Never thought a pandemic can make employee onboarding this easy and this fast! Yes, in 2021, we can onboard newly hired employees much faster than our previous onboarding practices. During the starting of the pandemic, many companies were clueless about their production continuation. In order to keep the production level up to the mark, the remote work regime took the primary place. Digital onboarding is also a part of the remote work regime. When everything is happening virtually, hiring and onboarding should follow the same thing. After enabling digital onboarding, many companies found it more effective and successful. Employees who may cancel the joining due to location or distance, he/she is also accepting the job offer as they can perform from any corner of the world. Be it generating a remote workforce and increasing the remote workforce strength, digital onboarding brings exciting benefits to the table.
What is digital onboarding?
Digital onboarding is actually a virtual process where an individual signs up with the company to work. Or in some other areas, the individual signs up to the company or any government institution to access the products and services. In this process, that individual needs to share some personal details and even a piece of biometric information in some cases. The process actually ensures that the individual will be identified instantly whenever required later.
We have seen that previously, for onboarding, individuals used to share their details over email or in-person. This was an expensive and time-consuming process for the recruiters. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly all businesses continue to shift their parts of operation online, the need for a more secure and virtual onboarding starts appearing more prominently. While practicing less person-to-person contact, companies started to enjoy the ultimate benefits of the virtual practices that were nearly unfolded before the pandemic.
Which companies are into digital onboarding?
In 2021, the majority of tech companies are into digital onboarding including Google, Twitter, SoundCloud, and so on. It is quite mandatory for all tech-based businesses to enable digital onboarding as they are already familiar with the tools. However, all companies are trying to adopt this practice in order to grow amid the complicated pandemic situation.
We can see fast adoption in banking and other financial sectors such as BBVA and Deloitte are conducting their onboarding tasks virtually. Companies that have the plan to operate remotely and keep balance with the trends are in the process of enabling digital onboarding.
There are a lot of benefits that the digital onboarding regime can bring to your business organization. We must say this is more accurate as well as transparent. Before you convert your web-based recruitment practices into digital onboarding, we should take a look at the benefits of virtual onboarding.
Benefits of digital onboarding
- More efficiency
Without any doubt, the digital onboarding process requires less time to get completed. It can be done according to the newly hired candidate’s pace and at his/her own time. The HR executive does not need to spend a lot of time gathering all the personal details of that newly hired one. The newly hired one will get the responsibility and scope to add their details to the company’s HRM system. There is less paper and less error. While adding their own information, candidates actually get the opportunity to explore more about the organization. Such a digital onboarding trend or practice actually saves a lot of time, effort, and resources while letting a candidate know more about the organization.
- Desired accuracy
Accuracy is a crucial thing when it comes to onboarding a newly hired candidate. The manual process may bring lots of errors in the process. While saving candidate information manually, a lot of errors can take place and in the near future, it can get worse. On the other hand, the process is not that secure and data theft or misplacement can take place at any time. In order to check data accuracy, HRs need to spend a lot of time. Apart from this, when it comes to data updating, again more time needs to be spent. In order to get rid of these time-consuming tedious tasks, companies are investing in digital tools for onboarding and employee information maintenance such as HRMWARE. In this way, they can keep all up-to-date information with the highest accuracy.
- Employees from anywhere
Some companies used to allow remote work before the pandemic but newly hired employees need to visit the main office for onboarding and employee registration. This was also a barrier for overseas candidates to join a company. Now we can eliminate this barrier forever if we get digital onboarding support. With the help of digital onboarding tools, you can take employees from any corner of the world onboard without facing any interruption. The entire process will be fast, satisfying, and transparent.
- Smooth and secure accessibility
Employees may join and leave. In order to make them join your organization as well as leave, you have to deal with a lot of information. These information sets should be kept with care and the best security. And the system should provide you easy accessibility whenever you need to work with employee information.
Digital onboarding tools like HRMWARE are truly helpful in storing all employee data sets with super security. Whenever you want you can access all or particular employee data within minutes. All data sets will be stored in the cloud and any registered user can access that from any device. There is no need to rush to the office at midnight to get employee data. A registered and allowed user can access the data sets whenever it is required irrespective of the location and time.
No data theft or misplacement will take place. Apart from this, data updating will be easy and require just a few minutes. Digital onboarding ensures security, transparency, pace, and accuracy.
