Job candidates put a lot of time, effort and thought into their applications. Unfortunately, it’s not unusual for employers to take longer than appropriate to respond. Some may fail to send a follow-up at all. It’s actions like these that can negatively impact the candidate experience and cause a ripple effect throughout your recruiting and hiring process.
Providing a positive candidate experience is paramount to earning trust among applicants and candidates. When they feel heard and that their time is appreciated, they may be more likely to champion your organization — even if they’re rejected.
In this guide, we’re spilling our secrets on how to improve the candidate experience — from application to orientation and integration — while also boosting engagement to increase candidate quality, employee retention and more.
What Is Candidate Engagement?
Candidate engagement refers to the process of building and maintaining meaningful and positive interactions between your company or organization and individuals who are potential candidates for job openings.
The recruitment process involves a few core components, each critical to its overall success:
Communication
Personalization
Consistency
Feedback
Transparency
The goal of candidate engagement, beyond providing an engaging and constructive experience for potential hires, is to attract and retain top talent at higher rates. While that is the main goal, it’s also the main benefit of having a candidate engagement strategy and workflow in place — but it’s far from the only perk.
Here’s a tip on what not to do:
(source: https://twitter.com/Adam_Karpiak)
The Benefits of High Candidate Engagement
With a robust and positive candidate engagement strategy, employers are bound to notice more than a few benefits, such as:
Higher application rates: When word gets out that your company has stellar hiring practices, candidates may be more likely to apply. Why? Because they know their time will be respected, expectations will be made clear and communication will take priority.
A boost in offer acceptance rates:Nearly half of candidates report declining a job offer solely because they had a bad interview encounter. To lower that number, organizations need to emphasize the candidate experience by engaging early and often throughout the hiring process.
Better employee retention: The more engaged employees are during the interview phases of recruiting, the more questions they’ll ask about your company, values and culture. That makes it easier to find not only a qualified candidate but one that’s also a great culture fit.
The Problems With the Engagement Process
While the benefits are there for the taking, legacy hiring processes and poor recruitment practices stand in the way of constructive change. Before we highlight the trimmings of a positive candidate engagement framework, let’s have a look at some of recruiting’s infamous complications, i.e., stuff to avoid:
Long application processes: Leaving applicants in limbo for too long is a bad habit. In fact, long-winded recruitment processes are leading to a rise in “ghosting” between applicants and employers. (See the earlier meme)
Lack of communication or one-way communication: Oftentimes, there are no defined channels of communication where the applicant is able to contact the recruiter about their application, leading to one-way “conversations” that feel disingenuous. This has become a problem to the point that 50% of applicants lose interest in a job when communication with the hiring manager is poor.
Unclear information and untimely updates: Ambiguous job descriptions and hazy or wholly undefined next steps in the hiring process lead to a less-than-ideal recruiting practice. And, untimely updates about the status of candidates’ applications can leave a bad taste in their mouths. According to a recent study, 56% of candidates say they’re willing to walk away from a lucrative opportunity if job expectations are unclear or unreasonable.
These common issues stand in the way of qualified and talented candidates who, because of the bad experience, may choose to decline an offer if one is eventually made. Plus, if the experience was sub-par enough, they may even spread the word to others who will look at your organization differently moving forward.
So, what is required for a positive candidate experience?
Fostering Candidate Engagement Through a Positive Hiring Experience
There are a few non-negotiables when building a healthy recruitment process designed to heighten the candidate experience:
Clear and timely communication
Defined job responsibilities
An understanding and respect for candidates’ time
A smooth, prompt and unambiguous application process
There are more than a few ways to achieve these critical aspects in your hiring process, but the two that stand out most are: Having the right technology in place to facilitate your recruitment efforts. And, training your talent acquisition team to abide by best practices and your outlined engagement strategy to maximize candidate experiences.
That’s all good and well, but what’s the nitty gritty of a positive experience? What specific actions are required on the part of the talent acquisition team to uphold a high standard? And, what are the characteristics of effective candidate engagement?
The recruitment process should be:
Exciting: Every employer brand is unique, and so too should be their hiring processes. What makes you stand out as an organization? What’s your culture like?
Straightforward: Providing candidates with an idea or roadmap of how the process will unfold, and following through, establishes credibility and trust.
Informative: Sending confirmation emails that highlight important timelines or decisions, as well as providing feedback on how candidates performed during an interview, are great examples of the types of information that are valued by applicants throughout the hiring process.
How Technology Can Optimize Candidate Engagement
Thankfully, building a robust talent acquisition process that fosters a positive experience doesn’t have to mean a ton of manual labor and training. Recruitment technology, like ApplicantStack, makes it easier to attract, manage, analyze and convert potential candidates. Here’s how:
Applicant Tracking System
Our applicant tracking system is designed with ease and automation in mind. Use the feedback tab to easily keep track of interview notes, and take advantage of the questionnaire feature to swiftly complete interviews and reference checks.
Additionally, using knockout questions makes it easier to pre-screen candidates by automatically eliminating those who don’t meet the minimum requirements, helping your hiring manager save time.
Candidate Management
Today’s highly competitive hiring environment calls for efficiency and quickness. Candidate management built into ApplicantStack allows hiring managers to do everything from accepting SMS text applications from candidates to providing an at-glance view of applicant status to keep the process moving along seamlessly.
Plus, candidate texting is a two-way street. Maintain engagement by reaching out to candidates directly on their phones — and allowing them to do the same with their recruiter.
