by Gen Z. They’re keen to learn and develop their skills, and connecting with someone who has been there and who gets it makes a big difference for them. This helps them grow and shows them they have a real future at your company—and that you can see that potential in them, too. 

Beyond their personal growth and mapping out a career trajectory, connecting new hires with upper leadership helps break down hierarchy and red tape. It shows people that everyone is valued at your business, no matter their role or seniority level. This doubles down on creating a sense of belonging and encourages new hires and more junior staff to speak up and share their ideas and opinions. 

Speaking Gen Z's language 

Video is a cornerstone of how Gen Z likes to communicate and learn. It’s their preferred form of media: 

Gen Z is accustomed to watching videos to learn how to do things and recording videos to share their thoughts and opinions. So incorporating video welcomes into your onboarding flow creates an experience that’s familiar and authentic to their preferences. Welcome videos are a key feature of Workleap Onboarding, helping you create personalized and engaging onboarding experiences for all your new team members. 

Helping Gen Z take your business to new heights 

It doesn’t seem like that long ago that millennials were the new kids in the office. Yet a large portion of Gen Z are now experienced employees, with 5-10 years of work under their belt. Gen Z’s influence in the workforce has landed. And starting off your relationships on the right note with an engaging, technology-enhanced onboarding experience is key. 

Discover how Workleap Onboarding can elevate your onboarding process to meet Gen Z's unique needs – sign up for a personalized demo today. 

 
These days, old-school employee onboarding practices feel like a snooze. 😴 When people start a new job, they want to make a good impression, sure. But what they really want is to feel engaged, respected, and appreciated. Most of all, they want to be excited! But handing them a laundry list of accounts to create and a pile of paperwork doesn’t exactly spark intrigue. 

An agile approach to onboarding gives new hires freedom and focuses on the most impactful things they need to learn and do. It’s an employee-centric way of managing their first days, weeks, and months at your organization, and it sets the tone for a fruitful and enduring employee-employer relationship. Now that’s more like it! 

Let’s dive into what exactly agile onboarding is, why it’s a better alternative to traditional practices, and how you can implement it within your organization. 

‍

Understanding agile onboarding: Breaking down the methodology

Agile employee onboarding borrows principles from agile project management methodologies traditionally used by software development teams. These methodologies emphasize iteration, flexibility, feedback, and user-centricity. As such, an agile approach to onboarding makes for a more engaging and dynamic new hire experience. 

But what does agile onboarding look like in practice? Let’s look at some of the key principles of agility and how they can show up in your onboarding practices. 

7 key components of agile onboarding 

Whether or not you call it agile, your onboarding process might already follow some of the guiding principles of the methodology. Here are some core components you can assess: 

1. Adaptability: Tailor the process to individual needs, accommodate diverse learning styles, and adjust to changing circumstances. 
2. Flexibility: Keep processes and timelines fluid, so new employees can tackle their to-do lists at their own pace and manage their schedules. 
3. Prioritization: Focus on higher impact tasks first, and accelerate a new hire’s time to making meaningful contributions.
4. Feedback: Gather insights on the onboarding experience from recent hires to address any gaps and improve it for the next new joiner. 
5. Collaboration: Involve various team members, departments, and stakeholders in creating onboarding plans and welcoming new team members. 
6. Iteration: Regularly review and refine the onboarding process to be sure it’s keeping up with shifting objectives and needs.
7. Transparency: Keep onboarding and other processes clearly defined and easily accessible to all staff members.

{emphasize}Leveraging technology in agile onboarding 

Agile was created for software development—but software can also help facilitate the approach. Workleap Onboarding alleviates manual work associated with onboarding with features like automated meeting scheduling and AI-generated plans.

🦾 Creating efficiencies allows your HR team to focus on more strategic aspects of the roles like helping continuously improve processes. And it gives new hires the tools they need to manage their workload and focus on what’s most impactful. Win-win!{emphasize}

Why take an agile approach to onboarding?

