As a result, more companies are undergoing digital transformations. They’re turning to solutions like workflow software and robotic process automation (RPA) — using software “robots” to perform basic and repetitive tasks.

If you’re not already leveraging these solutions, you’re missing out on opportunities to boost productivity across the board.

In this article, we’ll look at how workflow automation can help you manage and advance automation initiatives at your company. We’ll also look at automation initiatives that you can get started with today.

Click the links below to jump ahead:

• How Workflow Software Helps You Manage and Advance Automation Initiatives
• When Should You Consider Automation Initiatives?
• Automation Initiatives You Can Start Today
• Best Practices to Help Your Automation Initiatives Succeed

How Workflow Software Helps You Manage and Advance Automation Initiatives

Relying on manual processes may work in the early stages of a company. But as you start to expand, automation is a must if you want to scale your business processes.

Here’s how workflow software can help you manage automation initiatives.

It Keeps Everything in One Place

A workflow is a series of steps that you follow to accomplish an objective — onboarding a new hire, procuring goods and services, approving a sales order, etc.

Here’s an example of a purchase order workflow:

These are just a few examples. However, there’s a good chance that your company relies on dozens or even hundreds of workflows to get work done.

Workflow software like frevvo enables you to keep your workflows in one place, making them easily accessible when you need them most.

It Improves Visibility 

Before you can automate a process, you need to understand how it works first.

Workflow software allows you to map a workflow in its “as-is” state — how a process looks before you make any changes. This makes it easier to analyze your workflows and identify steps that you can automate.

For example, you might notice that an employee has to constantly track down their manager to approve a purchase order. In this instance, you can add a step to your workflow to automatically route forms to the right approver. 

It Acts as a Single Source of Truth

70% of automation initiatives are held back by data silos — a depository of data inaccessible to certain areas of an organization.

Making informed decisions depends on having the latest data. Because of this, the decision-making process can be stalled when data exists in silos. If someone needs information, they’d have to manually log in to different systems to retrieve it.

Workflow software can help your automation initiatives by connecting your data sources and creating a single source of truth, giving your employees a more unified view of your data.

Having connected data sources also means that you won’t have to copy data back and forth between different applications, which is time-consuming and prone to errors. 

It Provides Real-Time Data

Not all automation initiatives are successful. 

Whether you’re leveraging automation to reduce data entry, update customer records, or even onboard new hires, you need a way to determine that your efforts are working as intended. A failed implementation can prove costly in the long run.

Workflow software provides real-time data, allowing you to track and measure the impact of your automation initiatives. These insights can prove especially valuable as they can help you determine what’s working and adjust what’s not.

When Should You Consider Automation Initiatives?

If any of the following are becoming more commonplace, then you’ll want to implement workflow software sooner rather than later.

Your Team Spends Hours Each Week on Manual Tasks

Consider a common scenario: a new position just became available, leaving it up to HR to manage the hiring process and sort through hundreds of applications.

Applications are then forwarded to a department head, and promising candidates are called in for interviews before an offer is finally extended. It’s a lengthy process that can consist of dozens of emails, countless printouts, and numerous back and forth calls to HR.

When you consider just how much manual work is involved, it’s no surprise that 53% of employees estimate they can save up to two hours a day with automation.

So, turn to automation. Not only do electronic forms make it easier to collect information, but you can connect them to automated workflows.

Your Team Has a Hard Time Tracking Their Tasks

90% of employees are frequently burdened with monotonous and repetitive tasks. 

When employees are stuck with manual tasks like data entry, they have less time to focus on the skill-based work they’re hired to do. 

Workflow software can free up your team to focus on more important tasks. Examples include using automation to reduce data entry and update records.

Forms Are Frequently Lost or Held Up Due to Slow Approvals

Handling paper forms can be problematic. They can go missing or get lost entirely while they’re being delivered to an approver. When this happens, you’ll have to recreate the document and start the process over.

This was a problem that Activ8 was dealing with. 

Before switching to frevvo, its sales team would fill out a paper form in a customer’s home and mail it to the office for processing. However, missing forms and data entry mistakes would frequently slow this process down.

After digitizing its forms and connecting them to an automated workflow, Activ8 no longer has to deal with lost paperwork and data entry mistakes. It can now assess solar readiness and even process customer payments without having to wait for lengthy approvals.

Your Team Is Constantly Switching Between Different Systems

There are applications for practically every business function. However, when your team is frequently jumping between different apps, they’re also wasting valuable time.

One example is matching invoices against purchase orders to verify their authenticity and identify any discrepancies. Performing these steps involves logging into multiple systems, but it can easily take hours depending on how many invoices you need to verify.

With workflow software, you can connect your forms to your accounting system to perform this matching automatically and save your accounts payable team a great deal of time.

You’re Facing Compliance Issues

Finally, another reason to adopt workflow software is if you’re facing compliance issues. 

Just consider the expense approval process. Employees are entitled to reimbursement when they make company-related expenses.

However, ensuring compliance with your expense claim policy isn’t always easy. Expenses that aren’t covered can slip through the cracks if your finance team is reviewing each claim manually.

Automation initiatives can help you address compliance issues. For example, you can create forms that connect to your accounting system and flag any discrepancies for review. You can even require that employees submit receipts for each expense.

If your company continues to encounter the scenarios described above, then it’s time to start exploring automation initiatives.

Automation Initiatives You Can Start Today

There’s a reason why 93% of business decision-makers plan to extend the use of automation across their company — it can improve productivity, reduce repetitive tasks, and lower costs. 

Leveraging automation software can have the same positive impacts on your company. But where do you even start?

Here we’ll look at a few automation initiatives that you can get started with using frevvo.

Create Digital Signature Workflows

Obtaining signatures on paper forms can take days or even weeks. If you’re still relying on paper forms, one of the first automation initiatives you should tackle is to create dynamic forms. 

With frevvo’s drag-and-drop form builder, you can easily design and customize electronic forms without any coding.

You can also position a signature control anywhere in your form, so you can collect wet and digital signatures from any device.

Forms rarely live in isolation. They’re typically part of larger workflows that consist of people, data, and business systems.

With frevvo, you can connect your forms to a document approval workflow, define who they need to reach, and notify approvers that a form requires their signature. 

Validate Form Data Automatically 

Few things are as frustrating as having to send a form back because it contains missing or invalid data. This wastes valuable time and slows down key processes.

While electronic forms enable you to capture data faster, they’re still prone to data entry errors like incorrect formats and missing values.

Business rules enable you to add dynamic behavior to your forms. For example, you can specify custom formats for certain fields and display errors if the data doesn’t fit the requirements.

Here’s an example of what that looks like:

It’s a simple yet highly effective way to prevent simple errors from slowing a process down.

Pre-Populate Form Fields

Employees waste time when they have to manually fill out the same forms over and over. The next automation initiative you can undertake is to automate manual data entry. 

With frevvo’s connectors, you can seamlessly connect your forms to external systems like SQL databases, Google Sheets, or any cloud service that you use. Once connected, you can have your forms automatically pull in data from any source.

Here’s an example of a purchase order that automatically pulls in customer data:

Pre-populating fields greatly cuts down on manual data entry. It also helps minimize the risk of human errors (e.g., typing a “0” instead of a “9”).

Connect Workflows to External Databases

Instead of switching back and forth between different systems, you can connect your workflows to the applications and databases that your company already uses.

For example, you can connect an employee onboarding workflow to your HR system. When new hires fill out and submit their onboarding forms, their information will automatically show up in your HR system. It’s more efficient than copying and pasting data from one source to another.

Streamline Approvals With Dynamic Routing

Some forms require multiple approvers before they can be processed. But routing documents manually is slow and cumbersome. 

With frevvo, you can streamline approvals and seamlessly move electronic forms from one person to the next. There’s no coding required when you use the workflow builder.

Here’s an example of an expense claim workflow:

You can also incorporate dynamic routing into your workflows. For example, you can add a rule that routes expense claims to a department head if it’s over a certain value.

There’s no shortage of automation initiatives that you can implement. But the ones detailed above offer a great starting point.

Best Practices to Help Your Automation Initiatives Succeed

Automation can be a complete game-changer, but making the transition isn’t easy. 88% of IT decision-makers reported at least one challenge with a process automation project.

Follow these best practices if you want to succeed with your automation initiatives.

1. Make Automation a Priority

72% of organizations that reported success with automation say that making automation a strategic priority was one of the most important factors. 

Don’t let automation projects take a backseat. Get buy-in from your entire team and have managers set a positive example by leveraging automation in their daily work.

2. Establish Clear Goals

It’s essential that you track and measure your results. But first, you’ll need to establish clear goals. This will help you plan your automation initiatives and keep your team on track.

3. Use the Right Automation Tools

For any automation initiative to succeed, you need the right tools. Choose a tool that can help you scale your automation efforts. It should include essential features like a no-code interface, a visual form builder, real-time tracking, built-in mobility, and third-party integrations.

4. Pick an Appropriate Process

Don’t overwhelm yourself by automating all your processes at once. Start with “lightweight” processes like travel requests before moving on to more critical ones.

5. Provide Employee Training

Automation initiatives will undoubtedly bring about new changes to your team’s workflow. Make sure to define the roles and responsibilities for the stakeholders involved in the process, and provide adequate training to help your team become well-versed with the software.

Conclusion

Whether you’re onboarding new hires, preparing purchase orders, or approving travel requests, there’s no reason to continue losing valuable time to repetitive tasks. 

Workflow software like frevvo can help you manage and advance your automation initiatives. The platform features a fully visual interface, so there’s no coding required.

The post How Workflow Software Helps You Manage Automation Initiatives appeared first on frevvo Blog.

Regardless of the reason, it’s best to part ways with employees on good terms. However, you can leave departing employees feeling frustrated without a formal offboarding process. You also face legal risks if you overlook any important steps.

Having an effective employee offboarding program can ensure that nothing slips through the cracks. It can even turn former employees into advocates for your company.

In this article, we’ll look at what offboarding is and why it’s important. We’ll also look at how you can use automation software to streamline this process and best practices to follow.

Click the links below to head straight to the selection you want to learn more about:

• What Is Offboarding?
• Why Does Your Company Need an Offboarding Process?
• Step-by-Step Process for Offboarding Employees
• How to Automate the Offboarding Process
• 6 Best Practices For Offboarding Departing Employees

What Is Offboarding?

You’re likely familiar with employee onboarding — the process of integrating new hires into an organization and preparing them for their roles. Offboarding is the opposite.

Offboarding is the process of formally separating an employee from your company following their resignation or termination.

While companies should aim to keep turnover rates to a minimum, some employees will inevitably leave. Your company may also decide to let workers go for various reasons. Whatever the case, you’ll want a process in place to formally part ways with employees.

Offboarding encompasses numerous processes, which include:

• Deactivating account credentials
• Documenting institutional knowledge
• Collecting company equipment
• Conducting exit interviews
• Reassigning responsibilities

There’s a whole list of things that HR and IT will need to stay on top of. An offboarding process will help tie up any loose ends and make the transition easier for both departing employees and the company.

Why Does Your Company Need an Offboarding Process?

There’s more to offboarding than waving an employee goodbye and wishing them luck on their next venture. Here’s why having a strong onboarding process is important.

Covers Your Legal Bases

Missing anything important during offboarding can put your company in legal trouble.

As an example, let’s say your company decides to let an employee go. States like California, Arizona, Illinois, and New Jersey require that you provide written termination notices. In some cases, you’ll also need to follow a specific template.

Having a repeatable offboarding process makes it easier for your company to comply with its legal obligations. If an employee files a wrongful termination claim, you can provide the necessary documents to prove otherwise. 

Affects Application Decisions

Job seekers rarely submit applications without researching the company first. In fact, 84.2% of applicants look at online reviews when deciding where to apply.

A strong offboarding experience can leave former employees with a positive impression and even turn them into advocates for your company. 

Advocates are more likely to leave positive reviews for your company on job sites like Monster and Glassdoor. These reviews can help your company stand out in the highly competitive job market and attract top talent.

Provides Valuable Feedback

37.9% of employees leave their companies within the first year. 