Onboarding
Great — you’ve extended an offer of employment to a candidate in record time while providing a positive experience for them throughout the recruitment process. Now, the task is to maintain that remarkable experience during onboarding.
ApplicantStack’s onboarding software brings every integral aspect of the process together in one place. Import hires, upload forms, create tasks, e-sign documents, set reminders and more. And, you can even export data and download reports to gain a comprehensive understanding of how your onboarding process is going, so you can set new goals, make necessary changes and more.
Improve Your Hiring Process
Making a good first impression on candidates is imperative. A lackluster hiring process and tedious, manual workflows could mean that you’re, essentially, rejecting qualified candidates before they’re even given a chance.
Ready to make better, more informed hiring decisions by managing candidates and providing a world-class experience? Start a free trial today.
Finding and bringing on top talent can feel like a full-time job, especially in a competitive labor market. But one thing that can help your organization stand out from others in your industry is establishing a unique selling proposition. Explore the meaning of a unique selling proposition and its purpose, especially in the recruiting process.
What is a USP? Unique Selling Proposition Definition and Purpose
A unique selling proposition (USP) is a concept that communicates and identifies the compelling benefits of a specific organization or brand. Its purpose is to set the company apart from competitors, particularly in the minds of consumers. But beyond the selling advantage that a strong USP can provide, crafting one can also play a role in recruiting efforts.
An organization’s USP should include the following components:
The unique benefit offered by the brand, including what makes its products or services different from others.
Relevant messaging that speaks to the target audience members, addressing their specific wants and needs and explaining why the brand matters.
Differentiation that helps the brand stand out from competitors, emphasizing why consumers should choose its products or services.
Language that makes it memorable, easy to remember, and simple to understand.
Support for any claims made, such as social proof or evidence, to strengthen brand trust and credibility among those who read it.
Incorporating your USP in a consistent manner can reinforce the unique positioning and get the word out about what you’re trying to achieve.
USP vs. EVP: Differences and Why You Need Both in Recruiting
We recently covered the importance of an employer value proposition (EVP) on our blog, going into detail about its importance in the recruiting process. But you may be wondering, how do the two differ?
Ultimately, an EVP outlines what you offer as an employer, while the USP defines what the company provides to its customers. But the two go hand-in-hand in modern recruiting efforts, as over 80 percent of employees are looking for jobs that align with their personal values. Jobseekers may look at what you claim to offer as the employer, as well as your statement around what the organization offers to its target audience.
The Benefits of a Solid USP for Business and Recruiting
Review some of the benefits of a solid USP in your business and recruiting efforts.
A clear USP supports your brand mission and values
Part of establishing your company culture is creating the brand mission and values. Your unique selling proposition should support these aspects of the brand and its efforts to make a difference in the industry in which it operates. Your USP can also serve as a vital aspect of the brand identity and foster long-term loyalty when paired with strong values and a mission that appeals to the target audience.
A defined USP makes it easy for employees to talk about your solutions
Your employees should feel confident when facing questions about what sets your organization and its products or services apart from others in the industry. But without a clearly defined USP, existing team members and potential new hires may not know the answers to even the most frequently asked questions. When crafting a USP, consider how it can clearly define what sets your brand apart for someone who may not be familiar with the industry.
A meaningful USP can resonate with prospects who support your cause
Emphasizing the reason behind what your organization does can resonate with those who support the cause. This is also true of those who may be seeking employment with a business that aligns with their personal views.
The Parts of a Selling Proposition
As you consider how to craft a unique selling proposition that captures what sets your business apart, think about how the following four parts fit.
What it is
First up: What is your unique selling proposition? What makes your brand different from others in the space, and how do your products or services differ or add value? You need to clearly state what the proposition is when defining it.
Who it’s for
The next aspect to consider is who you’re speaking to when repeating or sharing your USP. Figuring this part out might require some research on the target audience, or who your products/services are geared toward in the market. As you identify members of the target audience, you can determine how to speak to them in a way that resonates while clearly defining what to expect.
What it solves
A USP should also identify the problems solved by the business and its offerings. For example, if your company offers housecleaning services, the USP might describe the struggles with maintaining a clean home and how your team members can make it easier to achieve that goal.
The unique point: How is it different from others?
Of course, any business can describe what it does and the problems it solves, but that doesn’t necessarily help it to stand out. The key aspect of your USP is the unique aspect, or what sets it apart from others offering similar products or services. Consider what makes your offering different and craft a statement that clearly defines the value proposition.
How to Develop (and Improve) Your Unique Selling Proposition
With a better grasp on what a USP looks like and how it fits with your employee value proposition, you can follow these steps to ensure a well-crafted statement.
Define target market: As mentioned, the first step is defining who fits into your target market. You might consider creating personas to assign characteristics to different members of the ideal audience, as well as look at what these individuals are usually searching for to solve their concerns.
Identify what makes your product/service unique: You need to be able to clearly define what is unique about what your brand offers, whether that’s lower pricing, more personalized service, or something else. Without this aspect, your USP is simply a proposition around what you sell.
Position your USP to highlight benefits: When positioning your USP, consider how you can highlight the benefits of what you offer and how they serve the best interests of both the target consumer and those who work for the brand.
Make your USP clear and concise: Eliminate any unnecessary language to keep your USP as concise and easy to understand as possible.
Test and revise your USP: It’s always worthwhile to test any marketing strategies on members of your target audience, so try launching the USP in your ad campaigns, social profiles and other efforts to see how it resonates with those who see it.
