“Onboarding” and “orientation” are buzzwords you’ll see thrown around a lot in discussions on human capital management (HCM), and with good reason: It’s a costly investment to hire the right person for a valuable position, and it’s important to ensure that your new hires feel valued and engaged so that they can remain a contributing member of your team.
What can you do to ensure that your new hires become quality employees? A good place to start is figuring out the distinction between onboarding and orientation. Orientation should be part of your onboarding plan, but it shouldn’t be the sum total of it.
“Orientation” refers to the brief period during which a new hire receives all-employee training and information (often in a classroom setting) and fills out the required paperwork. “Onboarding,” however, is a way to ensure the long-term success of a new hire, and often lasts between six months and a year.
Making strategic use of your HCM technology can streamline your orientation process, but it also can significantly improve your onboarding process, helping you retain and engage new hires. We explore this concept in our white paper, 4 Ways Your HCM Technology Should Enhance Your Onboarding Processes.
Robust HCM technology can help you improve engagement and retention of new hires, plugging them into your company culture and giving them the opportunity to start doing real work sooner.
Improving Employee Engagement From the Beginning
Utilizing HCM technology during onboarding gives you unparalleled opportunities to improve engagement and retention of your new hires. A study by the Brandon Hall Group found that 54% of companies that invested time and resources into their onboarding processes noted improved turnover, improved attendance, productivity and satisfaction. (And 78% of the companies in the study saw an increase in revenue!)
Making the onboarding process simpler is one way to improve the engagement of new hires. Using a true single-application HCM system, for example, will allow your new hires to complete important paperwork for taxes and benefits efficiently.
Onboarding Beyond Orientation to Promote Success
The first few months of your new employees’ time at your organization are crucial for their long-term success and even for their retention at your organization. Almost a third of new hires look for a new job at the six-month mark, so what can you do to keep your valuable new team members?
A strategic onboarding program can help your new hires become increasingly more comfortable with and invested in your company. Having training and time-management capabilities in the same HCM system that your new hires already have become familiar with minimizes onboarding strain on your new hires (and on your HR department). A new employee typically takes about eight months to reach his or her full productivity level, according to research from the 2012 Allied Workforce Mobility Survey. Anything you can do to help them get up to speed more quickly, particularly in those crucial first several months, will allow them to become more productive and more engaged employees, which contributes to an enhanced employee experience.
One of the main benefits of a robust HCM system is that new hires are able to start actively contributing to your organization more quickly.
To know more ways your HCM tech can improve your onboarding processes, and in turn improve your retention and productivity of new hires, download our white paper.