High turnover rates can be costly for your company. Direct costs include any fees that you pay to recruiters, and indirect costs include lost productivity due to reduced capacity. 

The offboarding process allows you to collect feedback through exit interviews — interviews that you conduct with employees before they depart. Learning why employees leave can help you reduce turnover rates.

For example, if departing employees cite inflexible work options as a reason for leaving, offering remote or hybrid work models can help your company increase retention.

Preserves Company Knowledge

Employees gain unique knowledge learned over years on the job. However, that knowledge is lost if your company doesn’t have a process to capture it.

70% of organizations agree that when employees leave and take unique knowledge with them, it costs the company time and money to replace it. With an offboarding process, you can initiate knowledge transfers with departing employees.

Protects Sensitive Data

Departures aren’t always cordial — your company may decide to let employees go because of poor performance or misconduct. Regardless of the reason, you must immediately revoke access to internal systems.

While it may sound obvious, one study found that 36% of employees have continued to have access to systems after leaving their jobs. Former employees with malicious intentions may act out by stealing or even destroying company data.

In one case, a former co-owner of an engineering firm stole proprietary business data estimated at around $425,000. In another case, a disgruntled former employee destroyed 21GB of confidential data after they were fired.

If you don’t properly terminate access to business systems, you could expose your company to costly legal or compliance issues.

Step-by-Step Process for Offboarding Employees

Parting ways with a valued team member is never easy. But having a process in place will help to make the transition easier and maintain professional relationships.

Here’s a checklist that you can follow as you offboard an employee.

Step 1: Prepare and Review Paperwork

When an employee departs, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, you’ll need to prepare and review various documents. 

Here’s a good place to start:

• Termination letter: A termination letter is a formal notice that specifies the details of an employee’s termination. It typically includes the reason for their dismissal, along with information about any remaining sick or vacation time they have.
• Severance agreement: A severance agreement outlines the pay and benefits that employees receive when they’re terminated. It also prevents employees from filing wrongful termination claims against their employer.
• Non-disclosure or non-compete agreement: If an employee has signed a non-disclosure or non-compete agreement during onboarding, you’ll want to review the requirements of the agreement and any penalties if they breach it. 
• Post-employment benefits: Some employees may receive benefits after they depart. For example, employees who are retiring may be entitled to certain compensation upon their retirement. 

The paperwork you’ll need to prepare will depend on how an employee is leaving. Make sure that employees review and sign all of the relevant documents.

Step 2: Initiate Knowledge Transfer

42% of employee knowledge is unique. 

If you don’t capture that information, important knowledge may be lost forever. Building that knowledge back up again can take time and effort.

Have departing employees create a handover document with a clear overview of their responsibilities and processes. This document will ensure a smooth transition for whoever takes over their role. It will also be helpful when you create a new job listing.

Step 3: Collect Company Property

While it may sound obvious, you must recover any company property and assets that departing employees have. The last thing you want is for employees to still have access to the building or a company credit card.

Company assets that you’ll want to retrieve include:

• Computers
• Laptops
• Mobile devices
• Credit cards
• Keys
• ID badges
• Uniforms 
• Tools 

Ideally, you’ll already have a list of what employees have in their possession. Then, you can simply check off each item as you recover company assets. If any employees are working remotely, remind them to bring or send in any equipment they have on their last day.

Step 4: Revoke Credentials

Once you’ve parted ways with an employee, notify IT and ensure that departing employees no longer have access to company systems like CRMs and email accounts.

Doing so ensures that departing employees won’t be able to continue accessing company or client data after they leave.

Step 5: Conduct an Exit Interview

The exit interview is an important step in the offboarding process, as it can deliver valuable insight into why employees are leaving. 

Hold a short meeting with each departing employee, and ask questions like:

• Why did you decide to look for a new job?
• Do you have any feedback on how we can improve?
• Would you recommend this company to others?
• Is there anything that could convince you to stay?
• Did you have the resources to do your job effectively?
• How would you describe the company culture?
• How was your relationship with your manager?
• What factors contributed to your decision to leave?

Exit interviews give employees an opportunity to provide honest feedback without fear of repercussions. They can also provide more insight into your workplace culture and management style. 

Step 6: Issue Final Paychecks

Communicate with HR, and have them issue a final paycheck. Double-check that the figures are all correct to avoid any disputes.

Make sure to adhere to your state laws when issuing final paychecks. If your company is based in California, you must issue a final paycheck on an employee’s last day. 

In addition, employees who quit must receive their last paycheck within 72 hours of giving notice. Failure to comply with these requirements can result in penalties.

Step 7: Stay Connected

Regardless of why an employee leaves, make an effort to leave things on a good note.

A memorable farewell can make departing employees feel appreciated for their work. It can also encourage them to join your company’s alumni network and remain supportive after they leave.

There’s also the chance that a departing employee will return. In fact, 15% of former employees have “boomeranged” or returned to a company they previously worked for.

Keep things professional, and leave the door open for further communication. Examples include sending newsletters or creating a corporate alumni website for former employees.

How to Automate the Offboarding Process

There’s a lot to keep track of when you’re offboarding an employee. Relying on manual processes can lead to a frustrating experience and increase the risk of costly mistakes.

Here’s how you can automate the offboarding process with frevvo’s process management software and streamline tedious paperwork.

1. Create Internal Offboarding Forms

With frevvo’s drag-and-drop form builder, you can create a form that HR can use to start the offboarding process for departing employees.

There’s no coding required, and you can even add business rules to your forms. Examples include filling in fields based on which user is logged in, showing or hiding certain form controls, and requiring signatures.

2. Design a Custom Workflow

The offboarding process generally spans multiple departments. But these steps can get held up if you’re manually preparing and routing documents.

With frevvo’s visual workflow designer, you can create automated workflows and streamline the offboarding process. Simply answer a few questions and the system will generate a fully functional workflow.

You can also integrate business rules into your workflow. As an example, when HR submits an internal form, you can have it route to the right manager to start the next step of the offboarding process.

3. Integrate Into Business Systems

Information about your employees likely exists in different systems. With frevvo, you can integrate your forms and workflows into a company database to make your offboarding workflow more efficient.

For example, you can integrate forms into your internal HR system and pull in remaining sick or vacation time automatically. HR won’t have to waste time switching between different applications.

What’s more, you can also store any documents and data generated by your workflows in your electronic document management system (EDMS). This allows you to maintain accurate records and ensure compliance.

4. Test and Deploy Your Offboarding Workflow

Once you create a new offboarding workflow, make sure to run through several tests to ensure you’re not missing anything. Once everything looks good, you can deploy your workflow, and HR can use it the next time an employee leaves.

6 Best Practices For Offboarding Departing Employees

While making a great first impression is certainly important, you also want to leave departing employees with a lasting impression.

Here are best practices to follow as you formally separate an employee from the company.

1. Create an Employee Offboarding Checklist

There’s a lot to cover when employees leave. Creating a checklist of all the steps you need to take will ensure you’re prepared in advance.

Here’s a quick employee offboarding checklist from our earlier section that you can reference:

• Prepare and review the paperwork
• Initiate knowledge transfer
• Collect company property
• Revoke credentials
• Conduct an exit interview
• Issue final paychecks

2. Use Automation Tools

Relying on a manual employee offboarding process is both tedious and prone to errors. It can also expose your company to legal liabilities if you don’t cover all your bases.

With automation software like frevvo, you can create a standardized offboarding workflow and automate tedious tasks like data entry, approvals, and document routing. You can even create an exit survey for departing employees to fill out.

3. Inform Teams About the Departure

Rumors can circulate when an employee leaves. To avoid this kind of gossip, have managers inform their team about an employee’s departure. A simple email will do.

Be sure to also inform HR, IT, and Finance, as these departments will be responsible for collecting company equipment, removing system access, and issuing final paychecks.

4. Develop a Transition Plan

Develop a transition plan to ensure minimal disruption to any ongoing projects.

Have the departing employee document their general duties, as well as a list of any ongoing projects or tasks they’re working on. Having this information will prove useful for whoever is taking over a departing employee’s responsibilities.

5. Document Everything

As you prepare and review paperwork like non-disclosure agreements and benefits documents, make sure that you document everything and keep accurate records.

Having an audit trail of paperwork can protect against legal issues. For example, if a former employee files for unemployment when they don’t qualify, your company can contest the claim and provide documentation like a signed letter of resignation.

Likewise, maintaining accurate records can also safeguard your company if a disgruntled employee files a wrongful termination claim.

6. Make a Farewell Announcement

Finally, remember to thank departing employees for the work they’ve put in. Examples include having a farewell party in the office or organizing a small gathering with co-workers after work.

While not completely necessary, leaving employees on a positive note can go a long way toward building goodwill and retaining them as alumni.

Create an Automated Offboarding Workflow

A great offboarding process can provide a smooth exit for departing employees. It can also ensure minimal disruption to your operations.

However, staying organized can prove challenging — missing even one detail can expose your company to security risks and even legal liabilities.

frevvo’s process automation software lets you easily create automated offboarding workflows and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements. 

Because the software is so easy to use, you don’t need an enterprise IT team or even a large budget to run it. Plus, you can integrate with authentication systems like SAML and Active Directory to safeguard your data.

Get started with a free 30-day trial to create an offboarding workflow. You can also use the software to automate other processes and improve efficiency.

The post Offboarding: What It Is and How to Automate This Process appeared first on frevvo Blog.

Likewise, managers don’t want to spend a ton of time reviewing time off requests or sending them back because some information is missing.

The whole point of a time off request form is to make it easier to track when employees are out of the office. But relying on paper forms is only making the problem worse.

So how can you create a more efficient time off request process?

Keep reading to learn more. In this article, we’ll look at how to optimize your time off request form and how you can automate the approval process to make it easy for everyone to take time off.

Click the links below to skip to the section you want to learn more about:

• What Is a Time Off Request Form? 
• What Should a Time Off Request Form Include?
• 7 Reasons to Automate Employee Time Off Request Forms
• How to Automate Your Time Off Request Form Process

What Is a Time Off Request Form?

A time off request form is a form that employees fill out to notify their employers that they’re taking time away from work.

Employees may request time off from work because they’re feeling sick, going away on vacation, attending jury duty, or even taking a personal day.

Time off request forms typically include:

• Full name
• Personal details
• Manager ID
• Type of leave request
• Start and end dates
• Additional information

With these details, managers and office administrators can track time off requests and plan accordingly to keep the workplace staffed.

Here’s an example of a time off request form from frevvo:

Click here to try the time off request template above.

Despite how common medical leave and vacation time are in the workforce, many companies don’t have a streamlined process for approving time off requests. 

They may rely on paper forms, a series of emails, or a hodgepodge of tools that make it confusing and frustrating for employees to request time off.

The lack of a transparent time off request process impacts business operations like scheduling and payroll. It also contributes to employee stress caused by poor communication, which 80% of employees deal with regularly.

If the process for taking time off is unclear, employees may feel discouraged from submitting a request. 61% of employees who had paid time off (PTO) hours reported letting them go unused, highlighting the need for more transparent processes.

Before we dive into how you can automate time off request forms, let’s look at what you should include in these forms.

What Should a Time Off Request Form Include?

Whether you’re using Microsoft Word or business process management (BPM) software like frevvo to create your time off request form, there are some key elements you’ll want to include.

Let’s take a closer look at the most important sections of a time off request form.

Employee Information

Every time off request form needs to include basic employee information like their name, role, and department. 

This identifying information is important because it helps route the time off request form to the right manager(s) for approval. It also helps HR and accounting teams accurately track and record the employee’s pay for the right type of leave. 

With a BPM tool like frevvo, you can integrate employee databases to automatically fill in this information, making the time off request process even smoother.

In this time off request form, employees can choose their name from a dropdown list. The form then shows the remaining days of PTO (pulled from a database) allocated to each employee. 

In the example above, “Walter Hagen” can see exactly how much time off he has remaining.

Type of Leave

You’ll also need to track the employee’s type of PTO request. 

While medical and vacation leave are the most common types of paid leave, you’ll need to have an approval process for any type of leave that your team might take. 