Promote your USP: It’s also worth spending some time and money to promote the USP and make sure all members of the target audience are aware of and familiar with it. Additionally, you can promote it internally with existing employees and in recruiting efforts to ensure a consistent message.
How to Communicate Your USP
Utilizing multiple channels to communicate your USP will help generate more brand awareness and loyalty.
Advertising
No matter what advertising efforts your company uses, make sure the USP comes through consistently. Traditional media and brand marketing campaigns can always benefit from the addition of points that communicate the value and uniqueness of what the business offers. After all, the average person receives 121 emails per day, and a significant chunk of those are promotional in nature. You need to determine how to stand out if you want your efforts to get noticed.
Social media
As you engage with users through social media platforms, consider how your outreach efforts can incorporate and communicate your USP. By doing so, you can ensure that even passersby are familiar with what the brand stands for and why a consumer should choose you over others in the industry.
Content marketing
Content marketing is a valuable tool for communicating a brand’s USP because it allows marketers to go into more detail. You might create blog posts around specific pain points, tying in the selling proposition when identifying how your products or services solve those issues.
Digital marketing
Your company’s digital marketing efforts should also reflect the USP, including website taglines, ad copy and headlines, and even the design elements when possible.
Recruitment marketing
When recruiting, your company needs to clearly define what sets it apart in the market to encourage jobseekers to choose to work there. Incorporating both the employer value proposition and the USP can help you achieve this goal while helping potential applicants determine whether the company aims align with their desires for a workplace.
Examples of Effective USPs
Need some inspiration? Check out these effective unique selling propositions from well-known companies.
Coca-Cola: Refresh the world. Make a difference.
FedEx: When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.
Nike: Bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world. If you have a body, you are an athlete.
The North Face: Shaping the future of human/nature.
Shopify: The platform commerce is built on.
Stripe: Payments infrastructure for the internet.
By making the effort to create and refine your brand’s USP, you can improve your positioning in the market while boosting recruitment efforts. Attracting top talent is a shared goal of recruiters and hiring managers, regardless of industry or company size, so any competitive advantage you can gain is certainly worth pursuing to build strong, successful teams.
Employee onboarding is critical to the quality of your company’s services. However, many companies underestimate the power of a well-thought-out employee integration strategy and suffer the consequences as a result.
According to a CareerBuilder survey, one in three employers don’t have a structured onboarding process, and a substantial number reported to have experienced costly repercussions. The absence of onboarding frameworks has also negatively impacted company performance, including:
Decreased productivity (16%)
Greater inefficiencies (14%)
Bad employee retention (12%)
Lower team morale (11%)
Weak employee engagement (10%)
Declining confidence from workers (10%)
Lack of trust within the organization (7%)
Missed revenue targets (6%)
That’s why it’s essential to harness your onboarding to ensure your incoming employees feel supported, confident and engaged from the moment they begin their roles. Implementing a strong new hire orientation plan is the first step to achieving more from your business.
Here, we’ll cover everything you need to know about planning and executing a successful orientation. Let’s get started!
The Importance of New Hire Orientation
It’s key to understand that new employee orientation slightly differs from onboarding. Onboarding is an ongoing operation that’s put in place to support hires from the recruiting stage until they have settled into their positions. This period may last around 30 days to three months. However, orientation acts as a component of the larger onboarding process.
Orientations are typically one-time events that take place on employees’ first days of work. They aim to provide new employees with a high-level overview of your organization, its managerial structure and the relevant teams. These occasions give businesses the opportunity to make a great first impression that lasts throughout their employee journey.
A successful orientation should achieve the following:
Make Employees Feel Welcome
Being the new starter isn’t always easy, and for many, integrating within a foreign working environment alongside a team of strangers can bring nerves and tension. As the initial experience for new staff members, orientations should make participants feel comfortable and reassured in their new positions.
Boost Engagement
Employee orientation programs assist recent hires in their work environments by providing key information and introducing them to their new colleagues. Giving them the resources they need early on in their journey can increase engagement by keeping them informed, making for a happy, confident and established member of the team.
Outline Expectations
Regardless of your new employee’s current experience, it’s essential to set them up for success within your institution. Aim to specifically customize your new hire orientation to fit the role you’ve hired for. Tailoring your approach will help ensure they’re aware of their responsibilities and obtain the appropriate information and resources to perform well in their job.
Reduce Employee Turnover
When all is said and done, a key focus of your orientation should be to retain the employees you’ve hired. Employees who feel the onboarding process has prepared them for their new jobs, instilled confidence and made them feel like valued assets are more likely to stay within their roles.
What To Include in New Hire Orientation
The style and approach of your staff orientation program will likely depend on varying factors, such as your organization, industry and the vacancies you’ve filled. However, there are a few elements that should be covered in all cases. Here are some key areas that need to be included as part of your orientation.
Company Culture, Mission and Values
Joining employees should know the core values of your organization to understand business goals, working according to that mantra. For example, if you’re a recruitment agency that prioritizes acquiring experienced tech-focused candidates and a new hire’s previous company had high volumes of applicants, this difference would have a direct impact on your quality of customer service. That’s why it’s essential to share the specific mission of your business.
Management Introduction
Providing a walkthrough of your organization’s management chart is imperative to successful onboarding. Introduce incoming employees to the structure of executive leaders and managers within your company. It may also be beneficial to incorporate prominent executives into your new hire orientation schedule. This will allow leaders to introduce themselves in person and share valuable information about the company. If schedules are too tight, creating a welcome video or squeezing in a 10-minute video call are other routes to take.
