How do you create effective digital onboarding?
The Covid-19 health crisis has given telecommuting an unexpected boost. According to an Insee study, on average, 22% of employees who worked at least one hour during the week teleworked in 2021. Of these, 44% were working all week. Many companies are now recruiting employees to work remotely. This new way of working has forced them to rethink and digitize their digital onboarding process. How do you welcome these new remote employees? How do you create effective digital onboarding? Follow quarksUp’s recommendations.
What is digital onboarding?
Digital onboarding, or digital integration, is a key process in human resources management that aims to effectively welcome and integrate new employees into a company in the digital age. It involves using technological tools and resources to facilitate the integration process. Here’s a more detailed explanation:
- Personalized: Digital onboarding makes it possible to tailor the onboarding experience to the specific needs of each employee, providing information relevant to their position and department.
- Automated: It uses automated systems to manage administrative tasks, such as document collection, account creation and online training registration.
- Monitoring and evaluation: Digital onboarding makes it possible to monitor and evaluate employee progress throughout the process, making it easier to identify areas requiring particular attention.
The use of digital onboarding helps to reduce administrative errors, speed up the integration of new employees, and improve their experience within the company. It’s an essential way for companies to remain competitive in the digital age, by ensuring that their talents feel valued and productive from the very start of their journey with the company.
Why carry out a digital onboarding process?
Onboarding is the process of welcoming a new employee into the company. This integration process closes the recruitment phase and marks the beginning of the employee’s professional life with the new company.
Digital onboarding is the key to successful recruitment. It has become a major challenge for companies and allows them to :
- Build loyalty among new recruits, by instilling company values.
- Facilitate handover and improve team productivity. Thanks to the proper transmission of information, the new recruit will be up and running more quickly.
- Work on your employer brand, giving the image of a company that knows how to welcome its employees.
- Control the cost of recruitment. Successful recruitment doesn’t cost extra. A departure during the trial period is costly for the company.
- Reassure the employee. During this period, he makes sure that the position and the company match his expectations.
- Introduce the new recruit to the company, the team, key contacts, working methods and procedures.
Finally, the onboarding process helps to validate the recruitment of an employee over time.
The benefits of digital onboarding?
To adapt to teleworking employees, companies need to redefine their onboarding process and move towards digital onboarding. This can be done entirely remotely and online. This new way of working saves a considerable amount of time. New employees don’t have to travel to the company headquarters. This means they’re up and running faster.
Remote onboarding breaks down geographical barriers.
Why not organize a virtual integration session with all new arrivals?
It’s a great way to network with counterparts based in other areas. This type of integration enables the new employee to get to know the key contacts at different company sites.
Digital onboarding is an indispensable process for teleworkers. It is a necessary step towards their full integration into the company.
Steps to follow for successful remote onboarding
Remote digital onboarding follows the same steps as a conventional integration process. The only difference is the means used:
- Upstream: Even before a new employee arrives, the HR department needs to prepare for his or her integration. It is therefore essential to send him an onboarding e-mail with all the important data. You can also set up a notification system (arrival day reminder, access code reminder, etc.). At this stage, send them a video of the company’s general presentation. Use, for example, storytelling or gamification techniques (quizzes…) to capture his attention. Finally, think about having your equipment delivered (laptop, telephone, supply kit, etc.).
- The day of arrival: The first day is crucial to the successful integration of the telecommuter. Now’s the time to organize a videoconference with the HR manager and his N+1. You can also set up quick telephone check-ins with some of his work colleagues. It might be a good idea to offer a more informal, convivial team moment, like a virtual coffee break, for example. Finally, send them a digital welcome booklet with all the information they need (computer access codes, key contact details, opening hours, etc.).
Good to know! Appoint a sponsor
To make your new telecommuting employee feel even more welcome, you can appoint a sponsor. He’ll be someone he can reach, able to answer all his questions.
- Long-term follow-up: The digital onboarding process extends over several months. It generally covers the entire probationary period, but can extend beyond that for certain strategic, large-scale functions. Set benchmarks: HR check-ins by videoconference at the end of the first week, then the first month, weekly manager check-ins, etc.
How to make employee recruitment easier?
Digital onboarding is the highlight of the recruitment process. Certain digital solutions are designed to facilitate this process. Such is the case with quarksUp’srecruitment tool. Thanks to this software, you can manage your entire recruitment process online. It gives you a complete overview of all open positions and the progress made on each of them.
This tool makes it easier to manage applications:
- Sending maintenance forms ;
- Automatic responses ;
- RDVS synchronized with agendas ;
- Follow-up of the various sourcing phases, telephone pre-qualification, HR interview, manager interview, shortlist…
Recruiting new talent? The quarksUp solution provides an automatic link to hiring, with all the information and documents collected.
This HR tool is already an onboarding experience for the candidate. He appreciates follow-up, communication and responsiveness.
Onboarding is a key moment within the company. Remember to ask newcomers for feedback, so that you can continually improve the integration process.
3 key points to remember:
- Digital onboarding is becoming increasingly important with the democratization of teleworking;
- It creates a sense of belonging for remote employees;
- It must be in place for the duration of the newcomer’s probationary period.
Good to know! quarksUp is an HRIS solution for managing the entire employee cycle.
Thanks to this HR tool, everything can be done online. As an HR manager, you’ll be in charge of all our employees’ digital activities. With its modular offer, quarksUp intervenes from recruitment to employee off-boarding.
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