Traditional onboarding processes fail to set new hires up properly for success in modern workplaces. 50-item checklists and detailed itineraries feel stale in the context of distributed and remote-first workforces, a quickened pace of business, and the updated expectations of Gen Z employees. And first impressions are drawn quickly: 

An agile approach to onboarding gives fresh starters a sense of agency in how they get their work done and helps them feel more connected to their team and company objectives. And that’s just scratching the surface… 

5 benefits of agile employee onboarding 

There are lots of reasons why agile is a better match for onboarding employees today. But what results can you expect to see from taking this approach? Here are 5 tangible benefits of agile onboarding: 

1. Quicker time to productivity: New hires can slowly take on work tasks in addition to their onboarding tasks, easing into their new role. They’ll feel accomplished, and you’ll see their value quickly—a win-win. 

2. Accommodates individual needs: Introverts can spread out meet-and-greets, people can block off focus time, etc. Flexible working arrangements are a top 3 motivator for seeking a new job, so you want to live up to that. 

3. Gives new hires a voice: Asking for feedback encourages people to share their thoughts, questions, and opinions early on. Healthy communication channels alleviate confusion, create clarity, and show new hires they can speak up (and be heard). 

4. Establishes trust and autonomy: Giving people ownership over their work is a surefire way to make them feel trusted. When you give trust, you earn trust, and employees at high-trust organizations have 76% higher engagement and 50% higher productivity than at low-trust organizations. 

5. Improved engagement levels: Each and every benefit listed above contributes to engagement levels. With the ratio of engaged to actively disengaged employees in the U.S. at its lowest since 2013, driving engagement from day one is critical. 

All of these benefits lead to more productive, high-performing employees in the long run. So really, why not go agile? 

{emphasize}Agile onboarding in practice: How Logient achieved success with Workleap Onboarding

Software company Logient has achieved a more agile onboarding process with the help of Workleap Onboarding. Using the platform, they’ve crafted 123 unique onboarding plans to suit the needs of each new hire best. Welcoming teams collaboratively customize each plan, tailoring it to fit the new team member's role, team, and objectives.

With Workleap Onboarding, Logient has successfully: 

• Centralized key documentation for better accessibility 
• Automated meeting scheduling, alleviating admin work for HR 
• Enabled custom onboarding plans for each department 
• Automated feedback collection about the onboarding process 

Want to see how Workleap Onboarding can supercharge your onboarding process? Schedule some time for a personalized product demo—we’ll happily show you around!{emphasize}

Implementing agile onboarding in your organization: A 4-step framework 

You may be convinced of the merit of agile onboarding, but practically speaking, how do you effectively implement it at your company? Interestingly, the best way to create your agile onboarding process is by using an agile framework itself. Talk about practicing what you preach! 

To facilitate a smooth transition to agile and get your leadership, HR, and management teams on board, follow these essential steps: 

1. Evaluate your current process 

Start by taking stock of your existing onboarding practices. Answer questions like: 

• Who is responsible for what? 
• How is the process communicated to new hires? 
• What assets are included, and are they up-to-date? 

Audit onboarding practices across your teams and departments, and ask managers to share their recent onboarding plans with you. Compile all this and create a clear overview of where onboarding stands today. 

2. Identify areas for improvement 

Use your critical eye and really think about what’s working and what’s not. This is also a prime time to solicit feedback from your workforce. Here’s how: 

• Run a brainstorming session with people from different departments and seniority levels. Go over how you could make the process more streamlined, personalized, useful, or empowering. 
• Collect feedback from recently hired employees about what was helpful, what stood out, and what they thought was missing (pssst: Workleap Onboarding’s automated surveys take care of this for you). 

3. Prioritize your adjustments 

Before you launch headfirst into your remodel, take a step back. An agile prioritization method can help you choose the most impactful place to start. Here are a few you can try: 

• Effort vs. Impact matrix 
• RICE: (Reach x Impact x Confidence) / Effort 
• MoSCoW: Must-have, Should-have, Could-have, and Won’t have 

4. Repeat, repeat, repeat 

Iteration and continuous improvement are the cornerstones of agile, so remember that this won’t be the last time you audit and revamp your onboarding process. Over time, you can build your feedback cycles into your onboarding process. Improvements will be made each time a new employee goes through it, and iteration will be baked in! 

Overcoming challenges as you go agile 

Like any big change, taking your onboarding process agile can come with an adjustment period. You might face common challenges like: 

• Resistance to change from employees or leadership 
• Balancing consistency with personalization 
• Limited capacity from HR, IT, leadership, or management teams 
• Lack of resources (technology, time, budgets, etc.) 