Department-Specific Information
To ensure new hires have what they need to start off on the right foot, they’ll need to receive the necessary departmental information relevant to their role. This can include contact information, building layouts and file storage.
Company Policies and Procedures
Several policies and procedures must be explained early on in staff training. A few policies to cover in your orientation may include:
Safety and security procedures
Paid time off (PTO)
Equal employment opportunity (EEO) policies
Other relevant company policies
These areas should be covered in your employee handbook, so ensure you offer each new hire a paper or digital copy of this guide. Once the orientation is complete, get all joining team members to sign an acknowledgment stating that they received and reviewed the handbook as part of their new hire welcome package.
It’s also good to inform employees of their compensation and outline any benefits packages that they’re entitled to, such as healthcare, retirement plans, supplied equipment or wellness support.
Best Practices for New Hire Orientation
After creating an excellent candidate experience, it’s important to maintain your new hire’s satisfaction by following these best practices. To ensure you develop a successful new hire orientation, we’ve listed some best practices to keep in mind.
Pick the right time
Strategize the time and day of your new hire orientation based on your company’s day-to-day functionality. For example, if Wednesdays and Fridays are busier than other days, aim to onboard hires and host orientation sessions earlier in the week. Making informed scheduling decisions will enable you to focus on your new recruits and minimize the likelihood of distraction.
Share your onboarding agenda
Clearly formatted agendas will keep employees informed and prepare them for their first week in the new job. Before orientation, email incoming staff with a timetable that breaks down what the beginning of their professional journey will entail. Creating a structured plan helps to ensure the initial onboarding stage goes smoothly and eliminates the unnerving uncertainty of beginning a new role. Including a thoughtful welcome message in your email will also set you up for a strong start.
Encourage interaction
Presentations won’t work well if you’re aiming to engage new employees. Your goal should be to make the orientation process fun and exciting, and engagement goes hand-in-hand with interaction. Aim to incorporate a mix of presentation approaches that require participation, such as
Quizzes
Games
Q&A sessions
Group discussions
Make room for 1:1 time
While orientations may occur in group settings, having one-to-one time with your new hires is crucial. Try to book a slot in the day to meet with new employees individually. This way you can welcome your new hires face-to-face, get to know them on a more personal level and give them the opportunity to share any questions and potential concerns with you.
Leverage Software Solutions
Onboarding software offers businesses an all-encompassing solution that makes a significant impact; simplifying, streamlining and enhancing the entire process. Using this revolutionary tool helps keep all teams in the loop, offers a digital space to keep records organized and eliminates the hassle of paperwork. You can take this a step further by ensuring your hiring software includes onboarding features. Combining the two processes will allow the data to flow, starting from the initial application to the end of the onboarding process, without the need for manual interference.
The Key To Successful Onboarding
Good onboarding tools are invaluable to your business. ApplicantStack is a high-level recruiting and hiring software with onboarding tools built in, allowing you to import new hires into your HR system seamlessly. This comprehensive solution enables you to build bespoke onboarding checklists for each job position and work location, relying on templates and other useful tools to simplify the process.
Take your onboarding to new heights. Sign up for your ApplicantStack free trial today.
Picture this: You’ve just started your new position at a company that provided an exceptional interview experience. They told you that the team you’re joining is full of close-knit, friendly people and assured you that you’d fit in perfectly. But, as your first day draws to an end, all you’ve received is a short name exchange with your new manager and a large pile of important paperwork, leaving you feeling disheartened and unmotivated.
This scenario isn’t uncommon for new staff. According to Officevibe research, 51 percent of employees think their company’s onboarding process could be improved. Insufficient employee onboarding leads to many recent hires actively searching for jobs early on in their role. In fact, over 30 percent of new team members quit their jobs within the first six months of employment, per Zipdo. That’s why it’s vital to ensure your incoming workforce feels welcome and supported.
First Impressions Make a Difference
You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. When employees start their new roles, they’ll most probably be making assessments on their working environment, resource accessibility and the attitudes of their managers and coworkers.
New hires expect a positive journey in the initial stages of their employment and, if they are satisfied with the onboarding stage, your company maintains a higher chance of retaining those workers. Further statistics from Zipdo found that 69 percent of employees were more likely to stay with a company for three years if they received a supportive onboarding experience.
With onboarding having such a strong influence on employee retention, it’s important to put processes in place to ensure new hires feel valued and recognized early on in their employee journey.
Formulating a Welcome Package
Once you’ve made the right hires, it’s essential to enhance the employee experience to retain those valuable workers. Sending a welcome packet is an excellent way to please recent hires and help them feel comfortable on their first day. But what is a welcome letter or package?
A new employee welcome letter should aim to:
Evoke a response that gives an employee the sense that they’re going to be happy in their new working environment. Instead of keeping your wording plain and professional, use friendly language to communicate this effectively.
Inspire new hires to make their mark on the company. Let them know that your organization encourages employees to share their ideas and is willing to take on new perspectives.
Empower those who have recently started their roles. Provide them with opportunities to integrate with other staff members.
Assure workers that their teams are there to support them whenever they need it. Encourage them to ask questions and share any frustrations they may experience to achieve a resolution.
Inform new employees of the staff structure and where to find the best training resources. Without telling employees vital information, how are they supposed to know where to look? Make sure to handle this early on in their journey.
