Collate the documents. Check. Find the fastest way to reach via public transport. Check. Carefully read the offer letter (again). Check. This is what an individual usually follows before joining an organization. Now in the modern corporate setup, it goes without saying that processes are usually in place for employee onboarding.
Remember, just the way an employer forms the first impression of the employee, an employee too does the same. Therefore, it is imperative that as an organization, regardless of its size, always have a process when onboarding an employee. Small errors can send out a wrong message, and may even snowball into a big crisis, especially when it’s related to your brand image as an employer. For example, if you hire an experienced employee who can go into the battle directly on the first day and you don’t have the right tools ready, it could lead to irritability. Many organizations ensure that a working PC/phone is ready before the employee joins.
Ditto with the employee handbook! Again, here you got to ensure that the latest information about your rules, procedures, and policies are mentioned in the welcome document. It’s always a good practice to communicate policies in writing. In case you are bootstrapping, you can always have a common email that you can forward to the new joinee. This is something that most HR management software are now addressing. On sumHR too, we have made it a point to enable HR managers to upload important documents for employee reference, especially the new joinees.
It is a known fact that different people have different personalities (we will discuss this in detail in a future post), and you will need to keep this in mind when onboarding an employee. Though most companies have a flat-structure these days, it is important to inform new employees about the hierarchy. Again this is something that we intuitively addressed via the Company Directory feature in sumHR.
Coming to the formalities, the most basic task is the collection of documents and employee profiles. At sumHR, we already solved that problem by having an Employee Profile feature that lets the individual fill the form online. He or she can even import data from LinkedIn. One thing that this does is saves the HR executive’s time and she doesn’t have to act as a data entry operator. Another thing that was added was a document uploader. This saves the time of the new employee as well as the HR. An individual just has to scan his/her documents and upload it! As an organisation, you are saving paper, and this is something that can be used as a part of CSR.
All in all, employers should know that it is the ‘Human’ part in Human Resources, which is the most important. Successful companies are the ones who not only create value for their external customers but also their internal customers (read: employees). And one of the most important tool for the modern HR manager is an HRMS, such as sumHR.
Use the comment section below to describe about your first day or how you onboard an employee.
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