These can include: 

• Parental or maternity leave
• Jury duty
• Bereavement
• Birthday
• Personal day

Since so many benefits packages include leave with different uses and rates of accrual, tracking time off by type is essential for HR and accounting departments to help employees use their benefits correctly. 

If you’re automating your office’s time off approval process, the type of leave can trigger certain rules that will only appear when necessary. 

For example, if someone requests jury duty leave, you could add a section to upload their jury summons as supporting documentation. Or, if an employee is going on parental leave, you may require additional approval and a clear plan for the employee’s substitute. 

Paid Time Off Dates

Every time off request form will need to include a space for paid time off dates to specify when an employee will be out of the office or unavailable. 

In a BPM tool like frevvo, you can automatically calculate the number of days for each time off request based on the start and end date. 

You can also ask employees to enter the number manually to allow for half or quarter days. 

Additional Information or Documents 

While you don’t want to bog down your time off request process with tons of frustrating steps, sometimes requiring additional information or documents can be helpful. 

For instance, your company may ask for a doctor’s note, jury duty summons, or other documents before a supervisor can approve a request. Or, employees may need to let their manager know how their work will be covered in their absence. 

If you’re creating a generic time off request form template, you might opt for a simple “additional information” section where employees can list anything that’s relevant. 

But if you digitize and automate your time off request forms, you can include specific instructions depending on the employee, type of leave, or dates requested. 

This second option, which you can do with frevvo’s dynamic business forms, is a better approach for simplifying the time off request process while also minimizing errors. 

Approval Fields

The final but still critical piece of any good time off request form is the ability to track the approval of the request. 

In a paper-based time off request form, there are typically boxes or lines for manager approval, HR receipt, or other steps of the process. 

These approvals are better integrated into the workflow in an automated time off request process, which we’ll break down in an upcoming section. 

Try a time off request approval process template from frevvo to see how it works. 

7 Reasons to Automate Employee Time Off Request Forms

Now that we’ve covered the basics of time off request forms, let’s look at what it means to automate that process. 

But first, here are the key reasons to automate time off requests forms:

• Approve requests quickly
• Eliminate unsecured, easy-to-lose paper trails
• Track all time off requests in one place
• Save time and money
• Sync your time off requests with HR systems and other data sources
• Make the process easier for employees and managers
• Maintain accurate and up-to-date information

Consider that automation is up by 80% compared to previous years. That’s largely due to an increase in remote work that caused business breakdowns in 68% of organizations. 

45% of HR professionals are focusing on process automation in the next year. It’s time to update your business process management strategy to protect and grow your company into the future. 

Let’s go step-by-step through automating your time off request process using frevvo. 

How to Automate Your Time Off Request Form Process 

Ready to digitize your time off request form and build an automated workflow that streamlines approvals company-wide? 

Follow these steps to automate your time off request form process. 

1. Start With the Workflow Wizard or a Pre-built Template

Start by choosing a pre-built template that best meets your needs. You can choose a simple time off request form to get started or opt for one with conditions, rules, and/or integrations. 

Each template contains a fully functional form, workflow, business rules, and configurations so it’s ready to use out of the box.

Here are time off request form and workflow templates you can try:

• Simple time off request
• Time off request with Google Sheets
• Conditional time off request
• Dynamic absence records with Google Sheets
• School vacation time off request

If you don’t find one that works well for you, you can use frevvo’s workflow wizard to automatically generate a fully functional workflow. 

Simply describe the steps that make up your time off request approval workflow and frevvo will instantly generate a workflow in seconds. The generated workflow contains routing, a basic form, and business rules for dynamic behavior.

2. Customize And Add Business Logic

With frevvo’s code-free workflow builder, you can add additional steps and even incorporate dynamic routing into your approval workflow.

For example, your company might have a policy that requires additional approval for time off requests over five days to make sure someone can cover those shifts.

Here’s an example of a time off request workflow with a conditional rule:

In the example above, time off requests over five days will automatically route to a senior executive for additional approval. Time off requests below five days will only require approval from a manager.

Even if you don’t have any coding experience, you can add all kinds of rules and conditions into your workflow. 

Using the built-in, 100% visual form designer, it’s easy to add text fields, dropdown lists, checkboxes, and more to easily create a custom time off request form that fits your requirements.

Need additional business logic? The system comes with a zero-code visual rule builder. Anyone who’s comfortable using a spreadsheet like MS Excel can easily create highly dynamic forms without writing a single line of code.

Once you’ve finished customizing your time off request form and approval workflow, it’s time to integrate it with your database.

3. Integrate Your Employee Databases

Connecting your time off request form to an employee information database allows you to automatically fill in information easily. It also lets employees check how much time off they have remaining, so they can plan accordingly.

With frevvo, you can connect your time off request form to data sources like a SQL database, HR system, or even Google Sheets.

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Integrating a database into your time off request workflow makes it easier for everyone — employees spend less time entering information and the database makes sure that only accurate information is pushed forward. 

By incorporating a centralized source of truth for your employee data, you’ll eliminate a lot more inconsistencies and reduce errors in your time off process. 

4. Test and Deploy

At this point, your time off request form and workflow should be nearly ready to go live. But first, you’ll want to thoroughly test your time off request process. 

Try implementing User Acceptance Testing (UAT) to gather feedback before you deploy your workflow. Sometimes called beta testing, you’ll use this approach to test your workflow with a small number of users who provide detailed feedback. 

After addressing any bugs, concerns, or comments left by the users, you can deploy your time off request form process company-wide. 

5. Analyze and Optimize 

Your work isn’t over once you’ve deployed your time off request workflow, although that’s certainly something to celebrate. 

You’ll still need to consistently monitor and maintain your time off process so that it keeps working. Not only do you want to catch any problems or roadblocks early, but you also want to make sure your new process is getting the results you’re looking for. 

With frevvo’s new analytics dashboards, you can track more key performance indicators (KPIs) to see how the process is helping your employees. 

Here are a few KPIs you might track: 

• PTO utilization rate
• Approved vs. unapproved time off
• Paid vs. unpaid time off
• Average PTO or absent days, by individual, department, or location

With a BPM tool like frevvo, you can continually look for ways to improve your workflows and stay ahead of the competition.

Starting Automating Your Time Off Request Forms 

frevvo makes it easy to automate your time off request process. It offers plenty of customizable time off request form templates, as well as a code-free workflow wizard that helps you get up and running quickly.

With an automated time off request process, you’ll save time and money while keeping your employees happy.

To learn more about automating your time off requests and other processes, speak to a business process expert at frevvo today or start a free 30-day trial to test drive the software for yourself.

The post How to Create and Automate Your Time Off Request Forms appeared first on frevvo Blog.

Onboarding serves as an employee’s first introduction to a company. But this process is often hampered by paperwork, as new hires are inundated with piles of tedious forms.

As a result, new hires are left feeling overwhelmed before they start. So how can you streamline the employee onboarding process and leave new hires with a positive first impression?

Optimizing your employee onboarding workflow is a good place to start.

In this article, we’ll look at key distinctions between outdated and optimized onboarding workflows. We’ll also show you how to create an automated onboarding workflow that’ll save you time and energy and get your new employees to work, faster.

Click the links below to jump straight to the section you want to learn more about:

• What is an Employee Onboarding Workflow?
• The Problem With Traditional Employee Onboarding Workflows
• Outdated vs. Modern Employee Onboarding Workflows

What is an Employee Onboarding Workflow?

An employee onboarding workflow is a set of prescribed steps that new hires go through as they start working for a company. By planning the onboarding process, companies can engage employees early and make a lasting impression. 

This is important because how well you onboard new hires impacts their decision to stay. 64% of employees are likely to leave within their first year after a poor onboarding experience. 

A structured onboarding program can improve employee retention rates by helping new hires assimilate into the company’s culture and prepare for their roles.

The Problem With Outdated Onboarding Workflows

Most companies already have workflows in place to onboard new hires. But these workflows are frequently outdated and focus on paperwork — filling out employment forms, signing tax papers, reviewing compliance documents, etc.

What ends up happening is employees spend their first day filling out piles of paperwork. Then they might go through a short orientation and review a handbook before they’re left to their own devices with little to no guidance.

This way of onboarding new hires isn’t effective. Just 12% of employees agree that their organization does a great job at onboarding. 

It’s clear that companies can and should do more to improve their onboarding programs.

New hires have high expectations from their place of employment. An experience like the one described above will lead to higher employee turnover rates and have eager hires second-guessing their decision. 

Some may even start looking for new opportunities elsewhere. 22% of employees said they’d look for other jobs if they didn’t receive a good onboarding experience.

Startups may be able to get away with a manual onboarding process. But as an organization grows, it becomes harder to keep track of everything. This can result in inconsistent onboarding experiences for new hires.

In contrast, effective onboarding programs are more structured and engage new hires right from the start. They also incorporate what the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) defines as the Four C’s:

• Compliance covers legal procedures, safety requirements, and company policies. It also includes having new hires fill out all the necessary paperwork.
• Clarification ensures that new hires understand their roles and responsibilities, and know who to ask if they have questions.
• Culture gives new employees a sense of what the company culture is like, along with any formal and informal norms, like dress codes.
• Connection refers to helping new hires form interpersonal relationships and informational networks at work. This can include partnering new hires with a mentor.

Modern onboarding programs are experience-driven and help employees quickly integrate into their roles. They also embrace automation right from the start.

Outdated vs. Modern Employee Onboarding Workflows

Onboarding programs are key to bringing new hires up to speed. If the process is disorganized, you’ll leave employees with a negative impression of your company.

It’s possible to build an automated workflow that follows a predefined onboarding checklist and creates a faster, more consistent onboarding process.

In this section, we’ll look at the major differences between outdated and optimized onboarding workflows. We’ll also look at how you can optimize the employee onboarding process with software from frevvo.

1. Filling Out Employment Forms

Paperwork is a necessary part of the onboarding process. As an employer, you have legal obligations when it comes to taxes and other responsibilities for new hires. 

That means you’ll need to prepare paperwork like:

• W-4 forms
• I-9 employment eligibility verification forms
• State tax withholding forms
• Direct deposit forms

Then you’ll have additional paperwork that details things like health insurance, retirement plans, and benefits. You might also have forms like non-compete agreements and security agreements, depending on the nature of the job.

In short, there’s a lot of paperwork that new hires need to fill out before they can start. Some are required by law, while others are optional.

Outdated Onboarding Workflows

Imagine you’re a new employee. You’re excited to demonstrate your value and be part of a team. But upon arrival, you’re directed to an empty office and presented with a pile of paperwork.

How would you feel? You’d think that the company didn’t put much thought into its onboarding program.

Having new hires spend their first day filling out forms is unlikely to make a great first impression. It can also hamper your ability to get employee referrals. One in five new hires is unlikely to recommend an employer because of a poor onboarding experience.

Modern Onboarding Workflows

Printing out stacks of paperwork may have been a necessity in the past. But employees today expect companies to streamline this process.

Optimize your onboarding workflow by replacing paper forms with dynamic online forms. New hires can view and sign the necessary forms before their start dates.

Here’s an example of a form for collecting personal information:

With frevvo’s visual form builder, you can use drag-and-drop controls to easily customize the layout of your form — no coding necessary.

Once you collect information (like name or address) the first time, you can set it to auto-populate in any other forms, so your new employees don’t have to enter the same things over and over again.

You can also use the software to generate official government PDFs like W4 and I9 forms. Employees can fill out a straightforward, mobile-friendly online form, and the software will automatically complete the official version of the PDF.

There are now over 3 billion smartphone users worldwide. New hires want the option to go through the onboarding process from any device.

Forms you build in frevvo are mobile-friendly out of the box, so new hires can complete their onboarding forms from their smartphones or tablets.

2. Routing Paperwork

The next step in an onboarding workflow is document routing. 

HR and IT need the necessary paperwork to enter a new hire into the company’s payroll system and set up office equipment.

Outdated Onboarding Workflows

Outdated workflows consist of printing out and manually routing paperwork. 

But this makes it easy for things to slip through the cracks. Documents can be misplaced, routed to the wrong person, or left in someone’s letter rack for days or even weeks.