Transformation doesn’t happen overnight, so remember that the guiding principle of agile is continuous improvement. You don’t need to overhaul everything at once, you just need to chip away at it, until one day you step back and see a much greater change.

{emphasize}💡Here are a few strategies you can use to help overcome these challenges: 

Communicate
To your leadership team, IT team, existing employees, and new hires. This promotes transparency and draws people in, making them feel that they’re a part of the change and not up against it. 

Establish norms
Narrow down what every new team member must do, like contract signing, payroll, benefits enrollment, and company training. Then, decide what must be personalized, like team welcome videos and goal-setting. 

Pace yourself
Take it one step at a time and lean on your prioritization frameworks. You can also use sprint planning or a Kanban board to break up initiatives into smaller tasks, making them more manageable. 

Seek out solutions
Use software like Workleap Onboarding to support your efforts and lighten up the leg work. This will free up your time to focus on the most impactful tasks and help you prove ROI more quickly.{emphasize}

Agile onboarding for a fresher start 

By integrating agile principles into your onboarding process, you create the conditions for new employees to not just perform, but thrive. They’ll feel trusted to apply themselves in their role and empowered to tackle their best work. You give them the roadmap to success, and they’ll navigate their own path forward. 

Sounds like a good next step, right? Book a demo to see how Workleap Onboarding can set your modern onboarding to auto-pilot. 🚀

As organizations evolve, streamlining employee onboarding becomes increasingly critical. The seamless integration of Workleap Onboarding with your Human Resources Information System (HRIS) can significantly enhance efficiency, reduce manual tasks, and improve the overall employee experience. This quick start guide will break down the integration steps for HR managers and IT teams who work hand-in-hand to make sure new hires onboard smoothly. 

‍

What is a Human Resources Information System (HRIS)? 

A Human Resources Information System (HRIS) is a comprehensive software tool for HR professionals to manage employee data efficiently. This centralized system consolidates information, eliminating the need for scattered spreadsheets and paperwork.

Essential functions include storing employee details, tracking recruitment progress, managing applicant data, handling benefits, tracking training records, generating HR reports, and managing time-keeping and scheduling. The significance of an HRIS lies in streamlining HR processes, enhancing data accuracy, and providing invaluable support for organizational growth.

You can think of an HRIS as a Swiss army knife for HR professionals, offering tools for recruitment, benefits, payroll, talent management, and more. 

Why integrate Workleap Onboarding with your HRIS?

Integrating Workleap Onboarding with your HRIS brings a host of benefits to enhance HR operations. So before diving into the technical details of how to do it, let’s look at the top five: 

1. Reduce manual data entry (aka music to the ears of anyone who works in front of a computer)
   Manual data entry is time-consuming and prone to errors. Synchronization automates the transfer of employee data, eliminating the need for repetitive manual input and nixing chances for typos, missing information, or incorrect formatting. You gain consistency and accuracy with data across systems. No more double-checking or correcting entries. Syncing with your HRIS minimizes these errors and reduces compliance risks since accurate data is crucial for legal compliance (e.g., tax forms, benefits enrollment). 
2. Streamline processes 
   New hires seamlessly transition from Workleap Onboarding to the HRIS. Their information flows effortlessly, reducing administrative bottlenecks. The same goes when employees leave — regular syncs ensure timely removal from both systems, enhancing security and compliance. 
3.  Enhance employee experience 
   A seamless onboarding experience sets the tone for an employee’s journey. New employees experience a faster onboarding and smoother process, as their details are pre-populated in the HRIS. Employees can also access and update their information through self-service portals. A unified system enhances engagement and satisfaction from day one.  
4. Save on costs 
   There are considerable time savings to win back when your teams spend less time on data entry and more time focusing on strategic tasks. Plus, reduced errors mean fewer corrective actions and associated costs. 
5. Have a single source of truth 
   Synchronization creates a single source of truth. HR managers and IT teams can confidently rely on consistent, unified data for decision-making. They can also count on real-time updates where changes made in one system (e.g., job title update) reflect instantly in the other. 

 
Let’s bridge the gap and dive into how to integrate Workleap Onboarding with your HRIS to create a harmonious ecosystem where accurate information flows and you can streamline the creation of plans for your newcomers. 

