Enterprise Onboarding Software
Enterprise onboarding software is designed to help new hires make that quick and easy transition into their new roles within an enterprise. The software streamlines the paperwork and training process.
Onboarding software solutions for large-scale businesses and enterprises are just like any human resource (HR) onboarding management system. Their main purpose is to help HR teams and managers effectively bring in and integrate new employees into the organizational ecosystem through a simple and efficient onboarding program, but on a significantly bigger scale. An enterprise-grade onboarding solution can facilitate every employee’s transition from a newly brought-in outsider to a full-fledged member of the organization by simply overseeing key aspects of the onboarding process. This function is not that different from a lot of standalone onboarding tools in the market used by small businesses and mid-market companies.
Both standard and enterprise onboarding software systems can facilitate a wide variety of tasks and processes, such as generating employee onboarding and hiring forms, providing development and training resources, centralizing employee records through automated document collection, tracking employee experiences and training progress, streamlining the onboarding experience and workflow, maintaining regulatory compliance and automating different core HR tasks. These are just a few of the commonalities between your typical employee onboarding platform for SMBs and an enterprise-grade onboarding system. Really, the key differences among these onboarding solutions are in the data processing capacity, security, segmentation and automation, just to name few.
Enterprise onboarding software is a category of HR onboarding management system that focuses on medium to large businesses with bigger and more complex requirements. It’s important to note that most products under the onboarding software category serve a similar purpose in the sense that they are all designed to help businesses of all sizes deal with their employee onboarding needs, from distributing and collecting electronic forms like the W-4 and the I-9 form to automating workflows and ensuring that new hires don’t just get their employee handbook on their first day but also receive the best onboarding experience possible to make them feel welcomed by the organization.
It might also be important to know that enterprise onboarding software can be available as a best-of-breed standalone product or as part of a more advanced and comprehensive integrated suite. As a matter of fact, since the onboarding process often deals with the transitional phase of a newly hired employee and does not necessarily fall solely under the umbrella of core HR, recruiting and payroll solutions, onboarding functionality is commonly found in many different HR software platforms.
A few good examples of HR software platforms that may carry an employee onboarding function are applicant tracking systems (ATS), human resources management systems (HRMS), human resources information systems (HRIS) as well as human capital management (HCM) systems. There are also software suites that are designed to cover the entire employee lifecycle, which includes the recruitment phase, onboarding, learning and development, as well as other core HR capabilities. If you’re working for a large enterprise, then most likely your company is already using one of the aforementioned HR software platforms and that may already have a fully integrated onboarding solution.
However, even best-of-breed standalone onboarding software has the capability to integrate with third-party platforms. Most software products and vendors offer this functionality to deliver a seamless experience for HR teams and employees. Say for example you already have a basic HR management system. It comes with a built-in onboarding tool, but it’s limited and you want something more from an onboarding solution. So you go out looking for onboarding software that has everything you need in terms of functionality. What you want is to be able to seamlessly integrate your new onboarding system with your existing HR management platform for a more seamless experience.
One of the fundamental features of onboarding systems, including enterprise-level onboarding solutions, is the ability to create, distribute and store electronic forms like W-4s, I-9s and other important new employee documents. Everything is digitized to promote paperless onboarding, ensuring easy replication, signing, transferring and storage. Speaking of storage, many best-of-breed enterprise onboarding software solutions also offer online document storage capabilities. This is a common feature among cloud-based systems. It allows you to store completed and signed documents/forms in a secure online repository for easy access via any internet-enabled mobile device.
More robust data security is a crucial feature in any enterprise-grade onboarding platform. The security of your data is crucial, especially when you’re dealing with large volumes. It is vital not just for brand reputation, but for legal compliance as well. Data breaches can be very expensive and difficult to manage, which is why large companies and enterprises invest heavily on data security and why good enterprise onboarding software will often come with robust data security to protect employee records and other sensitive data. If your company does business in the EU, good data security will also help you comply with GDPR or the General Data Protection Regulation.
Another feature that is often specific to enterprise onboarding software is segmentation. As a large company or an enterprise, the odds are great that you employ a large workforce and have a significant number of users/customers with varying use cases. Additionally, there is also a good chance that a specific product feature that you offer is relevant to one or more of your use cases, but is of no importance to others. If this sounds familiar to you, then you might need to invest in a good enterprise onboarding solution. The last thing you want is to provide an identical onboarding experience to every user, while putting off a large chunk of new hires/users right off the bat.
As an enterprise with a large number of use cases, how do you deliver an onboarding experience without putting off a large number of your customers on a product tour? The most obvious solution here is user segmentation. The best enterprise-grade onboarding solutions can recognize the diversity and complexity of your use cases and therefore will a variety of ways to help you segment your users, be it employees or customers.
BenefitsEnterprise onboarding software offers a wide variety of benefits, whether you’re onboarding employees or customers on a product/service tour. One of these benefits is the potential increase in engagement. Your onboarding process offers new hires and new customers with an opportunity to familiarize or get to know your organization or the product/service that you’re providing and in this instance, first impressions are everything. Their initial onboarding experience can have a lasting impact on their level of engagement during their tenure with your organization. If you’re onboarding new customers, their onboarding experience could affect how they perceive your brand moving forward.
With a good enterprise onboarding solution, you can optimize and streamline the entire onboarding process to ensure a better and more engaging experience for employee and customers alike. An interactive onboarding process, for instance, can give employees a bit more flexibility as it allows them to go through the onboarding process based on their needs and roles, while customers can focus on specific product/service areas that are relevant to them. This approach allows users to complete the entire onboarding process at their own pace, more comfortably and effectively.
Good enterprise onboarding software also improves the digitization process of employee records, forms and other important documents, which in turn helps streamline and facilitate the compliance process. Most onboarding systems, even basic standalone products, give HR teams and administrators the power to effectively manage and maintain digital documentation for newly hired employees and customers, in the case of enterprise-level onboarding, which also includes verifying employee records and other relevant data.
Another example is digital signing features, which is common in many employee and customer onboarding solutions in the market and a staple in enterprise onboarding platforms. This enables employees and customers to quickly and efficiently sign and authorize important documents regardless of where they are or what time it is, since they will be able to just sign and submit the documents using any mobile device with internet connectivity. This approach minimizes the need for physical storage space and promotes paperless onboarding. It also helps reduce file maintenance demands while ensuring compliance with various regulatory standards.
Integration is another aspect that most cloud-based onboarding solutions offer, including best-of-breed enterprise onboarding software platforms. While most HR management systems are typically equipped with native onboarding tools, including other software applications like applicant tracking systems, accounting and payroll solutions, as well as human resources information software, standalone onboarding software products are generally designed to have integration capabilities so they can be seamlessly integrated with your existing software stack.
ConclusionEnterprise onboarding software is a good solution for streamlining the onboarding process for large companies and multinational conglomerates that handle a large volume of new hires on a regular basis or deal with a significant number of customers with multiple different use cases. No matter the scale or the complexity of your requirements, the right enterprise-grade onboarding software should be able to help you with the key aspects of your onboarding process.
A successful onboarding experience can help increase customer/employee engagement as well as promote inclusion among new hires within an organization. In the case of customer onboarding, a good experience can lead to better customer engagement and appreciation, which should help solidify your brand reputation and the likelihood of winning over a new customer or retaining an old one.