This is the exact problem that Yves Rocher, a worldwide cosmetics brand, dealt with. Mailing forms back and forth to HR headquarters meant that new hires would often work for several weeks before their payroll was processed. 

Having to wait that long can be extremely frustrating for a new employee.

Modern Onboarding Workflows

In contrast, an optimized onboarding workflow uses automation software to route documents and send reminders to ensure tasks are handled on time. 

Because everything is automated, new hires won’t have to mail out their forms or waste time figuring out where to send them. 

With frevvo’s onboarding software, Yves Rocher was able to improve their employee onboarding process and implement a more environmentally friendly system.

Creating your onboarding workflow is straightforward. 

First, list out all the steps for onboarding new hires. Then use frevvo’s visual workflow software to map your onboarding workflow and automatically route forms to where they need to go.

3. Collecting Signatures

Collecting signatures is another important part of the onboarding process. Some forms, like state and federal forms, can’t be processed unless they have the right signatures.

You may require your employees to sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) depending on the nature of the job. These are legally binding contracts that are used to protect sensitive information.

Outdated Onboarding Workflows

There are several challenges that companies face when collecting “wet” signatures — when an individual uses a pen to sign their name on a document.

The first is higher turnaround times. Documents that are physically signed have to be printed, signed, scanned, and emailed.

The next is costs. There are direct costs like ink, paper, and delivery, as well as indirect costs like loss of productivity. The time spent on chasing signatures is time that could’ve been spent on more meaningful work.

Modern Onboarding Workflows

Modern onboarding workflows use dynamic forms with digital signatures. New hires can sign online forms using a computer mouse or with their finger if they’re on a mobile device.

Collecting digital signatures significantly reduces turnaround times. Once employees sign their onboarding documents, the forms automatically get routed to the right department.

Automating this process results in huge cost savings. BMO, a Canadian multinational investment bank, is expected to save a staggering $98 million a year by switching to e-signatures.

With frevvo’s form builder, you can add signature fields to your forms. New hires can electronically sign them with their mouse or finger if they’re on a mobile device.

Here’s an example of a signature field in frevvo.

To ensure that you don’t waste time chasing missing signatures, you can make signature fields required.

With frevvo’s software, you can also map signature fields to the correct field in a corresponding PDF, like a W4.

Electronic signatures carry the same legal weight as wet signatures, as long as they meet the necessary conditions.

Those conditions include:

• Intent to sign
• Informed consent
• Record retention
• Security measures 

frevvo’s software includes everything you need to ensure legal compliance. Then it’s just a matter of incorporating the forms into your workflow.

4. Filing Paperwork

Once new hires finish all the necessary paperwork, you need to make sure that you properly file them. These files should be organized and kept in a safe place to ensure compliance.

Outdated Onboarding Workflows

Any employment documents that are signed need to be scanned or printed and filed away. Of course, this means spending time on repetitive tasks that could be automated.

Then there’s the cost and physical space that file cabinets take up. Maintaining a standard 5-drawer file cabinet can cost a little over $2,600 a year. Those costs will certainly add up as your organization grows.

If you need to retrieve documents in the future to verify a signature or confirm a detail, you’ll also spend time locating those files. This means you’ll need physical access to the file cabinets, which can be problematic if you’re not in the office.

Modern Onboarding Workflows

Optimized onboarding workflows eliminate the need to manually file documents. Automated workflows route documents to the cloud, where they can easily be searched.

With frevvo’s employee onboarding software, you can create automated workflows that send documents to cloud-based services like Google Drive. 

The benefit here is you don’t need to manually file documents, and employees can quickly locate the files they need to do their work.

Conclusion

How your company approaches onboarding sets the tone for new hires. 

If your employee onboarding process is poorly organized, you risk employees reconsidering their decision to stay.

A strong onboarding program is the key to creating positive experiences and driving employee engagement. It helps them understand their roles and sets expectations early on.

Use onboarding software to improve and optimize your employee onboarding process. With frevvo, you can create dynamic forms and incorporate them into automated workflows. There’s no coding required, so even non-technical users can create their own workflows.

Get started today with a free 30-day trial to see how easy this software is to use. You can get new hires up to speed even faster and have them contributing from day one.

The post How to Create an Optimized Employee Onboarding Workflow appeared first on frevvo Blog.

Poor onboarding processes aren’t just expensive. They kill the employer-employee relationship right from the start.

Not only are your outdated manual onboarding processes slowing you down and costing you money, they’re losing you top talent.

Streamlined onboarding leads to happier staff who stay longer, perform better, and speak more highly of your organization. 

On top of that, you cut costs, speed up processing, and eliminate errors.

Onboarding automation is the most effective way to achieve the streamlined hiring environment that brings all these benefits and more.

Read on to find out the best ways to implement onboarding automation to streamline your HR department’s hiring process.

To jump straight to the tactics that are most relevant to your company, click below:

• What is Onboarding Automation?
• 5 Ways to Implement Onboarding into the Hiring Process
  • Automatically Generate New Hire Forms
  • Automate New Employee Data Collection
  • Automatically Route Documentation
  • Automate Hiring Approvals
  • Automate HR Recordkeeping

What is Onboarding Automation? 

While a third of senior HR and People leaders claim they’re trying to create better candidate experiences for new employees, only 12% of employees strongly agree that their company does a great job of onboarding.

This is likely because their manual onboarding processes are slow and clunky.

Onboarding automation refers to the act of automating processes concerned with bringing a new hire on to the team.

Onboarding automation can streamline a world of onboarding activities, including:

• New hire data collection
• Customized form generation (e.g. W-4 and I-9)
• Equipment/uniform orders
• Induction course materials
• Benefit enrollment

Conventionally, onboarding practices and paperwork are done using manual paper and data entry processes. Onboarding automation streamlines this process to remedy the issues involved with manual processing.

Whereas manual processing is slow, expensive, and error-ridden, employee onboarding automation software like frevvo automates data capture, information transfer, and approvals to reduce or eliminate these problems.

Plus, using cloud-based technology, automated onboarding software makes onboarding remote employees far easier. You can onboard employees from anywhere without the need for manual paper trails.

Just look at Cajon Valley School District.

Previously, their onboarding mechanisms took a long time for both new hires and the Human Resources (HR) department. There were reams of manual paperwork, which were uploaded to the system by manual data entry and scanners. 

Not only was this slow, the whole process was extremely error-prone.

Now, Cajon Valley School District uses frevvo’s automated employee onboarding software.

Customized forms are sent in a personalized email so new employees can fill out employment, tax, and payroll information online. All I-9 and W-4 forms are generated automatically, along with a confidentiality agreement. 

There’s no more manual data entry — data is uploaded automatically. 

The whole process is far faster and errors are practically non-existent. 

Despite the obvious benefits of onboarding automation, 39% of businesses don’t automate any part of their onboarding process. In fact, only 2% of companies have automated more than 75% of their onboarding process.

Get ahead of the game and make your life easier by automating your onboarding.

5 Ways to Improve the Hiring Process with Onboarding Automation 

Onboarding automation speeds up end-to-end processing during hiring. Not only that, but it reduces manual data entry errors and costs associated with those errors.

Looking for ways to inject automation into your hiring processes? Try these.

1. Automatically Generate New Hire Forms

Onboarding automation can make the hiring process easier from the very beginning.

For HR professionals, excessive paperwork is one of their biggest challenges.

Most often, the employee onboarding process requires new hires to fill in lots of forms. HR departments will need to create and customize these forms for each new hire. 

This is an extremely tedious process for both the new employee and the HR department.

Using frevvo, HR teams can automatically generate new hire forms from templates and customize them to their exact needs.

Not only is this faster and simpler, it saves a lot of money in staffing costs. In fact, companies with top onboarding programs are 1.6x more likely to have a lower cost per hire.

Just look at Presbyterian Manors of Mid-America’s (PMMA) onboarding program.

The care services organization hires over 1,200 people each year. 

Previously, each new hire received an onboarding packet with more than 40 forms and documents. That’s a lot of paperwork.

Not only does this take an age to complete, the packets would take a very long time to create and customize for each employee.

Now, thanks to frevvo’s drag-and-drop dynamic form builder, HR staff can create customized new hire forms in far less time. The system will also automatically generate dynamic PDFs, such as a Federal W-4 and I-9 forms.

HR staff simply send a customized link to new employees who can fill in all the forms online. 

Following this, all data is automatically uploaded in their M-Files EDM system, reducing data entry errors and speeding up the process.

2. Automate New Employee Data Collection

New hire packets can take a long time to complete. 

Frequently, there are a stack of forms and new employees have to repeatedly fill out the same information on different forms. 

Huge new hire packets can be confusing. Often employees don’t know which forms to fill out next or what information goes where. In fact, 22% of new employees admit that they’re unsure how to proceed through the onboarding process.

Worst still, manually filling in new hire documentation is a super slow process that’s prone to mistakes.

What’s more, these forms are given to new hires on their first day. This takes up a lot of their paid working hours. 

That’s why 36% of organizations are investing in HR technology. They want to offer a better employee onboarding experience.

Onboarding automation software like frevvo will auto-populate the forms with new hire data. This means that the new hire only has to fill out their details once. This data is pulled across to populate all forms that require the same information.

As Gary McGuire, the VP of Information Systems at PMMA puts it, “[It] saves employees hours of valuable time.”

Likewise, since data is auto-populated, errors become a thing of the past.

3. Automatically Route Documentation

Documentation handovers pose another problem to HR departments during the onboarding process.

Usually, new hires will submit documentation by hand, via snail mail, or by email. 

Documentation often gets lost or forgotten and sometimes it’s sent to the wrong place. 

What’s more, new hire packets may contain forms that need to be passed along to other departments or organizations, such as uniform orders, equipment orders, or benefits enrollment forms.

These run the same risk of being lost, sent to the wrong place, or buried in a busy inbox.

This can significantly delay the onboarding process. Since, HR professionals say that time is the second most important factor when onboarding new employees, this poses a serious problem when trying to get an employee up and running.

Onboarding automation eliminates these delays — documentation is automatically routed electronically, according to pre-set rules.

So, once forms are submitted, they’re automatically sent to the department or organization that needs to complete the next step.

The recipient is automatically notified of the arrival of documentation. If they don’t do anything about it, frevvo sends an automatic reminder.

That way, all documentation arrives instantly and can be addressed without delay.

Just look at how beauty retailer Yves Rocher has benefitted from automatic routing.

Previously, onboarding relied on paper processes. Documentation was sent by snail mail to the HR headquarters.

Not only did this cause a long delay, often paperwork was lost.

Worst still, if the paperwork arrived with an error or the handwriting was difficult to read, it would need to be sent back by snail mail and the whole process would start again.

This meant new employees would end up working several weeks without payroll being processed.

frevvo’s automated employee onboarding software changed all that.

Thanks to the sophisticated custom workflow routing capabilities, HR finds it easy to change and customize forms to each employee’s location.

The system automatically validates each form’s contents to make sure there are no errors before automatically routing to the next step in the process. 

Now uniforms are ordered automatically, payroll is processed on time, and onboarding takes a fraction of the time.

4. Automate Hiring Approvals

For some organizations, certain steps in the hiring process may need approvals.

For geographically-distributed organizations or those that work entirely remotely, the approvals process can be arduous.

If you’re sending documentation by snail mail, it’s a slow process. On top of that, documentation runs the risk of getting lost or delayed. 

If you’re sending documentation by email, it’s likely to get buried, overlooked, or forgotten in a full inbox.

Even in organizations where the HR department is under the same roof, documentation often goes unnoticed.

This is because HR departments are extremely busy. 66% of organizations only have one person working in the HR department, while 97% of organizations have fewer than 5 people carrying the workload.

The result is that staff spend hours chasing down approvals instead of getting on with their real work.

With automated onboarding software, the approval process becomes a breeze.

Documentation is automatically routed to HR managers or department heads for approval as soon as it’s ready and the approver is notified immediately.

With frevvo, managers can approve HR documents in seconds with e-signatures from anywhere on a mobile device. 

Just look at how much more efficient this has made OSRAM Sylvania.