How to extend your HRIS with Workleap Onboarding: A step-by-step integration process

Workleap Onboarding works with your HRIS, supporting over 50 different HRIS. Upon adding a new hire to your HRIS, Workleap Onboarding automatically imports essential details (name, job title, email, manager, first day) to create an onboarding plan in one click.  

How to set up your integration 

Go to Settings in the left menu and select Integrations.  

Scroll down to the HRIS section. Click the HRIS that you want to connect. If you don’t see it in the original list, click View all for more HRIS options.  

Click Connect for the desired HRIS, as seen here, with BambooHR as the example.

Each HR system will have a slightly different authentication process, requiring you to sign in or verify your HRIS account. Once you have verified your HRIS account and permitted Workleap Onboarding to access it, Workleap Onboarding will start to sync the employee information.   

 ⏰ Syncing employee information can take anywhere from 5-30 minutes. 

Set it and forget it

Once you’re synced, Workleap Onboarding notifies HR about new hires and leverages HRIS data and Workleap templates to launch the onboarding process automatically to ensure nobody slips through the cracks. 

How to view upcoming onboarding plans for new employees

When newcomers are detected in your HRIS, you will receive a notification redirecting you to the Onboarding page, where you can create their plan. 

On the Onboarding page, select Upcoming plans. 

Included in the plan are the newcomer's name, title, manager, and start date — all without you having to enter the information manually again! 

Click Create plan to start adding to the newcomer’s plan. If you click Dismiss, the newcomer plan will be removed from the list. 

How Workeap Onboarding picks up where your HRIS drops 

Workleap Onboarding steps up where your HRIS stops to elevate the onboarding experience. While HRIS plays a foundational role in data management, it falls short in some critical areas: 

Workleap Onboarding vs. HRIS standalone Provides a more intuitive and user-friendly interface for new hires, making it easier for them to navigate the onboarding process. Both new hires and managers who don’t often work within the HRIS can find the interface complex and cumbersome to complete tasks. Allows HR teams to create customized onboarding workflows tailored to the organization's specific needs.Less flexibility to accommodate unique onboarding requirements.  Includes features that focus on engaging new hires, such as welcome videos, interactive content, and personalized messages. More transactional nature and misses out on opportunities to foster a positive and memorable onboarding experience.  Thinks long-term with structured 30-60-90 day plans. Limited to onboarding checklists and forms for the newcomer’s pre-arrival and first few days. Excels in automated communication, sending timely reminders, notifications, and updates to new hires, keeping them informed and engaged throughout the onboarding journey. Focus remains on handling employee data management. Workleap Onboarding compared to HRIS on its own.

Workleap Onboarding and your HRIS work together like a 1-2 punch for a better employee onboarding experience. While HRIS masters managing employee data, it starts to falter when it comes to adding value with employee engagement, fostering culture, and structuring and tailoring onboarding plans. That’s where Workleap Onboarding comes in! 

Supercharge your HRIS and onboarding experience

And there you have it! Integrating Workleap Onboarding with your HRIS is really that easy. And doing so is a strategic move. It empowers HR teams, enhances employee experiences, and sets the stage for organizational success. By following these steps, you’ll pave the way for efficient onboarding and a cohesive employee journey. Onboarding doesn’t have to be boring and tedious. Get started for free and discover how Workleap Onboarding can integrate with your HRIS to take your new hire experience to the next level.

{emphasize}FAQs 

What types of employee data can be collected and managed through Workleap onboarding software? 

Workleap Onboarding only collects the employee data necessary to facilitate the onboarding process, including:  

• Full name 
• Job title 
• Personal/work email 
• Manager name 
• Date of first day 
• Profile picture  

What security measures are in place to protect sensitive employee information? 

Protecting sensitive employee information is paramount for maintaining trust, compliance, and data security. Workleap Onboarding treats your data with care, and are dedicated to protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and security of all data entrusted to us by our customers and their employees. Read more about the Workleap Trust Center. 

Which Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) do Workleap Onboarding support? 

Workleap Onboarding supports over 50 different HRIS. Read the full list of supported integrations.{emphasize}

Think back to your very first day at your job. You probably felt hyped up, filled with potential, and ready to make an impact. Maybe you also had some butterflies in your stomach… 

When new hires join your team, you want to tap into those positive emotions right away and quell any anxieties so they feel empowered to hit the ground running. Welcome videos can do just that. They’re a great way to share important information, show off your company culture, and create a sense of inclusion for new employees. And they help build connections in a way that’s tough to do through an email or employee handbook. 