When forming a welcome message, it’s important to cover the following information as part of your new employee orientation to ensure they have everything they need when starting their role. This can include:
Necessary contacts: Share the necessary contact information, such as emails and phone numbers, of the people that incoming employees can rely on for assistance during their onboarding period.
Benefits package: An essential part of welcome messages is to inform new hires of the benefits packages in place to support them and their personal needs.
Resources information: Let employees know where to access your company’s internal systems, including employee handbooks, email systems and file storage.
Company dress code: Provide your organization’s expectations for business-appropriate clothing and workplace behavior.
When to Send a Welcome Message
After an applicant accepts a job offer, you can plan to send a welcome message right away. Providing the new hire with as much information as possible in advance of their first day can make a big difference in easing their anxiety and helping them feel more confident about starting a new role.
5 Welcome Message Examples
To help you draft your welcome messages, we’ve provided some inspiration on the myriad of variables to consider. Here are five possible approaches, each with its own new employee welcome letter template.
Casual
What to include:
When forming a casual welcome message, aim to use colloquial language to connect with your new hire. This ensures you come across as personable and approachable.
Also, make sure to invite your new hires to any internal events that could help them get to know the team. This will promote a positive company culture and show that your business nurtures their social well-being.
Sample welcome letter:
Hey [name]:
We just heard the news that our company has hired a wonderful employee to join the team, and guess what? That’s you! Welcome to [company name]!
Feel free to come along to [takeout Tuesday] in [room 3B] tomorrow lunchtime. Pizzas on us!
Remote Employee
What to include:
For remote employees, you should aim to recognize their position. Avoid referencing working from home with negative connotations. Instead, initially welcome them as you would other employees and offer the necessary resources to get started with onboarding. Deliver helpful documents and links that might be relevant to their first day, such as a video call or training videos.
Sample welcome letter:
Hi [name],
Welcome from afar! A huge congratulations on your new role. We’re so excited to have you as part of the team. We know you’ll make an excellent addition to [company name].
We understand that you’ll be fulfilling your duties remotely, so we’ve provided you with our [“No Place Like Home”] onboarding package! This will help you learn a bit more about our remote support systems and the structure of our organization.
Get in touch if you have any questions and we look forward to seeing you later today.
Here’s the meeting link: [Meeting link]
Newly Relocated Employee
What to include:
Sending a welcome email to your recently relocated employees will demonstrate your company’s ability to nurture their well-being. If you have benefit systems in place to support your mobile workforce, outline these in your welcome message. Likewise, provide an allocated human resources (HR) contact for them to reach out to if they require assistance.
Sample welcome letter:
[Regionally specific greeting, e.g., bonjour]!
Welcome abroad! We hope you’re settling well into your new home. Don’t forget to check out our [employee relocation] package for support to help you seamlessly integrate into the [country] office.
If you need help and advice, feel free to contact [HR professional] at any time. Here’s their email: [contact information]
Fun Team Email
What to include:
Fun team emails are a great way to inform the whole office about the new hire’s first day. Try gathering some hobbies and interests from the incoming employee before they join and use them to create interesting talking points for bonding opportunities. Also, include the office in which they’re based to encourage current employees to introduce themselves. This email celebrates your new hire on their first day, making them feel valued and appreciated off the bat.
Sample welcome letter:
Oh, haven’t you heard?
We have an excellent addition to [company name] joining us today! We’re delighted to introduce [full name] to the team. Here are a few fun facts about [first name]:
[They love cats and have their own furry friend called Tabitha]
[They enjoy painting in their spare time]
[Their favorite ice cream flavor is mint chocolate chip]
They’re currently in [office room location]. Drop in and say hi when you get the chance!
From HR manager
What to include:
When hearing from an HR manager, it’s good for them to offer themselves as a support touchpoint for the new hire. Additionally, make sure to provide the contact information of relevant managers that can assist them with any questions that arise. This will ensure they don’t feel alone in their role and are supported by various team members in the onboarding process.
Sample welcome letter:
Hello [name],
Welcome aboard! We’re absolutely thrilled to have you join the team. We know you’ll be a valuable asset to our company, and we can’t wait to see all that you’ll achieve.
Feel free to reach out to myself or [manager’s name] with any questions you may have.
[Contact information]
Start Off on the Right Foot With ApplicantStack
Exceptional onboarding gives you a significant competitive advantage, and the benefits to your organization and the new hires are evident. If your company doesn’t utilize applicant-tracking systems, ApplicantStack, a powerful hiring solution, can give you what you need to streamline your onboarding and enhance the employee experience.
ApplicantStack plays a pivotal role in shaping a positive brand image with personalized onboarding and with speedy feedback from your team. Harness the power of ApplicantStack to elevate your recruitment processes to secure an experienced, diverse and highly skilled workforce that will take your business to new heights. Additionally, the onboarding tools built into the platform will keep everyone on the same page while providing a consistent experience to every new hire.
Start your ApplicantStack free trial now and explore how you can enhance your onboarding management.
Managing onboarding documents isn’t always straightforward. For many, it involves handling uncoordinated paper forms, PDFs and printouts. Some companies have updated their processes to include shared drives and folders in an attempt to adapt to new technological systems. But, if your onboarding document management isn’t seamless and intuitive, it can cause inefficiencies and delays down the line.
In this guide, we’ll list the essential new hire onboarding documentation, establish the importance of these documents and explore solutions for how to manage them effectively.