Before, the lighting manufacturer struggled with seeking different types of approvals from various supervisors across multiple locations.

This was an especially pressing issue since some forms needed to be routed to the HR service center in Mexico, and snail mail simply wasn’t an option.

Thanks to frevvo, supervisors can now sign and approve documentation electronically from anywhere in the world.

Electronic routing means approvals are automatically routed to the right place, and approvers are notified and reminded of outstanding approvals.

Now, all approvals happen almost instantly and delayed approvals are a thing of the past.

5. Automate HR Recordkeeping

Not only will you need to upload, store, and manage all new hire records, you’ll need to keep these records updated.

While you may already have HR software to manage data, the likelihood is that you’re entering that data manually. 

In fact, two-thirds of HR departments are not automated and don’t have a single system for records. Instead they’re switching between all kinds of manual record-keeping processes.

Not only does this make record-keeping slow, it’s often peppered with errors. Data gets missed and incorrect information gets entered. 

Remedying these mistakes leads to extra costs in staff hours. Since 59% of HR leaders say that the pressure to manage costs is increasing within their organization, it seems unwise to waste money on continually rectifying avoidable mistakes.

Onboarding automation software like frevvo will integrate with your databases and record systems to store submitted new hire information automatically.

Since all data is automatically validated, there’s no incorrect or missing data. Plus, it’s a super quick process with no clunky data entry.

That’s why the OESJ Central School District switched to frevvo.

Previously, the entire employee onboarding process was done on paper. But with a team of just two people, the data entry became too much.

There were frequent typos when data was entered into the system and they’d often find duplicate entries had been submitted.

Now, with frevvo’s onboarding software, new hire data is automatically uploaded to the HR system. This means neither member of staff has to worry about data entry.

There’s no more duplicate data entered into the system, and typos and errors have been eliminated.

Conclusion

Onboarding automation doesn’t just speed up the hiring process. It provides an effective and supportive onboarding experience for new employees.

The result? Employees are more satisfied in their jobs, more prepared to excel in their new careers, and more likely to refer your organization to other top talent.

In this sense, not only does an automated onboarding process save you time and money, while eradicating delays and tedious manual processing. It also fosters an environment where new hires are dedicated to your organization from the get-go.

Don’t fall behind. For streamlined hiring processes, you need onboarding automation. Try frevvo for free today and see just how much more streamlined onboarding can be.

The post 5 Ways to Improve Hiring with Onboarding Automation appeared first on frevvo Blog.

Piles of forms and hours of data entry make the whole process slow and tedious. Then there are the inevitable mistakes that come from manually processing new hires.

The problem is that a poor employee onboarding process directly affects retention.

New hires that don’t have a positive onboarding experience are twice as likely to look for a new work opportunity shortly after arriving.

Luckily, onboarding has evolved. 

There’s no longer need for piles of paperwork packages or stuffy, formal meet and greets. Slick onboarding processes mean your new employees can become productive much faster, without wasting hours on admin.

Read on to find out how you can streamline your hiring procedures. Check out these six revolutionary employee onboarding process examples that efficiently welcome new hires, instead of scaring them off with mountains of paperwork.

This comprehensive guide features a number of process examples that will help with your onboarding. To go right to the section that interests you most, click below:

• 6 Onboarding Process Examples To Model Your Hiring Process On
  • 1. Yves-Rocher’s automated employee onboarding
  • 2. Mailchimp’s ‘no work’ onboarding week
  • 3. Valve’s new hire handbook
  • 4. PMMA’s digital onboarding
  • 5. Twitter’s ‘yes to desk’ new hire process
  • 6. Cajon Valley Union School District’s employee onboarding workflow
• How to Improve Onboarding

6 Onboarding Process Examples To Model Your Hiring Process On

If you want happy employees from the get-go, you need to streamline your onboarding process.

Check out how these six firms use different internal resources to ease onboarding complexity and welcome new hires without stress.

1. Yves-Rocher’s Automated Employee Onboarding

Yves-Rocher is a global beauty product retailer with over 3,000 locations worldwide.

The large beauty vendor had been experiencing ongoing onboarding issues, due to the complexity of processing new hires across all of its different locations.

The manual onboarding process required each new team member to fill out several different forms, each customized depending on the employee’s location. Since the different branches altered their processes often, these forms changed regularly.

The disparity between the forms made onboarding a real headache for HR headquarters.

Not only that, but as forms needed to go from the local location to HR headquarters and back, paperwork was frequently missing and mistakes caused huge delays. 

This often resulted in employees starting without having payroll set up.

Seeking to streamline onboarding to eliminate these processing problems, Yves-Rocher decided to try automated employee onboarding software.

The beauty retailer now uses frevvo for the employee onboarding process.

frevvo’s digital forms make the whole process faster, more accurate, and less confusing.

First, onboarding automation means forms are easily customized per location, making it simpler for HR to process them at the other end and change them when necessary.

For the new employee, all instructions are embedded within digital HR forms. New hires know exactly what to do at each stage of the onboarding process.

Thanks to auto-population of forms, new employees only have to fill out their data once and it’s automatically populated across all forms. 

Auto-validation on digital forms checks that all data is correct, cutting out data entry errors and preventing delays where paperwork has to be sent back.

Since forms are digital, employees can fill in documentation remotely and send it to the HR headquarters online. No more snail mail, meaning fewer lost documents and more effective onboarding.

2. Mailchimp’s ‘No Work’ Onboarding Week 

Email marketing software, Mailchimp, prepares its employees by dipping their toe in the water.

Rather than rushing new hires to jump straight in, Mailchimp introduces new employees slowly with a ‘no work’ week. 

Having onboarded 275 people last year, Mailchimp is known for building a strong workplace culture from the outset. 

According to Shauna Birkett, Mailchimp’s People Project Manager, this organizational culture is built on a foundation of listening. In line with their motto ‘Listen Hard, Change Fast’, employees are encouraged to do nothing but learn in the first week.

As Shauna puts it, “The goal of ‘doing nothing’ in their first week is to set them up for success in the weeks and months beyond.” 

One of the biggest first week focuses is on settling into the team. 

New employees take the Birkman Personality Test before arriving. This is shared with their direct team so that new colleagues know what sort of person the new team member is.

Using the information from the test, team members are encouraged to welcome new hires by decorating their desks on the first day.

As Shauna explains, “Before they even start, each person fills out a survey of their favorite snacks, colors, hobbies, etc., and their team uses this information to decorate their desks. It’s amazing to see a grown person’s face light up at the sight of their desk covered in pizza wrapping and streamers. Managers also write welcoming notes on postcards to put into their new hire’s swag bags. Once a new coworker starts, their manager and team take them out to lunch.” 

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New employees will also get a big bag of merchandise on the first day, as well as being assigned a ‘Chimpanion’ to show them around.

Throughout the rest of the week, new hires simply meet team leaders and co-founders while learning the product.

3. Valve’s New Hire Handbook

Game development company, Valve Corporation, onboard new employees with a little humor.

Recruiting input from their existing team, Valve’s existing employees designed a funny employee handbook to welcome new hires.

Setting the tone from the outset, Valve uses the handbook to set expectations and demonstrate the company culture from the very beginning.

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While the handbook is full of good humor, it includes real, poignant information that employees would need when starting.

Rather than using a top-down approach, Valve crowdsourced the information from its own team, asking what they felt was crucial for new hires to know. This includes everything from how to pick projects to the peer review process.

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While conventional employee handbooks tend to only cover immediate introductions, this handbook helps employees understand expectations over a much wider timescale. 

This helps employees work out team and managerial expectations on the speed of growth.

4. PMMA’s Digital Onboarding

Offering senior services to residents of Kansas and Missouri, Presbyterian Manors of Mid-America (PMMA) hires over 1,200 people each year.

Due to stringent regulatory and compliance requirements, PMMA’s new hire package has ballooned to nearly 40 forms. 

Previously, PMMA used manual data processing mechanisms to deal with these forms. This took hours and resulted in lots of mistakes, as well as complications in compliance reporting. 

PMMA decided to speed up onboarding by digitizing manual processes with frevvo.

Now, new employees receive a customized link to their full employee onboarding package, which they can fill in prior to arrival at their new role.

Employees only have to fill in their information once, and all forms are automatically populated with this data. All information is automatically validated to prevent data entry errors.

Important HR forms, like W-4s and I-9s, are automatically generated using this data. This ensures HR staff don’t make mistakes when reentering data.

Thanks to seamless integration with M-Files and payroll software, all documents transfer electronically and update these systems with relevant information.

Onboarding is super quick and compliance reporting has never been easier.

5. Twitter’s ‘Yes to Desk’ New Hire Process

Social network, Twitter, tries to make the process from hiring to starting absolutely seamless. 

This is done in two ways. 

Firstly, there are 75 touchpoints between a new employee and their new team. This includes team members, managers, and the HR team. 

By having so many touchpoints, Twitter aims to make each employee feel especially welcome. Particularly significant interactions include the first-day breakfast, where new hires eat with their manager, and their first-day lunch, where they eat with their new team members.

The second part of ‘Yes to Desk’ relates to preparing all the equipment that a new hire would need. There’s nothing worse than starting a new job, only to find that your laptop hasn’t arrived or your uniform is on hold.

Twitter makes sure that all equipment, accounts, documentation, and expectations are ready for employees on their first day. As soon as a new hire walks through the door, they can log in and get started.

Another unique aspect of Twitter’s great onboarding program is its ongoing nature. 

Twitter’s onboarding program doesn’t just stop after the first week. New hires will attend 30-minute presentations every Friday afternoon, where project leaders and managers provide further training.

6. Cajon Valley Union School District’s Employee Onboarding Workflow 

Cajon Valley Union School District found that its employee orientation process was lengthy for both the HR team and new hires.

HR would complete everything manually, scanning in hard copies or entering data by hand. The process was tedious and error-ridden.

Keen to speed up the process and improve accuracy, Cajon Valley Union School District decided to switch to an automated employee onboarding workflow.

Having implemented frevvo, the HR manager now has a much easier job. 

Now, the HR manager sends a customized set of ADA-Accessible web forms to new employees who can fill out all documentation remotely.

The automated workflow sends personalized onboarding emails to new employees with a link to a customized digital package where they can fill in all employment, payroll, and tax information. 

This package also includes a personalized Confidentiality Agreement, PDF Mapping to I-9 and W-4 forms, and a pre-populated Physician’s Certificate that employees can print or forward to their physician for a signature.

Once completed, all data automatically transfers to the personnel database, payroll systems, and staff management portal.

For the HR department, the whole process is far slicker and mistakes have been practically eliminated.

How to Improve Onboarding

To encourage staff retention from the outset, you need your employee onboarding process to run smoothly.

If you want to streamline your onboarding processes, speed is your first hurdle. 

The problem is that new employee onboarding processes often involve piles of human resources (HR) paperwork and hours of form filling. 

Not only that, but constant mistakes and in-person approvals processes slow the whole chain down even further.

That means manual data entry, copious amounts of forms, and in-person authorization need to go. 

Forward-thinking companies achieve this through digitization and automation. With automated employee onboarding software, like frevvo, everything is faster.

For example, by using digital forms that auto-populate, employees don’t need to keep entering the same information over and over. 

Likewise, there’s no need for physical signatures, so approval processes are far quicker.

The second pressing issue is complexity.

There’s so much to get through that new hires tend to find it hard to navigate what they’re supposed to be doing. In fact, a fifth of employees complain about being confused on how to proceed during onboarding processes.

Automated employee onboarding software is one way to tackle onboarding complexity. 

It removes the need for so much paperwork and organizes the onboarding process steps in an easy-to-follow manner. That way both new hires and HR staff know what to do and when.

Plus, responsive digital onboarding forms make the remote onboarding process far more accessible. New employees can complete the process from any device at any location and HR staff can approve the documents remotely.

Conclusion

Employee onboarding doesn’t need to be a drag. Follow these creative onboarding examples to welcome new employees into your company culture without overburdening them.

Why not try digitizing your employee onboarding workflows? 

In today’s world of remote workers and online communications, digital onboarding streamlines the whole process for globally dispersed teams. New hires can onboard in no time at all from anywhere in the world, straight from their smart devices.