Incorporating video into your employee onboarding journey has a dynamic potential to shape the entire experience. Ready to dive in? 

‍

The power of video in onboarding

Welcome videos provide a personal touch for new employees joining your organization. They help to convey your company’s culture, mission, and values more effectively, fostering alignment from the outset. Not only that, but welcome videos have the power to create a deeper sense of belonging, helping new employees feel that they’re a part of something—even if they’re onboarding remotely. 

Videos help communicate intangibles and create a more up-to-date and engaging onboarding experience. And for those reasons, more and more HR professionals are making them a must-have in their onboarding workflows. 

An experience that lands: Why HR professionals should prioritize welcome videos 

How people consume information has dramatically shifted. People don’t spend time reading long-form text like they used to, and many prefer to get their information through short-form, snappy video clips. This trend is not just a fad—it's a fundamental change in communication style, one that employers must notice as Gen Z continues to make up more of the workforce. You want to create an experience that’s engaging, familiar, and true to people’s habits. The facts speak volumes:

• On average, individuals spend an impressive 17 hours a week watching online videos (Statista).
• A remarkable 91.6% of internet users aged 16-64 engage with online video content every week (Hootsuite).

These numbers aren't just figures. They represent a clear message: Video is the new language of engagement. Not only is video a preferred form of content consumption for many, but it will likely lead to better information retention.

Plus, they also add a dynamic layer to the onboarding experience, balancing out live calls, document reviews, and task completions to make the first days more engaging for the new hire. And a highly engaging experience from the jump can lead to better retention rates down the line.

5 tips for better welcome videos (with examples)

It’s clear that video content adds to the employee onboarding experience. But how do you create valuable welcome videos that hit the right mark? Without guidance, you risk creating videos that lack a clear message and purpose. Follow these best practices (and examples) to craft exceptional welcome videos to add to your onboarding workflows. 

1. Curate your content

Before you hit record, think about what information you want to communicate via video during employee onboarding. Certain things can simply be added to a checklist, and other things warrant a meeting or training session. Here are a few examples of what might be effectively presented in a video format: 

• Give an overview of the onboarding process and key resources 
• Present company history, mission, and up-to-date strategic pillars 
• Share company culture, values, and what’s expected of employees 
• Introduce departments and their objectives within the organization 
• Walk through employee benefits, perks, resources, and processes 
• Share how performance is tracked, evaluated, and rewarded 
• Highlight the important parts of a document to make sure they are understood

While any of these could make great video content, it’s also important to create opportunities for new hires to ask questions and get clarification as needed. Feedback forms, one-on-ones with managers, and clear documentation are also essential parts of onboarding, too. These are all ways to address any uncertainties and share further context and information—not to mention an opportunity to forge those human connections that really make the difference.  

2. Select the best channel

Once you’ve recorded your videos, it’s also important to think about how you’ll share them. File formats and device compatibility can quickly wreak havoc on your carefully crafted communications. And to make a new employee dig around in Slack or an intranet to find those videos? Yikes. These are just a few examples of how to get the technical side of video creation set up for smooth sailing: 

• If your company is currently using a video tool for live videos, see if a recording option exists 
• Find a dedicated space to store welcome videos, so they’re easy to find and add to onboarding flows 
• Make sure videos are saved and shared in a format and location that’s accessible and compatible across devices 
• Create a dedicated space for new hires’ onboarding, too, where they can find everything they need in one place 

{emphasize}📹 Need a good tool for onboarding welcome videos?{emphasize}

Workleap Onboarding helps you record welcome videos and share them in the same environment where new employees complete all of their onboarding. It’s like a home base for new hires. Employees can access files, checklists, videos, and more, and track their progress along the way. 