What are Onboarding Documents?
As an essential aspect of the onboarding process, onboarding documents allow organizations to collect required information and share information that you must make new employees aware of early on in their journey with your company. Often, these documents are presented shortly after a new hire as accepted their job offer or on their first day. The process involves the employee reading, acknowledging and sometimes signing forms to begin their role.
Onboarding documents should cover informative resources about their entitlements, such as benefits and pensions, as well as the institution itself. This can include a layout of the office building, compliance regulations like confidentiality agreements and data security policies. To help you remember the key aspects of onboarding, follow the 5 C’s rule.
The 5 C’s of onboarding are:
Compliance: Policies and regulations
Clarification: Job expectations
Culture: Values and norms
Connection: Networking and relationship building
Check-back: Feedback and ongoing support
New workers might receive onboarding documentation in the form of digital attachments, links to shared documents or physical paperwork. For effective distribution, well-structured administrative systems must be in place that make the task simple for both HR members and the recent hire.
Before considering documentation management, it’s important to understand exactly what new employees need to get off on the right foot. Below, we’ve provided a comprehensive walkthrough of the onboarding documentation required when taking on new hires.
4 Main Types of Onboarding Documents
There are four main kinds of onboarding documents of which to take note when hiring. Make sure to get in touch with your HR team and hiring managers to ensure you have all the essential onboarding documents necessary for incoming employees.
1. Legal Forms
Required legal documents for new hires depend on the country in which your employees operate. For example, U.S. employees on a fixed salary must complete W-4 tax forms. Be sure to provide contractors and other non-permanent employees with information for legal forms within the onboarding documentation. Despite the distinct regional variations, they should cover the employment necessities, including:
Taxes
Healthcare
Working hours
Salary information
Employment eligibility form
Different types of leave (such as paid leave and sick leave)
Criminal background checks
Drug tests
Liability waivers
2. Job-Specific Documents
As part of the onboarding journey, job-specific forms are the main documents you’ll need to deliver to new hires, starting with the transition from candidate to employee.
Job offer letter: An offer letter should provide a brief overview of the new position and formally extend a job offer in writing. Some job offers may include a welcome message, start date, and next steps for new hires, whereas others may await confirmation before delivering this information.
Employment contract form: The employment contract form should outline administrative details surrounding the new position, covering key information such as:
Working hours
Salary
Holidays
Position duties
Company policies
Contract renewal
Termination guidelines
Process manuals: These will provide step-by-step instructions on how to complete various tasks associated with the role. Although process manuals are helpful to new employees, they shouldn’t replace formal training. Instead, they should function as a useful and accessible resource to remind them of what they’ve learned.
Role goals and responsibilities: On top of the other documents, it may be beneficial to provide a document outlining the key responsibilities and details of their new role. This will clearly underscore their main goals and provide best practices for succeeding in the position.
If there’s any information not covered in the job offer letter or employment contract, you can deliver this in another document that details company policies, procedures and expectations.
3. Company-Specific Documents
The internal documents are business materials that support new employees in understanding the organization’s culture, structure and expectations. Internal documentation should aim to establish the process of obtaining company-specific knowledge with a single, clearly laid out platform.
Here are a few ideas to help build an extensive overview of your company’s framework and guidelines.
Employee Handbook:These booklets give insight into the company’s general guidelines, referring to policies and procedures, as well as culture, mission and values. Employee handbooks also help businesses outline any legal procedures. Content can include:
Environmental policies
Ethics policies
Dress code policies
Non-compete agreements
Non-disclosure agreements
Company code of conduct
Your organizational chart: This type of diagram visually displays the managerial hierarchy within the organization. It provides information about various roles, responsibilities and relationships between individuals, which helps new hires identify relevant contacts and familiarize themselves with the team.
Workplace hybridization:Give employees information on their permitted workplace flexibility. Inform them of your company’s hybrid work practices and outline the structure of when they’re able to choose how and where they work.
Policy evaluation forms: Evaluation forms enable managers to assess the strengths, capabilities and progress of their team. Present this to new employees so they’re aware of the assessment criteria.
4. Pay and Compensation Records
Many employment agreements contain payment information and benefits, but this isn’t the case for all contracts. It can be found in other documents, such as:
Pay and compensation plans: Detailed packages that establish an employee’s wages, salary, benefits and terms of payment.
Pension and retirement documentation: Possesses an employee’s social security card information, proof of age, passport images and a full list of previous addresses for proof of identity.
Paid-leave policies: Regulations that entitle workers to paid time off for certain instances, for example, vacation, sickness, family emergency, maternity and grief.
Further pay and compensation documents include:
Direct deposit forms
Healthcare benefit forms
Stock options information
Other benefits documents
When building your policy documents, evaluate which options work best for your business and provide employees with the utmost transparency. This will help support your employee satisfaction.
The Importance of Onboarding Documentation
Official documents underpin a company’s contractual relationship with its employees. Without a formal onboarding process in place, businesses would likely have trouble integrating new hires into their systems and processes, and newly hired employees would struggle to grasp the expectations of their roles and institution. This is certain to cause delays and setbacks that detrimentally impact employee satisfaction.
This documentation mitigates these risks by helping employees manage the realities of their roles, meet targets and obtain full transparency of the services available to them. Additionally, organizations gather the information they require to remain compliant, add employees to the payroll system and enroll new hires into the applicable benefits schemes.
