Onboarding Software

Onboarding software helps recruiters and team managers optimise the onboarding process for new employees, and walk them through the recruitment and training process. These solutions help organise and manage things like documentation requirements, important contacts/colleague introductions, and general office policies.

The benefits of onboarding software

• Increase employee engagement: The onboarding process supplies new employees' first impression of your organisation and can have a lasting impact on their engagement during their tenure with your company. By streamlining and managing the entire process, onboarding software gives employees flexibility while moving through the recruitment and training process, allowing them to complete mandatory forms and training at their own pace.
• Digitisation streamlines and facilitates compliance: Onboarding solutions allow human resource professionals to manage digital documentation for new employees, including verifying employee information. Digital signing functionalities allow employees to quickly sign and authorise necessary documents, reducing physical storage requirements and file maintenance demands while enhancing compliance.

Typical features of onboarding software

• Course management: Create employee training courses and assign them to employees.
• E-Verify/I-9 Form completion: Allow new employees to verify documents and their identity.
• Electronic forms: Generate digital forms that are easily shared and accessed by all necessary parties.
• Electronic signature: Lets users digitally sign documents within the system.
• Employee handbook: Develop, store, and manage an employee handbook that can be shared during the onboarding process.
• Employee portal: An online portal that offers self-service functionalities to employees.
• File management: A categorised repository of all relevant business documents.
• Job description repository: Create, share, and manage job descriptions.
• Orientation management: Helps HR professionals create and manage orientation programmes for new employees.
• Task management: Allows users to create and manage a running list of to-do items and monitor the status of each.
• Mentor assignment: Assign team members to mentor and support new hires throughout the onboarding process.

Considerations when purchasing onboarding software

• Mobile access: HR professionals, recruiters, employees, and managers use onboarding software to oversee and complete the entire onboarding process, from filling out necessary forms, downloading and uploading documents, to tracking their progress. As workforces become increasingly mobile, it's essential that onboarding software vendors change to meet market demands. Software buyers should evaluate their employees' mobile access needs and ensure that their shortlist of onboarding software options fulfil all requirements.
• Integration with existing software: Onboarding software solutions work in concert with other tools, including HR, recruiting, payroll, benefits and administration, and reporting software solutions. It's difficult (if not impossible) to streamline onboarding processes if your onboarding software can't integrate with your existing systems. Before making a purchase decision, research your desired software's integration capabilities to ensure you don't end up with a siloed system.

Relevant onboarding software trends

• Conversational user interfaces will transform the onboarding process: Recent advancements in conversational user interface technologies have accelerated mainstream adoption among small businesses. According to Capterra research, almost 70% of small businesses will adopt chatbot technologies in the next few years. Artificial intelligence-powered chatbots will transform onboarding functionalities such as employee self-service, query resolution, tracking progress, and data entry.
• Gamification: Gamified onboarding transforms the process from a monotonous, mandatory task into an engaging experience, allowing HR professionals and corporate trainers to create quizzes, assign badges, display leaderboards, and build quests to help employees learn and follow overarching organisational goals and visions. Gamification helps employees learn and onboard faster; expect the ongoing trend of training gamification to continue expanding in the coming years.