Automated Employee Onboarding: The Gamechanger for New Hires and IT Teams

Here comes that wave of new hires - and the IT service desk knows it’s about to be flooded with onboarding requests.

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. In 2025 SkillCycle estimated that if just 10 employees in your organization quit in a year, annual costs to the company due to attrition could range from $250,000 to $1 million.

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.

A streamlined process starts with submitting a request to onboard a new employee, and an automation platform will intercept and then kick off the automated onboarding process.

At Resolve, 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. 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.

Common Onboarding Workflows to Automate Next

Employee onboarding automation often starts with identity and access setup, but it can also cover app provisioning, VPN access, device setup, and software access requests that flood the service desk during new hire waves.

The best practice for all companies looking to automate employee onboarding, is to make a list of the workflows and tasks the organization needs to accomplish for new hires, especially new hires with more complex onboarding steps, and discuss with the IT team what automation options are available for each one of these steps. Think of it like a GAP analysis, trying to identify first where the team wishes it was on a specific onboarding step, and work backward from there to fill the gap from where the organization currently is.

Every organization has unique infrastructure as a starting point, unique workflows currently in use, and unique opportunities to introduce more automation and orchestration. The key is to identify your opportunities and collaborate closely with decision makers and IT pros within the enterprise to make it happen.

Our webinar, “Automating Joiner, Mover & Leaver Workflows with Agentic Orchestration,” takes a deeper dive. Watch the replay to learn more.