If you’re looking for more efficient employee onboarding processes, try frevvo’s employee onboarding workflow software free for 30 days.

The post 6 Creative Onboarding Process Examples To Streamline Hiring appeared first on frevvo Blog.

A strong new hire orientation program is a must to retain talent and increase engagement: 69% of employees who go through an excellent onboarding process are more likely to stay with a company after three years.

In this article, we’ll cover the new hire orientation best practices that’ll set you–and your employees–up to succeed.

Click the links below to navigate to the section that interests you most:

• Why is New Hire Orientation Important?
• 10 New Hire Orientation Best Practices to Welcome Employees

Why is New Hire Orientation Important?

Employee orientation is the process of welcoming new hires to your organization. The purpose is to communicate important policy and get employees ready for their new roles.

New hire orientation also sets the stage for what employees can expect. A comprehensive and engaging orientation program is key to making a lasting impression with new employees. Fail to make an impression and new hires will likely look elsewhere for a new job.

45% of employees who have been at their company for less than a year started looking at other job opportunities after a bad day at work. The first few days, weeks, and months are crucial as new hires are evaluating your company.

Here’s what should be included in new hire orientations:

• Introduction to the company mission and values
• New employee paperwork
• Enrollment in benefit plans
• Review of safety, health, and company policies
• Administrative procedures (e.g., computer systems and logins)

10 New Hire Orientation Best Practices to Welcome Employees

Bringing on new hires isn’t cheap. Companies spend an average of $986 a year just to train employees and that figure doesn’t even consider hiring costs or the time it takes to fill a position. 

High turnover rates can have a negative impact on your bottom line, especially if you’re repeating the hiring process multiple times a year. The good news is you can improve employee retention and boost engagement with a solid employee orientation program.

1. Create a New Employee Orientation Checklist

There’s a lot to take care of when bringing on new hires — employment forms, team introductions, administrative access, etc. Onboarding programs have an average of 54 activities for new hires to complete.

And those activities are for just for the hires. You’ll also need help from managers and team members from HR and IT. Trying to keep track of everything without a system in place isn’t exactly practical.

Create an employee orientation checklist to stay organized and ensure no important steps are left out. Here’s a new employee checklist in Google Sheets. (Note that you’ll need to make a copy first before you can use it.) 

2. Start the Process Early

The first day is always exciting for new hires, but it can also be overwhelming.

New hires go through a lot from the time they accept your job offer to the first day. Communicate what to expect before the start date. 

Start the process early — communicate the schedule about a week before their first day. Having the necessary paperwork done in advance is a simple yet effective way to improve the overall employee onboarding process.

It also means that new hires can start being productive from day one instead of getting bogged down by tedious paperwork. 

3. Schedule One-on-One Time

Orientations typically take place in a group setting with new hires from other departments. This gives all new employees an opportunity to interact with each other and get a formal introduction to the company.

However, the best way to get new hires ready for their roles is to have managers set aside time to check-in with them. 89% of HR leaders agree that ongoing feedback and regular check-ins have had a positive impact on their organization.

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Managers should prioritize one-on-one time with their new hires to provide feedback and get them on the right track. This will help them transition into their new roles.

4. Make Their First Day Memorable 

The first day for a new hire is arguably the most important as it sets the stage for what they can expect. The goal for any company should be to make a great impression with new hires. 

Instead, what typically happens is that new employees are swamped with paperwork on their first day and left to simply figure out their roles. That’s not a good way to make a lasting impression with new hires.

Here are some things you can do to make the first day memorable for new hires:

• Give them an office tour
• Ensure their workspace is ready
• Prepare a welcome package
• Introduce them to the team
• Take them out for a company lunch

Giving personalized attention and letting your new hire feel at home is the best way to enhance the orientation experience and motivate them to be productive.

5. Automate Paperwork

Before a new hire can officially work at your company, you need to prepare various forms as required by law.

The most common types of forms you’ll need for new hires include:

• W-4 Form
• I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification Form
• State tax forms
• Direct deposit form

You may also need to prepare additional documents for internal purposes, such as non-disclosure agreements, confidentiality forms, and more. 

Every organization should also have an employee handbook that compiles the company’s policies, operating procedures, and other job-related information.

Bringing on new employees always comes with paperwork. But this doesn’t mean you need to bury them (or yourself) under piles of forms.

With frevvo’s employee onboarding software, you can level-up the efficiency of your onboarding process. Use an online form builder to capture the info you need from employees, automatically generate official PDF forms (like the W-4 and I-9) from submitted forms, and store documents to the cloud.

Here’s an example of what form-to-PDF mapping looks like in frevvo:

Employees can use mobile-responsive online forms to submit the necessary paperwork they need before they start working.

Follow these steps to streamline and automate new hire paperwork with frevvo.

1. Digitize Your Paper Forms

Filling out paperwork is time-consuming and tedious. With frevvo, you can digitize paper forms that are part of the onboarding process.

Here’s an example of an onboarding form template you can use to collect personal information for new hires:

All forms are fully customizable. Simply drag any of the elements from the palette on the left side onto the form. You can also collect electronic and digital signatures.

2. Create an Onboarding Workflow

Build a workflow from scratch or choose from one of our available templates.

Here’s an example of our employee onboarding workflow:

This is the exact workflow we use at frevvo, but you can customize yours to fit your processes. 

Employees won’t have to waste time figuring out who to send their forms to. The workflow automatically sends it to the right person.

3. Test Your Workflow

The next step is to test your workflow to ensure everything is working correctly.

Be sure to also check your workflow from mobile devices.

4. Deploy Your Workflow and Get Feedback

Deploy your onboarding workflow and send it over to new hires, so they won’t have to spend their entire first day filling out forms.

There may be some hiccups along the way as you implement a new process. Get feedback from new hires and ask for their thoughts. The feedback you gain is especially valuable as you can use it to improve your onboarding workflow.

6. Create Interactive Training Materials

Employee training is one of the most important aspects of onboarding. Training materials should provide new hires with the knowledge and skills they’ll need to do their jobs.

More companies are incorporating videos into their training programs. But one study found that 72% of employees don’t give their full attention to these types of videos — they skim through them, watch without sound, or ignore them completely.

Instead, create interactive videos that let employees interact with the content itself. Examples include adding 360 views, data inputs, and quizzes at the end of each section. 82% of employees say that interactive videos hold their attention longer than linear videos.

7. Provide Clear Paths to Career Development

Employees are unlikely to stay if they’re not given opportunities to advance their careers. A lack of career development is one of the top reasons why employees leave their jobs.

Outline exactly what needs to be accomplished for new hires to move onto the next “rung” of the career ladder. This sends a clear signal that you’re willing to invest in their development.

Managers can even create journey maps that are personalized for each new hire. These serve as a way to outline career goals and the steps to achieve them.

8. Commit to a Longer Onboarding Process

New hire orientation programs typically last a few hours but can be longer or shorter depending on the organization. However, don’t expect employees to hit the ground running on the first day. 

Between learning the company’s culture and adjusting to their roles, it can take months or even longer for new hires to reach their full potential. To reduce the time to proficiency for new hires, commit to an onboarding process that extends well beyond the initial orientation.

It may sound obvious, yet 38% of organizations provide onboarding training that lasts only a week.

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Only 4% provide onboarding training that lasts between 3 to 6 months. While you undoubtedly want new employees to start contributing on their first day, it’s important to give them sufficient time to fully transition into their roles.

9. Arrange a Work Buddy

The first day on the new job can be lonely. Try to help new hires get rid of the nervousness and anxiety they might feel about starting at a new organization.

Partner new hires with a buddy who can help them learn new processes and adjust to their work environment. They can also be the ones to give team introductions, show them around the office, and take new hires out to lunch.

Research has found that having a best friend leads to better work performance for both men and women.

10. Check-In Frequently

Implement frequent check-ins with new hires to see how they’re adjusting to their roles or to assist with any areas they might be struggling with. If a manager doesn’t check-in until several months later, it can send the wrong message. 

53% of employees aren’t engaged or connected to their workplace. They generally show up, but only do the bare minimum.

Take the time to check-in with new hires to let them know that their contribution is valued to increase engagement. Check-in more frequently with new hires in the beginning until they feel more proficient in their roles.

Conclusion

New hire orientation is important as it lays the groundwork for new employees to become productive team members for years to come. An effective orientation program is also key to retaining employees.

With frevvo, you can make the paperwork part of your onboarding process more smooth and efficient–for both you and new employees. Fewer mistakes, less going back-and-forth, and more time to focus on the work that matters.

Sign up for a free 30-day trial to see just how easy it is to streamline your new hire orientation program. You can also request a live demo.

The post 10 New Hire Orientation Best Practices to Win Over New Hires appeared first on frevvo Blog.

You probably already have an onboarding process in place. 

But is it setting new hires up for success in their roles? Or is your workflow getting bogged down by manual processes?

In this article, we’ll take an in-depth look at how you can improve the onboarding process and get new hires to work more quickly and without the agonizing paperwork. 

We’ll also show you how to automate with employee onboarding software like frevvo.

Contents:

• The problem with the employee onboarding process
• Why to improve the onboarding process
• 10 proven strategies to improve the employee onboarding process
• How to automate employee onboarding

The Problem with the Employee Onboarding Process

A strong employee onboarding program is key to starting a healthy and productive relationship with a new hire.

It’s also their first impression of how you do business. Just as you’re evaluating them in the first few weeks, they’re also equally evaluating you.

But most businesses struggle with making a solid first impression. Many employees find themselves left alone in a room with a stack of paperwork to fill out and no clue what they’re doing or what to do next. 

As you’ll see in the next section, this negatively impacts employee retention and your bottom line. 

Why Improve the Onboarding Process

A poorly run onboarding process can usher new employees out the door before you’ve had a chance to recoup the costs of recruitment. 

Your onboarding process has a direct impact on your bottom line and long term success. 

Following new hire onboarding best practices can help you:

Improve Employee Retention 

Workplace turnover rates are at 19.3% — an all time high. Most employees won’t hesitate to find another opportunity if they don’t have a positive experience with your company.

A strong onboarding process that focuses on things like company culture and employee development can improve employee retention. 

In fact, employees who go through a structured onboarding process are 58% more likely to stay with a company after 3 years.

Reduce Hiring Costs

Hiring new employees isn’t cheap. The average cost per hire in 2020 is $4,000 (and 24 days).

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Recruitment costs can skyrocket when you spend time and resources to bring on new hires only for them to quit a short time later. Increasing employee retention rates by improving the onboarding process has the added benefit of improving the return on hiring costs.

Increase Employee Productivity 

New hires don’t hit the ground running on the first day.

Between learning the company culture and familiarizing themselves with their roles, it can take months or even longer for employees to reach their full potential. Onboarding the right way can reduce the time to proficiency and increase productivity by over 70%.

Attract More Candidates 

Job seekers often turn to sites like Glassdoor or Indeed to get a sense of what working at a company would be like. Positive reviews from satisfied employees can leave a great first impression on candidates. 

But a poor onboarding experience could affect your company’s ability to attract talent. Data shows that 1 in 5 new hires are unlikely to recommend an employer to a friend or family member after the initial onboarding experience. 

A strong onboarding process can go a long way towards helping you retain and attract more qualified candidates — both of which ultimately benefit your company’s bottom line.

Now let’s look at how you can improve the onboarding process and enhance the new hire experience.

10 Proven Strategies to Improve the Employee Onboarding Process

There’s a lot more that goes into an employee onboarding program than simply printing out some papers and handing them to new hires. 

Follow these steps to prepare new hires for their roles and make them feel valued.

#1. Engage New Hires Before Their Start Date

Don’t wait until new hires show up to the office to start the onboarding process.

It’s not uncommon for qualified candidates to receive multiple offers. Even if a candidate agrees to work at your company, they can still rescind their offer and take an opportunity elsewhere.

Engage with new hires before their start date to make them feel valued. Send a welcome email and include other helpful information (e.g., where to park, what to wear, etc.) to make their first day feel less overwhelming.

