By Alana Kahan, VP of Sales & Operations, Lang Financial Group
A well-defined employee onboarding program is critical to providing employees with the confidence and support they need to stay productive and competent in their work environment. Just as important? 69% of employees are more likely to stay with an organization for three years or more if they experience great onboarding.
To help ensure employees stick around, you need to start the relationship on the right foot, with these key elements in place:
- A meaningful process for welcoming new employees and explaining how your organization works
- A program designed to make employees feel comfortable as well as thoroughly acquaint them with their work environment
- Technology that makes both the onboarding and benefits administration process easy to follow
If you are still relying on traditional systems of onboarding and administering benefits, you should consider leveraging today’s technology and updating your processes — for your employees’ sake and your own efficiency and effectiveness.
5 Ways to Leverage Technology for Employee Onboarding and Benefits Administration
Here are five ways businesses can improve their onboarding and benefits administration processes:
Go Digital; Bid Goodbye to Paperwork
Digital transformation is shaping up the future of businesses all over the world. It’s time to switch to more convenient, digital methods of onboarding employees when it comes to filling the necessary paperwork. As an alternative, you can ask employees to fill online forms.
Leverage Video Technology
With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing the world to work remotely, employee onboarding has become more difficult. While many organizations are onboarding employees remotely, virtual one-to-one sessions are not as smooth as in-person meetings. Instead, consider creating videos that can be for recurring processes:
- Welcoming new employees
- Introducing team members
- Providing new employees with useful tips on how to get started
- Explaining company policies
When asked how organizations can improve their employee onboarding process, 69% of people say that more videos should be used.
The best learning experiences are typically the most engaging ones. An average viewer retains 95% of the video content they watch as opposed to only 10% retention when they are reading the same content.
Assess How You Can Use Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Whether it is streamlining your hiring process or making your employee onboarding process more effective, artificial intelligence (AI) should be on your list of technology to explore.
With AI-equipped onboarding platforms, organizations can automate their onboarding process and make it more efficient for new employees.
For instance, Ernst & Young developed “Buddy,” an AI-powered chatbot for assisting new employees during their onboarding. The chatbot was built to answer the queries of new employees as quickly as possible and guide them during their initial days. Thousands of common questions asked by new employees were fed into the chatbot to provide the right information.
Incorporate Gamification
According to a Sapling report, new employees are required to complete almost 50 activities during their onboarding. The average new employee will be assigned 3 documents to acknowledge, sign or upload; 41 administrative tasks to finish; and 10 outcomes they achieve. With so much to do during the onboarding, even the most enthusiastic employees will feel exhausted.
Now think about a gamified employee onboarding program that is as fun as your favorite PC game. Gamified employee onboarding programs receive a better response and are more effective than traditional onboarding. According to this article on Medium, 90% of employees said they are more productive when they engage in some sort of gamification at work.
Marriott built a hiring game known as “My Marriott Hotel.” Job applicants were asked to manage an imaginary hotel where they would win points for happy customers, and lose points for the unhappy ones. At the end of the game, they were rewarded based on the profitability of their hotel. The gamified recruitment helped recruiters understand the candidates’ experience and professionalism.
An excellent example of employee onboarding gamification is the “onboarding game” developed by Deloitte a few years ago for onboarding new analysts. The theme was Zombie Apocalypse and the game comprised training activities around consulting software and skills.
Use an All-in-one Software Platform
Another way to streamline your company’s employee-related activities is to use a platform that helps you plan and administer employee benefits as well as ensure your organization remains in compliance with federal and local regulations (e.g., the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act).
This type of software offers portals that make it easy for employees to view, manage and update their documents and information. They also enable HR managers to administer benefits packages and monitor (and encourage) benefits usage among employees.
Typically tools like this provide the following:
- A centralized dashboard for viewing benefits data
- The ability to enroll in benefits programs outside of the annual open enrollment period
- The ability to create total compensation statements on behalf of employees and senior management
By using software like this, you can simplify your employee onboarding process and make it more engaging for new hires. In addition, you’ll benefit from:
- Paperless onboarding
- Better task management
- Modernized training
- Reduced worker costs
Most platforms can be customized based on your organization’s requirements. In addition, don’t forget the ultimate benefit of giving employees 24/7 access to their plan.
If you need help improving your HR and/or Benefits Administration processes, please contact us.