3. Make it personal

You want new hires to feel recognized as individuals and valued for the unique contributions they’ll be making to your organization. Personalization goes beyond making sure to use their name in a custom video (but you should do that, too). Creating a sense of inclusion in your videos comes in a variety of forms, and details that might seem minor can speak volumes. For example: 

• Set some guidelines for hiring managers to create a unique video welcoming each new team member. Such as specifying that they should use the new hire’s name, emphasizing the importance of their role, and mentioning a few things about them learned in the hiring process. 
• Have team leaders get team members to film short clips introducing themselves, and compile them into a welcome video for new employees. At the end of each person’s onboarding, they can film their own clip to add to the latest version for the next person who joins. 
• Create welcome videos that include employees from different departments, geographical locations, and job functions. Showcase the diversity within your workforce to demonstrate to new hires it’s a welcoming environment for all. 
• Implement some general inclusivity practices in how you produce your welcome videos. For example, have people’s names, job titles, and pronouns written alongside them when they’re speaking. Or, give people the option to record their video parts as audio-only. 

Ultimately, it’s all about demonstrating an awareness that every team member is more than just a worker. When you name people, use their pronouns, show what makes them unique, and let them participate in a way they’re most comfortable. It’s a sign of respect—and of recognition. It’s a way of saying ‘I see you’, and this will come through for the new joiners watching, evoking a sense of belonging from the very beginning.

{emphasize}🎬 Use Workleap Onboarding video to send clip requests to teammates

Lights, camera, action! With Workleap Onboarding, you can easily curate an extra memorable first-day experience for your new hires.  Invite managers and team members to record personalized welcome videos, creating a warm and inclusive atmosphere from the start.

Here's how it works: Send out clip requests through Workleap Onboarding, and each designated colleague will receive a notification to record their message in our user-friendly video studio.

This small gesture can make a world of difference in creating an instant sense of belonging and connection for new team members.{emphasize}

4. Be clear, keep it concise

Only 66% of viewers will finish a video that’s under 1 minute long—and that number drops as the length of a video increases (VidYard). So you want to make sure you’re keeping it streamlined. This can be done in a number of ways, but here are some examples of how you might clarify your message and pare it down: 

• Use text in your video to highlight the most important things you say 
• Write a video script (or work with a writer) and edit it mercilessly 
• Try asking ChatGPT to eliminate wordiness from your script 
• Narrow down 3-5 key takeaways for your video, and include them at the end 
• If you can’t get it down to under 2 minutes, reconsider your format 

{emphasize}📝 Workleap’s video recording tool comes with a notes section built-in. Stay on-script and avoid side-tangents with your speaking cues right there as you record. Plus, you won’t have those shifty eyes from glancing at a Word doc on another screen throughout.{emphasize}

5. Mix it up when you need to

Remember only some messages will be right for a video. The point is not to set new hires up with a YouTube playlist and some popcorn. There are plenty of things you’ll want to cover in onboarding that are better suited to a live meeting, need to be in writing, or can be assigned as tasks. Here are a few examples: 

• Going over a new hire’s job description and responsibilities. Provide these essentials in writing and review them in a live one-on-one meeting between the employee and their manager. 
• Meet and greet with their team, key collaborators, and leadership members. These can be spread out over their first weeks and even months, but it’s important to get face time with people they’ll be working closely with. 
• Setting up accounts and getting access to various documents and systems. It's easier to provide these types of details as a checklist they can go through one-by-one. If they hit any roadblocks, they can flag it to their manager or IT. 
• Setting goals for their first 30 days, 60 days, and 90 days. Goal setting should be collaborative with their manager, and then they should have live check-ins at each milestone. 
• Registering for benefits or setting up perks. Not only is their 401K, RRSP contribution amount or which benefits package they select personal, but it also definitely needs to be in writing. 

Video welcomes are great, and they can cover a lot of ground. But some stuff is simply better suited to other formats, so don’t try to fit a square into a circle. Human connection is also essential in the onboarding experience, so make plenty of space for it

A little video can go a long way 

So, are you ready to elevate your onboarding game with the compelling impact of personalized video welcome messages? In a remote-first workforce, establishing human connection can be tricky but undeniably essential. Integrate videos into your onboarding journey to unveil your team's unique personality while encouraging new hires to express theirs. Thoughtfully crafted welcome videos propel engagement from day one and cultivate a genuine sense of belonging, even within distributed teams. 

Experience their impact firsthand by trying Workleap Onboarding. From delivering warm and personalized welcomes to each new hire to tailoring messages, videos, and resources, Workleap makes sure that employees feel valued and seamlessly integrated into the team from the very start.