#2. Automate Paperwork With Onboarding Templates

Handling paperwork for new hires can be a tedious and time-consuming task, especially if you’re doing everything manually. But you need to submit the necessary paperwork for new employees.

Here are two of the most important forms:

• Form I-9: The Employment Eligibility Verification form proves and verifies that new hires can legally work in the US. 

• Form W-4: New hires need to complete the W-4 form, so employers can withhold the correct federal income tax amount.

New hires may also need to fill out non-disclosure agreements, compliance forms, and other documents depending on your organization.

frevvo’s new employee onboarding template combined with automated workflows means you can go paperless and have those documents automatically routed to your HR team.

Here’s what our customizable employee onboarding template looks like:

The template is fully customizable, so you can change it to fit your onboarding process and add your own branding.

#3. Create Engaging Training Materials

Training materials are a must to bring new hires up to speed. But they don’t exactly make for great weekend reading.

Include other types of media to your materials to make them more engaging. Videos are an effective format as they deliver visual instructions in a way that text can’t. In fact, 83% of employees say they prefer to watch a video to learn something new.

Another way to use video is to communicate your company’s core values and shed more details on what it’s like to work there.

Here’s a good example of an onboarding video from Zendesk:

These videos can also work as a great marketing tool to attract talent.

#4. Set Up Offices Ahead of Time 

Not planning for a new hire’s arrival can leave a bad impression. Get new hires ready for their first day by having their office and equipment set up ahead of time.

Percolate, a content marketing platform, has an excellent onboarding process. The company has everything laid out for new hires and a clear timeline of what they should do next.

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It’s a simple gesture, but one that can make a great first impression and deliver a better employee experience.

#5. Schedule One-on-One Time

Don’t just rely solely on welcome emails and training materials to onboard employees. 

An estimated 72% of new hires say that spending one-on-one time with their direct manager was one of the most important aspects of the onboarding process.

Spend personal time with new hires and check in on a regular basis. Let them also know what’s expected of them long-term and how they can progress in their careers.

#6. Use the Buddy System

The buddy system is exactly what it sounds like: It involves pairing a new hire with a buddy at work who can show them the ropes and help them get more comfortable in the workplace.

87% of organizations that have a buddy program say it’s an effective way to accelerate new hire proficiency. Find a mentor who can take a hands-on approach and bring new hires up to speed.

Even if most of your team is remote, you can still use the buddy system thanks to modern technology. Have new hires connect with their mentors on tools like Slack or Zoom.

#7. Establish an Onboarding Timeline

As much as you’d like to get a new hire to reach full proficiency, the last thing you want is to overwhelm them with tasks. Establish an onboarding timeline for new employees to follow.

Here’s an example of a sample onboarding timeline:

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Monitor their progress over time and check in at important time-based milestones (e.g., first week, first month, etc.).

#8. Personalize the Onboarding Process

The most effective onboarding programs are those that are personalized. New hires should receive materials that are specific to their roles.

You can also use surveys to ask what new hires need help with. By doing so, you’ll be able to make the onboarding process more personal and increase employee engagement.

#9. Commit to Onboarding Employees For at Least a Year

New hires are still settling into their roles months into the job. It can take new hires some time before they start to become proficient and realize their full potential. 

Yet nearly three-fourths of hiring managers and HR professionals say their onboarding process lasts a month or less.

One month simply isn’t enough time to get new hires adjusted to their roles. Check in with new hires and provide frequent feedback for at least a year. Companies that commit to extending their onboarding programs can improve new hire proficiency by 34%.

#10. Regularly Review Your Onboarding Process

Taking a proactive approach to improving your onboarding process is great. But as with any business process, there’s always room for improvement.

Keep a close eye on how new hires progress with the onboarding program. You can also periodically send out anonymous surveys to collect feedback and ask them to share their thoughts. You can use these insights to make further improvements.

How to Automate Employee Onboarding Forms

One thing that all employee onboarding programs have in common is the amount of paperwork they have. It’s easy to get bogged down, especially if you’re doing each step manually.

With frevvo’s employee onboarding software, you can create workflows to automate your onboarding program and get your new hires ready for their first day.

Follow these steps to automate employee onboarding forms with frevvo.

#1. Create a Workflow

A workflow allows you to define a business process. It outlines the exact steps needed to complete an activity from start to finish, including any reviews and approvals.

Answer the following questions to create an employee onboarding workflow:

• What are the exact steps?
• What forms do employees need to fill out?
• Who is responsible for each step?
• What decisions need to be made?
• What happens in each step?

Then consult with individual stakeholders like the HR manager to get feedback and make sure you’re not missing any key details.

#2. Automate Your Onboarding Workflow

Performing each step in your workflow manually is possible, but it also leaves a lot of room for error — new hires may send forms to the wrong person, entries may be duplicated, etc.

Automating your workflow reduces errors and streamlines the entire process. Onboarding automation means new hires can get started sooner rather than later.

With frevvo’s automation software, you can create your own workflow using drag-and-drop tools or choose a pre-built workflow.

Let’s walk through each step of our employee onboarding workflow:

What you’re seeing above is the exact employee onboarding workflow we use at frevvo, but yours might look different. For example, new hires may need to fill out non-disclosure agreements or compliance forms.

At the top, click on Forms and you’ll see the following onboarding form for the Employee step:

This is the form that new hires will use to submit basic information. To add a new field, simply select it from the panel on the left side and drag it over. You can also edit an existing field by clicking on it and changing its settings under the Properties tab.

Let’s look at the next form in our onboarding workflow.

Click on the Switch Form button at the top right and you’ll see the following menu:

Then click on Personal Allowances to view this section of the W-4 form:

Personal allowances are deductions that employees can claim to withhold less tax from their paychecks. Each field has clear instructions to help new hires fill out the correct information.

With digital signatures, new employees won’t have to print, sign, and mail in their forms — they can fill them out at home or on the go from a mobile device.

The next step in our onboarding workflow is the state tax form:

Employers are required to withhold state taxes for their employees. The form includes a Withholding Codes Chart to help employees enter the right code based on their situation.

Note that state income tax forms differ from state to state, so you’ll need to use the right forms in your workflow. You can find tax forms for each state here.

Then switch over to Form I-9:

Employers are required to complete Form I-9 for new hires to verify their identity and employment status.

The next step in our onboarding workflow is for health insurance information:

Offering health insurance can help your organization attract and retain top talent. 46% of employees said health insurance was a deciding factor or had a positive influence in choosing their current job. With this form, you can get employees enrolled in a health insurance plan.

Next in our onboarding workflow is Confirmation:

Once the forms are filled out, frevvo generates regulation tax documents for you by automatically exporting form data into official PDF documents you can submit to the government. This helps to eliminate duplicate data entry.

The final step is HR Review:

Go through each step of your workflow to make sure you didn’t miss anything. If everything looks good, click the Save icon at the top right.

Automatically routing both forms to the HR manager is easy. Head back to your workflow by clicking the Workflow button at the top of the page. 

Click on the HR Review box in the workflow:

Then click the Assignment tab and you’ll see the following:

Select an existing user from the dropdown menu or enter the email address of your HR manager. The information shown here is filled-in by default, but you can easily change the subject line and email message.

Click Submit and save your workflow.

With your new workflow, the system guides new hires through the process and automatically routes those onboarding forms to the HR manager (or other individual you designated).

#3. Test Your Onboarding Workflow

In frevvo, you can test your newly created workflow to double check that it works. From the workflow designer, click the magic wand icon at the top right.

Here’s what the test window looks like:

As more people use their mobile devices to get work done, it’s important to give your employees the option to fill out and submit their paperwork from different devices.

In the test window, you can test your form in desktop, tablet, and mobile views. You can also invite stakeholders to test and share feedback on your workflow.

Fill out the form to start the workflow. It will work according to how you set it up including messages, email notifications, and routing. This allows you to test each step and make any changes if necessary. 

Here’s what the Confirmation step looks like:

The information you entered in the previous steps will generate PDFs and auto-populate the right fields. You can even view the complete forms right from your browser.

Click Send to HR and your HR manager will receive an email notifying them that a new hire has completed Form W-4 and I-9.

#4. Deploy Your Onboarding Workflow

Now that you’ve tested your workflow, the next step is to deploy it. Navigate to your workflow and click the ellipsis (three dots) menu button:

Click Deploy and your workflow is ready to go. You can always go back and customize your workflow as your business processes change.

#5. Solicit Feedback and Improve Your Workflow

Regularly revisit your workflows and solicit feedback from the rest of the team. With frevvo’s built-in reporting features, you can gather insights about your workflows and identify potential bottlenecks. 

Be sure to address any issues quickly as an inefficient process could be wasting valuable time.

Conclusion

An effective onboarding process allows you to engage new hires early on and reduce their time to proficiency. It also sets employees up for success as they have a clearer idea of what’s expected of them.

With frevvo’s employee onboarding software, you can create powerful workflows that automate manual tasks and free up time.

Register for a free 30-day trial to try out the software for yourself. You’ll get access to all the features including the templates and onboarding workflows shown. You can also sign up for a live demo and we’ll be happy to walk you through it.

The post 5 Steps to Improve Your Employee Onboarding Process appeared first on frevvo Blog.

The gig economy started as a trend, but it is now becoming an industry mainstay. Last year, 41 million American workers (consultants, freelancers, contractors, temporary, or on-call) generated $1.28 trillion in revenue for the US economy. 

The HR challenge? Current hiring and onboarding protocols cater to full-time employees only. Human Resource departments will have to change their methods and introduce new practices to adapt to hiring and onboarding gig workers. 

“How Will the Gig Economy Affect My Organization?”

The gig economy is here to stay. From 2010 to 2019, the share of gig workers in organizations has grown by 15%, while more than 1 in 6 workers in organizations is a gig worker. Organizations are taking advantage of this growth surge because of the opportunity it provides.

Reduces complexity for internal staff

Complex projects no longer need to overwhelm your staff or result in a chaotic work environment. Contractors can become supplemental help to employees and pick up the slack where needed, keeping your projects moving along smoothly and keeping your team hitting goals. 

Specialized skills and well-rounded skill sets

Gig workers are often highly skilled and offer specialized expertise because they become masters of their craft. They are also well-rounded since they work for many different companies and can adapt and pick up the best knowledge from each experience. Since they have worked with multiple organizations, freelancers can bring another perspective to your organization to help you innovate and scale. 

However, challenges abound…

While taking part in the gig economy can be a leap forward toward, taking on larger projects and scaling your organization, it presents HR with some challenges. 

Transitioning to working with contractors (even on a one-off project basis) will affect every step of the hiring process: 

In addition to updating the hiring process, preparation should also include educating your current employees about the transition and making them aware of the benefits of working with contractors. Taking part in the gig economy can threaten your employees’ trust in your organization if not properly addressed. Early preparation and open communication with employees will help your employees to see the adoption of contractors as beneficial to them and their future with the company. 

“Business as usual” will not be enough to snag the best contractors and integrate them within your organization’s ecosystem. Let’s take a look at how you can seize the gig economy and prepare for this new surge.

How HR Can Prepare for Seamless Integration with Outside Contractors

Is Every Project Right for a Gig Worker?

Working with contractors or freelancers means transitioning away from thinking about jobs as a position and instead, a set of tasks and skills. Look past the nature of the job into the day-to-day tasks so you can decide which type of worker is best for the job, whether employee or contractor (short or long-term gig). 

For long-term roles (years), employees will typically cost less than a contractor. In addition, contractors may not be open to working on a long-term gig because they want to remain flexible. 

If you need help with creative and/or tech projects, freelancers may be a good choice since they possess specific skills. Think writing, design, web development and marketing.

Establish an Onboarding Strategy for Gig Workers

Unsuccessful contractor-client relationships typically occur because of the lack of a proper onboarding process. Does the onboarding process for gig workers need to be as involved as full-time employees? No. But you do need an onboarding process for part-time freelancers and gig workers – even if they are doing one-off projects. 

To protect your company and its assets, verify the freelancer’s education and work history and credentials (ask for references) similar to how you would for an employee, to ensure they are trustworthy. You may be giving this worker access to proprietary company information so you want to know you can trust them. You may also want to implement non-disclosure and service level agreements.