- Continuous learning
Digital onboarding has been designed as an active part of continuous learning. We must say there is no endpoint when it comes to digital onboarding. This is an ongoing process throughout the employee life cycle. The continuous learning of digital onboarding actually ensures there is no gap between stages of employee development. Such an employee learning regime is more personalized, adaptable, and the progress is seamless. Employees will get continuous support to improve their skills, capabilities, and performance. The learning reinforcement will be delivered via a microlearning platform when you will go for digital onboarding. There is no need to gather all your newly hired employees in a hall room in order to train them and improve their skills. Training and learning can be successful at the ease of your employees irrespective of the location.
- Increased engagement
When it comes to running an organization remotely and conducting the onboarding process virtually, HRs get worried about employee engagement. No matter whether you are running the company online or offline, employee engagement is a matter to always worry about. Poor employee engagement brings a lot of problems such as less productivity, a non-supportive work environment, no collaboration between employees, and so many other things that can ruin the company culture.
During the starting of the pandemic, many companies were reluctant about digital onboarding as they were worried about employee engagement. But the right set of tools and technologies actually help in keeping the employees more engaged amid the pandemic. When employees are working remotely, there is a high chance of poor employee engagement as they may feel lonely or they may not even communicate without the work purpose. Such a situation for a long time can cause poor employee engagement. But digital onboarding tools are very effective here in keeping all employees connected with each other.
We must agree that we are presently living in a dynamic time and our workplaces are undergoing serious and rapid changes. Here, one thing is very prominent and that is companies have to adapt to all changes as early as possible in order to survive as well as grow. Recruiting, retaining, and developing employees are key assets in any company. These things are becoming more challenging each day. Digital onboarding brings the required ease in these areas and improves the employee engagement score.
Web recruitment to digital onboarding- a huge shift
You may get a suitable candidate online and conduct web recruitment. Now, it comes to digital onboarding. We have seen that many recruiters think that virtual onboarding is quite impersonal. The traditional approach is entirely manual. But when it is about virtual onboarding, there are fewer areas for manual efforts. Each newly hired candidate gets the support of digital onboarding tools to sign in to the company and start their journey. In this process, they require little guidance from HR, and the rest tasks they can easily manage on their own. Sometimes, such a practice can make you miss the introduction to some key functions of the company. Apart from this, new employees may not understand the actual company culture from the very start.
Virtual onboarding can be effective like a traditional one if we design the entire process logically and systematically. The company should start with personalizing its onboarding process while maintaining a balance with the company culture and environment. In this way, employees will find the organization unique and would not feel they are missing out on something.
- Personalized web app onboarding
Via the web recruitment process, you can offer the introduction of your company culture, values, and functions to newly hired employees. The introduction should be easy, smooth, and exciting so that from the very beginning employees can have a positive mindset about the organization.
Along with enabling virtual onboarding tools, you should design it with care. You should include fun and exciting activities so that employees can start their journey in an enjoyable way with your organization. While enabling digital onboarding, you should also try to improve the overall employee experience. The onboarding process should not look too impersonal. Be it a digital way or a traditional one, newly hired ones should get the support whenever they require otherwise it can draw a negative impression.
- Continuous learning & development
While onboarding the newly hired candidates, you have to equip them with the best set of tools and technologies so that they can easily perform their jobs. Apart from this, learning and development should be an ongoing thing included in the process. This is a must-to-do thing in order to update the entire workforce, make it grow, and be competitive enough. While designing the virtual onboarding, you can include various learning modules to ensure success. Pre-recorded videos, video sessions, one-to-one sessions with HRs and managers, and so many ways are there to try in order to enable continuous learning and development for newly hired and old employees.
- Modern ways for communication
While onboarding newly hired ones virtually, you should conduct smooth introductions. Smooth introductions go far when it comes to building a good communication regime. It is true that when employees work remotely, they will conduct less communication in comparison with their office counterparts. But less communication should not hurt the overall productivity or the work environment. HRs can include fun ways so that employees communicate with each other and stay engaged. HRs conduct various fun games online, quizzes, etc to make everyone communicate with each other and improve team bonding.
These things should start from employee onboarding so that employees can understand the process from the very beginning.
Final thoughts
Digital onboarding has simply transformed the recruitment process during the pandemic. We believe that digital onboarding is going to be a permanent and primary thing in the near future recruitment. After the selection, a company should start employee integration as soon as possible otherwise candidates can start to change their minds as they may have other opportunities in hand. In order to conduct faster employee integration, digital onboarding is the most effective way. Once you turn your traditional practices into something digital, you will start to enjoy superiority in every aspect of hiring and recruitment.
Hope this blog has made you understand what is digital onboarding and why you should go for it. For more details and technological help for virtual onboarding, you can reach us at any time.
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