It’s imperative that the onboarding documentation process is streamlined and frictionless to benefit both sides. If not handled appropriately, it can quickly form a bottleneck that impacts business growth, employee retention and the customer journey.
Here are a few ways to level up the onboarding experience for your new hires.
Form a Buddy Program
Forming a buddy system can be a simple way to offer real support for your incoming employees and help them settle into their new teams. A Harvard Business Review study found that new employees assigned a buddy were 23% more satisfied with their onboarding experience compared to those without buddies. After 90 days of working in their new role, results showed a 36% increase in satisfaction.
Assigning a designated employee to answer questions and handle concerns can provide a sense of emotional safety to your new hires. It also gives them a comfortable opportunity to bond with members of the team and integrate into the company.
Optimize Workflows
Onboarding can be an overwhelming and tedious task for both new hires and the HR team. Streamlining workflows to make onboarding more fun and intuitive affirms incoming employees that their company will nurture their well-being. Establishing productivity as your main priority will bode well for your internal brand image.
Make sure your onboarding process doesn’t end after one week. Employees should feel that onboarding is a guided, ongoing journey for seamless integration into their new company, ensuring they’re more than equipped to take on their new responsibilities.
How Do You Manage Onboarding Documents?
Manual onboarding processes lead to vicious cycles of lost productivity and human error. It’s best practice to mitigate this risk by taking advantage of onboarding software. The right solution will keep all your essential documents organized on one comprehensive, secure and easy-to-use platform. That’s where ApplicationStack can help.`
Simplify Onboarding with ApplicantStack by Swipeclock
Utilizing automation capabilities will optimize company time and reduce the number of procedures involved in your onboarding process. Our powerful employee onboarding software lets you:
Manage documents effectively with an extensive onboarding checklist.
Secure important documents with digital employee files.
Streamline the signing stage and reduce physical paperwork with e-signing capabilities.
The Onboard tool is built into our hiring platform that streamlines the entire process of finding and bringing on new hires. Set yourself up for success. Start your ApplicantStack Onboard trial today!
Bringing a new employee onboard is an exciting time for an organization, whether to fill a newly created position or to replace someone who has moved on. But it also comes with some important steps to ensure a positive experience for the new hire. Explore our detailed guide to onboarding that outlines the what, why, and how behind this crucial process.
What is Employee Onboarding?
Let’s start with the what: employee onboarding refers to the process of familiarizing a new hire with the company culture, policies and other details. The purpose behind onboarding is to help an employee feel more comfortable with their role within the company and encourage them to become an effective member of their team.
Boarding a plane can provide a framework for the process. Upon arrival, you typically receive a greeting from a flight attendant or even the pilot, who welcomes you aboard and provides a positive first experience. The flight attendant can direct you to your seat and answer any questions you might have about the upcoming flight.
A new hire should have a similar experience, with someone greeting them upon arrival and serving as their point of contact for questions and concerns. Starting a new job is overwhelming, but proper support goes a long way in alleviating feelings of stress.
Your organization’s onboarding process should seek to achieve the following aims:
Provide guidance about the new hire’s role and responsibilities
Allow the new employee to get comfortable in their work setting, whether in-person or remote
Create opportunities to get to know teammates and each person’s role within the team
Offer insights into the company protocols and policies
Why is Employee Onboarding Vital for Your Business?
The main purpose of onboarding is to create familiarity in new roles while helping newly hired individuals to feel supported, valued and welcomed. Investing in your onboarding process brings many benefits, including reducing the time to productivity, or the amount of time it takes for someone to become familiar enough with their duties to perform them efficiently.
A positive first experience also sets the tone with your company, which can play a role in employee retention and loyalty rates. Employee engagement is another factor impacted by onboarding practices. Failing to onboard someone properly can cause them to feel confused or uncertain about how to perform in their role, resulting in a decline in engagement and productivity.
When your company delivers a smooth and consistent onboarding experience, each new hire gets helpful information they need to do their job. By contrast, a poor experience can encourage an individual to look elsewhere for employment or struggle to become an effective contributor to the company’s goals.
The Benefits of a Great Onboarding Process
As mentioned, a great onboarding process brings many benefits. Review some of the most common ones below.
Increase employee satisfaction and retention
Here’s a statistic that might surprise you: Great onboarding can boost employee retention by 82 percent. According to research performed by the Brandon Hall Group, companies with strong onboarding processes have significantly higher retention and productivity rates. Since turnover is expensive and time-consuming, it’s worth figuring out how to keep your team members.
Employees who are happy in their roles tend to stick around, so this simple process can lead to an increase in both employee satisfaction and retention.
Enhance and instill your organizational culture
The culture of your business influences the atmosphere in the workplace and how team members interact with one another. But if you don’t take the time to educate on the culture when bringing on new hires, they won’t know what to expect. Make sure to include discussions around the organizational culture in your onboarding process. By doing so, you can make sure new employees understand what’s expected and how to collaborate with their teams.
Improve training time and productivity
A strong onboarding process should include plenty of opportunities for training to help each new hire understand their role. According to Glassdoor, newly hired employees need close to 12 months to achieve their full productivity levels. But improving onboarding can decrease the time from hire to full productivity by up to 70 percent.
It makes sense to get your new team members up to speed faster, and doing so can help your bottom line.
Gather feedback for improved processes
The best source of feedback for the success of your onboarding process is the people who are going through it. But without a consistent process in place, you won’t be able to glean much from your new hires. When every employee goes through the same onboarding practices, you can ask what worked and what didn’t, using the information to improve the way you bring on new hires.