Provide detailed training and outline your expectations upfront so miscommunication doesn’t become an issue that derails projects. A quick video call or training session (in-house or via phone, depending on the worker’s location) can help. Agree on a one-off test project as well (if applicable) so you can evaluate the contractor’s skills and the contractor can evaluate you as a client.

Automate the Onboarding Process (and Make it Mobile-Friendly)

Avoid making the onboarding process long and drawn out. Freelancers are attracted to the flexibility their work environment provides, so they won’t want to be bogged down with excessive paperwork and processes before they even get started on the gig. 

Limit onboarding to as few steps as possible by automating the process. Combining forms into one event and automating the process speeds up workflow and increases productivity. With frevvo’s automated HR workflow software, you can deploy automated workflows for every step of the onboarding process.

Leverage Automation Throughout the Entire Process to Decrease the HR Burden

We already discussed how automation can streamline the onboarding process. In addition, leveraging additional technology can also keep contractor management efficient and productive.

Consider technology solutions that will allow you to:

• Keep track of contractor project timelines (e.g. Asana, Trello)
• Use freelance management systems and networks for project recruitment (e.g. Upwork)
• Track hours and timesheets (e.g. RescueTime, Toggl)
• Manage payments and invoicing, whether domestic or international (e.g. Xero, Quickbooks, Paypal, Transferwise)

Engagement and Integration into Your Environment 

Innovative and engaged, independent contractors will dedicate themselves to your projects and take a lot of pride in their work because it reflects directly on their business. However, they may not be as committed to your company as full-time employees since they work for 4-5+ clients at a time. To make them feel like a part of your team and important to your organization’s success, integrate them into the company culture and maintain a consistent experience across your entire team.

Here are some ideas:

• Add them to all digital communication channels (Slack, emails, Asana, internal social networks, etc.)
• Introduce them to other team members 
• Set up one-on-one video meetings for contractors with employees (in the case of longer-term contracts)
• Involve them in strategy where appropriate and keep them abreast of company goals and KPIs they may be working towards
• Continue to mentor them as you would an employee
• Set deadlines but keep flexibility a part of the equation by allowing contractors to suggest projects and the hours they will work  
• Provide access to information they need to do their job effectively so there are no information silos

And lastly…

Become an Employer of Choice 

Working with contractors and freelancers can enhance your organization and provide new levels of innovation and growth for your company. But, hiring new contractors over and over again can stifle productivity. 

Become an employer of choice for freelancers so they want to continue working with you on future projects. Integrating them within your company culture and keeping the engagement flexible by automating your HR processes can keep your company top of mind when new projects come around. What should you automate? In this free ebook, learn the top 7 HR processes that are perfect for automation.

The post How the Rise of the Gig Economy Is Challenging HR appeared first on frevvo Blog.

The average millennial stays at a job for 6-12 months, 10-20 times shorter than Baby Boomers and Gen Xers did. Considering that millennials make up some 75% of the workforce, it’s important to understand what millennials want from work and what they expect from their employers. Some 55% of millennials don’t feel fully engaged at work, and perhaps as a result, around 60% say they’re open to a better job opportunity, should one present itself.

While many businesses invest in modern office spaces and offer attractive perks like in-house baristas, free-beer Fridays and unlimited paid time off, they often neglect the internal processes that really shape company culture and impact employee turnover. Onboarding is one of these processes.

For most people, starting a new job is an exciting time. In the course of their research and the interview process, they’ve been won over by the company’s messaging and purpose, and most new hires start out eager to find their feet and prove their worth and integrate into the team as quickly as possible. Instead, they often spend their first days at a new job isolated and mired in paperwork. 

In this digital age, onboarding should be about more than getting a bunch of forms filled out. When done strategically, digital employee onboarding can be a valuable tool to instill loyalty in new employees by making them feel valued and engaged from the word go. By digitizing as much of the traditional employee onboarding process as possible and embracing onboarding prior to their start date, you create the opportunity to focus on human engagement during your new hire’s first days instead.

Onboarding and the Digital Workplace

Much of today’s onboarding is sorely outdated and remains overwhelmingly analog, in spite of the fact that many workplaces are digital-first, distributed or even fully remote. Given the ease with which businesses manage to onboard customers digitally, it’s somewhat surprising that many “modern” organizations still struggle to implement smart, automated onboarding processes that put their employees first. Archaic examples of onboarding processes not only undermine top talent’s expectations but reflect poorly on an organization’s culture.

Current Onboarding Is Broken

Most companies take a fairly passive approach to onboarding, prioritizing tasks like completing the paperwork necessary for compliance and admin tasks such as IT setup.  

The information overload of starting a new job can be overwhelming. Here are just a few of the things new hires need to get up to speed on:

• Names and roles of team members
• Company policies 
• Company benefits information
• Workflows and processes
• Tech stack and work tools
• Their specific role and responsibilities
• Training
• Intra-office power dynamics

New hires are bombarded with so much information in the first week, it’s almost impossible for them to remember all of it. 

Good onboarding familiarizes the new hire with the company’s mission and vision, instilling company values and culture. Perhaps more importantly, but sadly often overlooked, onboarding should help the new hire to fully understand their role and where they fit into the bigger picture, as well as set clear objectives and explain how and when success will be measured. 

All too often, new hires are not given sufficient guidance and are largely left to their own devices. When nobody checks in to see whether they’re doing good work or need assistance, they can feel unsupported and unrecognized. Not only that, it can be difficult for them – and you – to know whether or not they’re meeting your expectations. 

Bad Onboarding = High Turnover

Research has shown that employees are far more likely to leave a company if they had a bad onboarding experience. After you spent so much time and money finding and wooing your new hires, it would be a terrible waste to let them feel like you don’t care about their wellbeing and performance, especially since this situation is so easy to avoid with some basic planning and HR automation.

Onboarding is only the beginning. Employees should always feel that they have the opportunity to learn and grow to advance their careers. If they can’t do it at your company, they’ll leave to do it somewhere else.

Imagine your new hire going home at the end of their first day at your company. What story will they tell their loved ones about how their first day went? Give them a first day worth remembering.

It’s time to give onboarding an upgrade.

Bad Onboarding:  An Example

Imagine that you’re a newly recruited faculty member joining a prestigious higher education institute or college. You’re excited to start teaching and do interesting research. However, on your first day, the receptionist doesn’t seem to know who you are. 

The head of department isn’t on hand to welcome you – it seems there was a scheduling mix up and everyone thought you were starting next week. Your office isn’t ready, so the receptionist parks you in the staff room with a pile of documents to complete and a stack of departmental handbooks to read while she scrambles to get everything organized. 

You start reading and it’s immediately evident that the materials are outdated. You spend most of your first day by yourself, doing paperwork and noting down questions, hoping you’ll have the opportunity to ask someone about them, but you’re unsure who to ask which questions. 

Around 16h00, your reading is interrupted by a staff meeting you weren’t told about, and you awkwardly introduce yourself to your new colleagues. You sit through the meeting and desperately try to follow what’s going on,  but it’s difficult because you don’t know who’s who. 

You wonder whether this is the right moment to ask those questions you have about the curriculum and the recently implemented elearning component, but decide to ask the receptionist who you should approach to set a meeting about that. 

After the meeting, everyone leaves as quickly as possible and you find yourself heading home, hoping that tomorrow will be better. 

Better Onboarding

At 83% of the best-performing companies, onboarding begins before the new hire’s first day. This way, instead of the new employee being met by a pile of paperwork on their first day, they’re sent all the forms they need to complete in advance and they can sign these documents using a digital signature. 

They can even be granted access to an employee portal, where they might find personalized onboarding content waiting, such as their orientation plan, employee handbook, and a note from their manager. 

Other useful content could include information such as an employee directory, an introduction to their mentor, an invitation to a welcoming lunch, and useful tips about the office location (where to park, good places to grab lunch, etc.).

Before you begin, make sure that you have answers to the following questions for each new hire:

• When does onboarding begin?
• How long will it continue?
• Which steps will be present in all employee onboarding, and which steps will be tailored depending on their department and role?
• What does the new hire need to know?
• Who will be responsible for which parts of the onboarding?
• Who can they ask questions about what? 
• What goals do you want to set for/with them?
• How will you measure onboarding success?
• At which points will you check in with the new hire to see how they’re adjusting, review their performance and align their goals?

Once you have the answers to these questions, you can start designing a more effective onboarding process that focuses on promoting employee success and fostering company loyalty instead of putting all the emphasis on compliance.

Tips for Effective Onboarding Processes

Hit the Ground Running 

Decrease new hires’ time to productivity through more efficient processes. Early onboarding removes the admin burden and allows the new hire to engage more fully with activities that integrate them into the culture and the actual work. 

Ensure timely completion of forms and facilitate digital signing. You can easily send all the necessary documents prior to a new hire’s starting date and send automated reminders to ensure that their documents are completed before they start. 

Make it Personal

Instead of isolating your new hire with a stack of paperwork in their first days, design engagement activities to help get them up to speed. 

Make It Digital

Digital content such as onboarding videos, quizzes, and other interactive activities can be immensely useful for onboarding and allows your new hire to get started before their first day. You could include a dashboard that tracks all the tasks to be completed, including forms like W-4, I-9, employee information, contract, non-compete form, non-disclosure agreements, payroll, benefits, 90-day goal sheets, etc.

Facilitate Integration

Make it easier for new employees to discover company culture and socialize with coworkers by getting them set up on company communication tools as soon as possible. 

Show Care

Make new hires feel welcome through small thoughtful gestures such as welcoming them with a small gift such as flowers or a company sweatshirt – and don’t forget to celebrate milestones such as work anniversaries. 

Manage Change

Be sure to talk to the rest of the team about your hiring decisions. Keep the existing team informed about the new role, responsibilities, and hierarchies to prevent resentment, particularly with regard to team members with closely related work.

Automate It

When onboarding processes are overly reliant on human intervention, it’s easy for steps to get forgotten. Whether it’s a missing document or a skipped training module, mistakes in the onboarding process can have serious repercussions.

Designing a Digitally-Driven Onboarding Process

In our increasingly digital world, people have come to expect seamless digital experiences that simplify their lives. Onboarding should be no different. With the technology available to allow us to automate entire workflows for greater efficiency, it’s surprising that this is still such an analog process for so many companies.

1. Do Your Research

Audit your existing new hire onboarding practices to identify areas where you can improve the onboarding process. Speak to recent hires about their onboarding experience to find out what worked as well as where the gaps were.

2. Make a Plan

Now that you have a better idea of the current state of your onboarding processes, decide what you would like your onboarding process to achieve, and what needs to happen for it to get there. 

3. Map Your Processes 

Make a list of all of the steps involved in onboarding new hires. First focus on the standard onboarding that all new hires receive (HR and IT setup, furniture and supplies provisioning, company culture, security enrolment, etc.), before making additional lists for each role (role-specific training, meetings, etc.). 

Next, identify which of these steps can be completed prior to the new hire’s first day, and create a schedule for the other steps. Try to stagger training in a manageable flow and plan in activities to break it up a bit. Your new employee will retain much more information if they’re not overwhelmed. 

Next, create a flow diagram using all of these steps, including all of the tasks that need to be completed prior to the employee’s arrival. 

4. Automate Your Onboarding Workflows

Once you have a flow diagram that maps out every step involved, you can automate much of the admin involved in onboarding, to create a standard, consistent onboarding process that runs like clockwork. Set up automated reminders for each step in the process to ensure that no step is left out.

Using intuitive, visual HR workflow software like frevvo’s, you can set up automated notifications to ensure that steps are completed in a timely manner. But most importantly, you design your own forms with its no-code dynamic form builder and automatically route forms and tasks to the next person as the previous task is completed, ensuring a smooth and efficient process. 

You can also set up rules that allow you to make certain steps conditional on the completion of others, or create conditions under which the workflow changes to include different steps (specific documents, training modules, lunch with a specific team member, introductory meetings, etc.) according to the individual’s department or role.

Try frevvo’s employee onboarding software free for 30 days to see how easy it can be to create an onboarding process fit for the digital age.

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