What Should You Consider When Selecting an Onboarding Solution? Here’s What One Company Did.

For the third straight year, HR leaders (47 percent) rank employee retention and turnover as the top workforce management challenge, according to the 2018 SHRM/Globoforce Employee Recognition Report.

Considering the following statistics from the Work Institute’s 2018 Recognition Report, it’s easy to see why:

One in four U.S. employees (42 million) are expected to leave their jobs in 2018.
Turnover is expected to cost U.S. employers $600 billion in 2018, with the cost expected to increase to $680 billion by 2020.

The good news: employers have the ability to sharply reduce turnover. Seventy-seven percent of turnover can be prevented by employers, the Work Institute determined.

Improving onboarding, or “the new-hire experience” as it is also often called, is one of the most important turnover-reducing actions employers can take. A poor onboarding experience is cited first among reasons for leaving a job within six months. Meanwhile, 76 percent of HR leaders say their companies underutilize onboarding, a Kronos and Human Capital Institute survey reveals.

Selecting an Onboarding Solution: A Case Study

The statistics above show the broader context driving interest in onboarding and in onboarding technologies that help ensure consistent experiences for new hires.

It’s important, however, for employers to understand their unique onboarding goals and challenges to get the best results from onboarding and onboarding technologies.

Let’s look at how a leading national drug store and pharmacy chain evaluated its new-hire experience with its onboarding objectives and used them to evaluate and select a solution. Perhaps it will help you in your own solution evaluation process.

Understand Priorities and Key Factors

Seeking to boost new-hire retention and increase productivity, the national drug store and pharmacy chain sought a new onboarding technology solution. It identified the following two key objectives:

To provide the 15,000 to 20,000 participating new hires annually with a consistent, quality onboarding experience.
To measure new hires’ engagement, especially during their first few months.

Based on these priorities, it needed a solution that went beyond managing and tracking orientation activities, such as form-signing. Ultimately, several factors contributed to choosing to select Connect the Dots’ building connections®, a comprehensive web-based onboarding tool. Let’s examine them.

Holistic — building connections® takes a holistic approach to onboarding, providing resources to teach the new hire about the company culture, helping develop a deeper connection between the hiring manager and the new hire, and engaging the HR partner in the process.
Flexibility — The national drug store and pharmacy chain wanted hiring managers to drive its onboarding process, not HR as is more common. building connections® had the flexibility to make that possible.
Branding — The solution’s onboarding technology can be branded, allowing the national drug store and pharmacy chain’s new hires to experience it as being from its brand.
Prestart — The national drug store and pharmacy chain liked the ability to begin onboarding activities before new hires’ first day. Such prestart activities can include welcoming new hires on video, giving new hires information about the culture, and having new hires take a short survey that helps hiring managers learn about them.
Reporting — The ability to provide engagement data as well as completion data was a key consideration for the national drug store and pharmacy chain in its onboarding technology selection.
Roles and Responsibilities — A common onboarding challenge is determining and maintaining the roles and responsibilities for both HR partners and hiring managers. Connect the Dots works with the client to identify roles and responsibilities to avoid toes being stepped on and key tasks not being completed on time.
Affordability/Price Structure — Cost matters. One plus for the national drug store and pharmacy chain is, unlike most onboarding solutions, pricing for building connections® isn’t determined by participant totals.
Consulting — Connect the Dots consultants are teaching the national drug store and pharmacy chain to take a blended approach for its new-hire experience that combines technology with in-person onboarding. While onboarding technology is a vital tool for midsize and larger companies, it’s critical to not rely entirely upon it. Ultimately, onboarding is a people challenge and process, and activities like coaching, feedback, and mentoring are all important for helping new hires feel valued and to have long, successful stays with the organization.

For more information about building connections®, visit http://www.connectthedotsconsulting.com/building-connections.

What Should You Consider When Selecting an Onboarding Solution? Here’s What One Company Did.