Starting a new job is a strange combination of excitement and nerves. We’ve all been there and we all understand just how reassuring a helping hand and a clear and easy to follow onboarding process can be. Helping to highlight ways of working, team structures, day to day activities, and all of the employee benefits on offer are just some of the things that a good onboarding process should clarify.
The importance of a good onboarding process really can’t be understated and while it is often, and for good reason, intense, there are plenty of tools out there that can make it much more manageable for both HR professionals and the new hires.
So, from confidence boosting introductions to consolidating must read documentation, we have a series of tools that will make onboarding easier and more efficient than ever before. Time to bookmark some sites and download some apps so we can make onboarding fun, easy, and efficient.
- Mentimeter - For better presentations and fun introductions
- Personio - Premier HR management tool
- Guru - For all your important documentation
- Trello - Ultimate task manager
- Slack - Messaging made easier
- 1Password - Secure and shared passwords
- Monday - Improving remote onboarding
- Gusto - Payroll & benefits manager
Mentimeter
The first few days of onboarding can often be intense and tiring, especially if it is filled with long meetings and presentations. This is a great way to increase both confusion and anxiety for employees as it can be tough to stay awake let alone understand what information they need to retain. We all know about death by PowerPoint, so let’s not try and bore those fresh faced hires within the first week.
Mentimeter can help make these early meetings far more engaging and more of a back and forth conversation than a one-sided lecture. Our interactive slides can be used in a variety of ways to get new hires involved in meetings from the word go.
Q&A slides offer everyone the chance to pose burning questions or clarify something they just don’t understand. This can, likewise, set a precedent going forward that questions are both addressed and encouraged. New employees are, thus, set up for success and given the confidence to be curious and seek out help for when things aren’t clear.
Quiz slides can be used to see if they have retained the all-important information, perhaps about points of contact or best security practices. So rather than just asking “Is everything clear?”, at the end of a meeting you can actually do something to liven things up and make it a more enjoyable experience.
While some of us look forward to the moment we stand before our department, team, or company, to regale them with our background and fun fact as well as some background as to the role we will be performing, plenty of others see this as a fate worse than death. Thankfully any of Mentimeter’s interactive slides are the ideal way to break the ice and avoid any awkwardness.
Personio
From keeping track of computer serial numbers, to submitting vacation days for approval, Personio is multi-use HR software that will provide all of your new hires with everything they will need throughout their time at your company.
Tasks can be assigned once an account is signed up so new hires can systematically fill out everything that is needed while clearly seeing what they still have to complete and what needs to be reviewed. Likewise, each of these tasks can have a deadline attached to them so processes become streamlined and nothing goes undone.
The onboarding section of an employee's Personio account can also be tailored to suit your needs. If that means adding a link for the company’s GoogleDrive or Dropbox account you can do that, if that means asking them to write an introductory message in their Slack channel, you can set tasks that match your unique onboarding flow.
GetGuru
Consolidating important documentation in one place can save time and effort for you and for new employees. From company principles to information about pension plans and saving schemes, you can document everything and anything in GetGuru for quick and easy access.
Every employee can star cards that are most relevant to them so they can always have quick access to the information they need. GetGuru can help improve company transparency and the sharing of information internally. When it comes to onboarding, tasks can easily be assigned and important documents on harassment policies, company benefits, and company values can be updated in an instant.
GetGuru can also be integrated with a variety of other applications such as Microsoft Teams and Slack so searching can be made even easier. Less time searching means more time spent reading, understanding, and contributing to company documentation.
Trello
Trello is the ultimate tool for organizing workflow and it can thus be especially useful for those members of HR who are directly involved in the onboarding process. Easily assign duties and responsibilities to team members such as arranging new tech, finding a desk and locker for everyone starting on Monday, or planning the office tour.
Trello even has an onboarding for new hires template to help you get inspired. Individual cards and lists can be added, edited, and moved so you know exactly what has been done and what is left to do. Notifications also mean that updates can be sent to the relevant team members with minimal fuss or effort.
New employees can be added to their team's boards with just one click or included in a dedicated onboarding board where they can have access to each and every link or task they will need throughout their onboarding journey.
Slack
There are countless messaging and communication tools out there but Slack really does shine when it comes to helping to streamline the onboarding process. For your HR team, it can help centralize all messages related to onboarding in a dedicated #onboarding channel, while new employees could join a #newhires channel, or even a #newtothecountry channel to help those who are relocating.
Channels are perfect for easily sharing relevant messages, links, documents, or whatever else is worth sharing. Add in Team Leaders and any other executives that may be involved so that everyone knows the timeline of upcoming onboarding sessions and what is required of them.
Slack is also a great way to get introduced to colleagues without the awkward handshake beside their desks. Encourage onboarders to join relevant Slack channels and explore others that may be relevant to their job and outside of work activities. Writing a nice introductory message and updating profile photos can help people put faces to names.
1Password
We all use a number of online tools every second of the day - our company email account, our CMS, Zoom, cloud storage and more. So trying to remember all of your passwords can be tricky and overwhelming. Trying to ensure that passwords remain safe and secure can be an entirely more complex headache. 1Password can thankfully spare new hires and your Chief Technical Officer plenty of worry.
1Password is designed with both security and accessibility in mind. All employees need to do is come up with their very own login details and just an organization's account. Absolutely everything from log information to door codes can be stored in 1Password vaults that all relevant parties can access. No more “Sorry but does anyone know the password for X?” messages in your team’s Slack channel.
Monday
Remote onboarding is a new phenomenon that thousands of people have experienced for the first time since the start of 2020. Running onboarding sessions and completing various checklists can be tough when everything is done online, but there are plenty of tools dedicated to improving this process.
Monday is one of the best tools for managing every step of the onboarding process remotely. Monday’s impressive visualizations and advanced customization means that team tasks, priorities, and timelines can be tracked and updated with little to no hassle. Countless integrations also make Monday an incredibly versatile and valuable tool.
Calendar views and checklists can help guide employees through the onboarding process and highlight what is required of them and when it should, ideally, be completed. Once their tasks are finished all they have to do is update their Monday board and your HR team can take it from there. This can be a great way to help them get up to speed on team specific tasks and departmental ways of working.
Gusto
Getting the finance side on onboarding is incredibly important as it can affect employees' payslips and the company’s ledgers. While Gusto has all the tools to be a complete HR human resource management system it really flourishes when we start talking about managing money, paychecks, and benefits. This system also helps businesses to better manage taxes and ensure both state and federal compliance.
Adding new hires into your system and ensuring they are comprehensively set up is a simple and straightforward process. They can log in themselves and enter all-important bank details and social security information. They can also access information about health benefits as well as time-tracking features. Time off requests can be sent, approved, and logged directly through Gusto too so monthly payments can be calculated automatically.
A better onboarding process
All of these tools are designed to make onboarding better for everyone. Figuring out what each of these tools and software can do for you is a massive step towards a more streamlined and efficient process. So help get everyone reading from the same page and up to speed faster than ever before.
Download our Mentimeter Onboarding Template now to make that first meet and greet more engaging and impressive.
New Employee Onboarding
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