4 Simple Ways to Cut the Clutter During Onboarding

October 2, 2015

The first few weeks of your new hire’s experience could make or break his or her success and commitment to the organization.


In fact, 22% of employees leave an organization within the first 45 days, according to TalentWise’s report titled The Candidate Experience: Why Retention Starts With The Offer Letter.


“A good experience will give an employer a start on building employee loyalty – but a poor experience will almost certainly have a new hire start thinking about other options and resuming a job search,” the report states.


Every new hire needs resources when starting a new job, but an organization should not overload the new employee with tons of paperwork and training manuals on the first day.


Here are some ways HR can create a clutter-free experience when onboarding new employees:



  1. Allow employees to pre-board online at home.

New hires should be able to dive into their job tasks right away. Their first day shouldn’t be consumed by filling out paperwork for HR and administrative-related tasks, especially when these things can be completed at home, prior to starting.


Allow new hires to complete mundane paperwork, like tax and benefits forms, when the employee is at home and has access to all relevant information.



  1. Eliminate the paper in paperwork.

Streamline the paperwork process by allowing them to complete the paperwork digitally. With the right document automation software, you can set fields to help guide new hires with what needs to be filled-in and signed where. Here’s an example of how we use this feature in PandaDoc:



Using document automation can also expedite each step in the paperwork process from easier completion to simple storage, with automatic uploading to the appropriate folder in an HR platform, through integration.



  1. Commission expert employees to create beautiful, interactive training guides.

Organizations can leverage the knowledge of their existing employees to train new hires by creating engaging, interactive guides. Employees can use images, videos, and custom company collateral to build training resources. Make your training documents easy to navigate by including a sidebar with a table of contents.


On a smart document management platform, like PandaDoc for example, managers can use analytics to see which documents are opened and when. Managers can ensure new hires are on track with training by seeing how long they spend reviewing documents and which videos they watch.



  1. Store resources on the cloud.

New hires can access training materials, guides, and other resources easily from anywhere using a cloud storage platform. Not only that, but a content library makes it easy to build new documents if something new is needed quickly.


For example, Sam just started three days ago and needs to build a new proposal from scratch. No one is around to help him at the moment. Instead of opening a clunky training manual, he can easily search the proposal database for examples and build a new one using content in the content library, like in the example shown below.



Employee turnover is expensive and has a significant effect on morale. That’s why you should do everything you can to ensure your new hires feel welcome and give them the resources they need to be successful. If they succeed, you do too!


What are some other ways to streamline onboarding new employees? Share in the comments below!

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