The Consequences of Poor Employee Onboarding
Failing to onboard new hires in a consistent and positive way comes with real consequences for your organization. Explore some of the most common drawbacks associated with poor onboarding practices.
Higher employee turnover
High employee turnover is a serious problem that impacts businesses of all sizes and across all industries. Poor retention is expensive and time-consuming, and it can cause employee morale to decline across all teams. When certain employees are constantly left picking up the pieces of high turnover rates, they may look for employment elsewhere. It’s not worth the risk – invest in onboarding and watch retention rates go up.
Confusion and lack of collaboration
When starting a new job, it’s easy for an individual to feel overwhelmed and confused. The goal of onboarding is to mitigate those feelings as much as possible, providing a firm grasp on the person’s role within their department and the company overall. By improving your onboarding process, you can reduce confusion while providing opportunities for collaboration from the start.
Costly mistakes and potential legal issues
Another purpose of onboarding is to demonstrate and outline the company’s commitment to a respectful and positive culture. But failing to do so can cause a drop in the overall culture, potentially leading to employees who don’t understand what’s appropriate. This can create legal issues for your organization, particularly in situations where discrimination or harassment are permitted to go unchecked.
Depending on the industry you operate in, a poor onboarding process can also lead to costly mistakes that impact the company’s standing. For example, financial organizations are subject to strict legal requirements. But if an employee doesn’t understand those requirements and how they pertain to their role, they could make errors that cost your company a lot of money in penalties and fees.
Longer training and lower productivity
A longer and less consistent training process comes with a cost. New employees will take longer to reach peak productivity, which has a direct negative impact on your company’s bottom line.
What Should Your Employee Onboarding Process Look Like?
We have a full onboarding guide with steps and a checklist on our blog, but here’s a look at what a great process should include.
Employee Onboarding Begins Before the Hire
Your process should begin before you bring on the new hire. Identify what steps you want to take when onboarding and create a detailed list for your hiring managers and supervisors to follow.
Pay and benefits
Make sure to assess the pay scale for each position you’re filling and offer transparency about how an employee can move up. You should also consider which benefits a new hire will be eligible for and when they can sign up, covering this information when they come onboard.
Consider interviewing and hiring practices
Before you hire a new employee, you should conduct interviews to determine which applicant is the best fit for the role. Decide whether you’ll host interviews in person or virtually. If the position is remote, a virtual interview probably makes more sense (and saves a lot of money).
Another aspect to think about is how you’ll make the chosen candidate an offer of employment. Do you have an offer letter template that’s ready to go? What about an acceptance letter or form?
Preparing for a New Employee’s First Day
After you have an accepted offer in hand, it’s time to start planning for the new hire’s first day at work. Create a detailed schedule for at least the first week. You can build in short periods of downtime during which the employee can review what was covered in the previous training sessions. Make sure they are meeting with someone throughout most of each day, so they know who to go to for each session.
Figure out what supplies and equipment the new hire needs to do their job and prepare each item. If they need access to shared drives or logins established, take care of these steps before they start. Scrambling to get someone access to a drive or file can make your onboarding process more stressful and impact the person’s feeling about the company overall.
New Hire Orientation
Make sure you orient your new employee to their team and other employees with whom they’ll interact. Complete all necessary documents, ideally online before they start, and go through the policies and procedures outlined in the employee handbook. Take some time to provide equipment training and show your employee how to get into their accounts.
Things to consider:
It’s valuable to put yourself in the new hire’s shoes and consider how they might feel during the first few days of a new job. It’s always overwhelming to begin in a new role, but proper onboarding can lessen those feelings and provide a more positive experience overall.
Assign a buddy to each employee, preferably someone on their team. This person can be the go-to for questions that come up and serve as a source of support during the first few weeks or months.
Ongoing Onboarding
While your formal onboarding process may only last for a few weeks, a new hire should have regular check-ins to make sure they feel confident in their role throughout the first year. Offer ongoing training opportunities and check in on how collaboration is going with their team. Ask for feedback so you can improve the onboarding process for future new hires.
How the Right Software Can Improve Your Onboarding Process
Managing all aspects of the onboarding process manually is a waste of time and resources, especially in today’s digital age. It’s worthwhile to invest in software that makes it easier to find and bring on new hires.
What is Employee Onboarding Software?
Employee onboarding software is designed to improve efficiencies throughout the process of bringing on a new employee. It often has tools that allow applicants to complete their employment paperwork online, as well as a centralized source for finding resources and information.
The Benefits of Employee Onboarding Software
ApplicantStack is a powerful applicant-tracking system that includes robust onboarding tools. These include:
Automated checklists: Assign tasks to users and new hires to create checklists and track progress
Electronic documentation: Allow for the completion of Form I-9, I-4, and other crucial documents electronically
Document storage: Keep all your company’s critical documents, including employee handbooks and signed forms, in a centralized location
Templates: Use existing templates or create your own to keep everyone on the same page
Reporting: Standard and custom reports make it easy to keep tabs on the onboarding metrics
Hire import: Applicant data flows throughout the system, eliminating the need for duplicate data entry on those you choose to hire
Reminders: Automatic reminders keep managers and new hires in sync, reducing the risk of tasks falling through the cracks
When you’re ready to amp up your onboarding process, try ApplicantStack to make sure it goes as smoothly and consistently as possible. You can try it for free, with no strings attached.
