Too many IT tickets, not enough time.
That’s just one problem that comes with a poor employee onboarding experience, and it’s one that causes deal-breaking difficulties for new employees, and just as importantly, IT leaders in the IT service management (ITSM) department.
Ninety-three percent of employers said that a good onboarding experience is critical for retention of new employees, according to market share data from Finances Online. The total cost of voluntary turnover in 2020? An enormous estimate of $630 billion.
Statistics from a year prior showed that onboarding, which includes setting up applications, documentation, and more runs about $3,000 per employee.
The Trouble with Manual Onboarding
Manual onboarding serves HR teams with a slew of challenges – one of the biggest being that there are so many moving pieces. During the onboarding process, there is a lot of back-and-forth communication when reaching out to IT, which creates the need for various people and teams along the way.
HR teams have to rely on IT associates to set up new hires with multiple systems, as well as make sure they are properly up and running. A manual process, according to HR and operations management, leaves room for unfortunate mistakes.
Manual onboarding is more time consuming than many people believe and has many steps that must be taken. It can easily get stuck, cause delays, and demand a lot of time from HR and IT teams. It allows too much room for error and leaves new hires needing help from busy coworkers and managers. It’s anything but ideal during a time when new employees need to feel welcomed and have their first few weeks go off without a hitch.
How Automated Onboarding Can Help
Automated onboarding processes guarantee a great first impression for new hires and bring them up to speed faster, reducing costly metrics for organizations like time-to-productivity and time-to-proficiency. Simply put, it removes the complexity from onboarding and makes things easier on the back end, whether it’s for a single new hire or a sizable group of them.
Automation grants HR teams the freedom from small checkpoints needed along the way and gives them peace of mind. They can be sure that each onboarding step was done correctly, without having to follow up with, or even interrupt, their busy coworkers.
WATCH: The 7 Automations Use-Case Series: Employee Onboarding
A streamlined process starts with submitting a ticket to onboard a new employee, wherein an automation platform will intercept and then kick off the automated onboarding process.
At Resolve Systems, our code-free, drag-and-drop solution comes with a lot of flexibility, integrating with external systems like Workday, BambooHR, and others. It’s important to note that no two organizations are the same when it comes to onboarding processes, and automation can be conformed to fit a company’s individual needs.
Once the ticket is submitted, users can go to their live dashboards to find metrics, KPIs, and a snapshot of the system – all while the onboarding automation runs in the background. The process can take less than 30 seconds.
Tracking people down from different departments within an organization to get things done is time consuming. It’s a hassle that can cause a hefty load of frustration for those working in various departments, including engineering. An automated approach completes every step—from start to finish—without any human intervention.
IT leaders, just like talent acquisition professionals, should prioritize the strategic parts of their jobs, rather than the mundane, repetitive tasks. It’s about putting tedious tasks on autopilot with the help of automation. Adoption of automated processes could mean more time to contribute to a better employer brand, a strong partnership with other leaders’ bold purposes, and achievement of big business goals.
Now that automation is no longer a novelty, IT leaders have easy access to greater efficiency in their day-to-day productivity, as well as a positive impact on employee retention, keeping in mind that onboarding begins before an employee’s first day of work.
What Automation Means for Employee Retention
Perhaps you’ve been there. If you work remotely, it might mean receiving a new laptop in the mail, opening the shipping box, and plugging in your new device. You’re excited to start your new role and motivated to give it 100 percent from the get-go … until you hit your first onboarding roadblock and realize there’s no easy fix. The password won’t work, you can’t access the VPN, you need some help accessing internal programs … and so the SOS emails and Teams messages begin.
Then you wait.
You become disengaged while looking out for a lifeline.
You judge your onboarding experience, labeling it outdated or broken.
You wonder if the grass is greener on another organization’s side.
An increasing number of employees are opting to look for new opportunities with organizations that value and practice digital transformation, according to a publication by Aaron Elder of the Training Industry. Likewise, companies that are faster to adopt digital transformation can see greater employee retention.
Organizations might make a new hire and schedule them to go through the onboarding process, but that doesn’t seal the deal. Each new employee will expect a smooth ride – one without gaps that will delight them and keep them from seeking other opportunities.
IT leaders must activate automated onboarding processes during today’s hiring slowdown, in which job seekers still have the upper hand and hold the power in the labor market.
Now that we’ve covered automation for employee onboarding, it’s time to explore the offboarding side of things. Watch another video from our LinkedIn Live series, “The 7 IT Automations for Highly Effective Organizations: Employee Offboarding.”
This blog is the second part of our “The 7 IT Automations for Highly Effective Organizations” series, with a new blog dropping every Tuesday this summer. Inspired by Stephen R. Covey’s bestseller, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, we believe the seven automations we write about will help transform IT and businesses for the better – sustaining lasting success through upgraded and improved capabilities.
Find our first blog here: Automated Password Resets: The Effortless Way to Get Employees Back Online
