Free Employee Onboarding Software
Free employee onboarding software helps many small businesses and startups to smoothly and efficiently transition newly hired personnel into their roles within the organization at little to no cost.
At its core, employee onboarding software functions as a tool that businesses use to streamline the initial processes and tasks typically associated with onboarding new employees, including the necessary paperwork and training. It helps human resources (HR) departments as well as recruiting professionals with optimizing their onboarding program to benefit new hires and new team members. This type of software often touches on a few HR processes and tasks, from the recruiting phase all the way to the learning and development stages. Many onboarding systems also give HR managers the ability to organize colleague introduction, general office policies and documentation requirements.
Free employee onboarding tools come in many different shapes and sizes. The word “Free” often refers to a few different types of onboarding solutions. The most common of which are the free trials. These are free versions of premium HR onboarding software products that usually come with a few limitations. Some free trials are limited to seven, 14 or 30 days, while others are free forever but are limited in their features or the available seats/users. Free trials are quite common with cloud-based or software-as-a-service (SaaS) products. Then there’s the free and open-source onboarding platform, which is often maintained by a community of developers, professionals and likeminded individuals. This is a type of software with its source code available for modification and customization.
Every company, regardless of size or industry, strives to create an efficient and successful onboarding program to inspire, motivate and welcome new employees and team members into the organization by giving them a quick and stress-free onboarding experience. The human resources department is typically responsible for the hiring, onboarding and training of new staff, which is why most HR software solutions are equipped with onboarding functionality, in addition to other HR-specific tools.
Apart from HR departments, recruiting managers and hiring teams also often use employee onboarding tools to facilitate various onboarding tasks and processes, from standard documentation and policy orientation to background checks, training and progress assessments. Employee onboarding software can help streamline the onboarding process and is very useful to a lot of businesses and organizations no matter the size.
However, for a lot of small businesses and startups, opting for a fully integrated HR software solution with onboarding functionality is most likely way out of their budget range. This is the perfect niche that free employee onboarding software can effectively and easily fill. One of the most common uses of free onboarding tools for a lot of small businesses is training newly hired workers. Much of the onboarding experience involves training new employees so they will understand their new roles and fit seamlessly into your organization’s day-to-day operations.
Free onboarding systems can be utilized to help new employees learn about your company’s policies, values and mission statement. The software can also be used to train new hires about your products and services, the current systems that they might face or use at their position, as well as the customers that they will be dealing with while working for your organization. Although not all, many free employee onboarding software solutions come equipped with tools tailored for learning and development, allowing you to design and develop streamlined training plans, discover mentorship opportunities with your senior staff and conduct skills evaluations on new employees.
When implemented properly, free-to-use onboarding tools can also help you create and nurture a healthy company culture that promotes employee engagement and productivity. Providing new hires with the opportunity and a simple method of learning about your company’s values and missions is a crucial step in ensuring a successful assimilation. The software then gives you the ability to effectively incorporate that culture into every interaction and communication with your new employees.
Additionally, there are free employee onboarding solutions that do offer a specific feature designed specifically to match each new hire with someone similar within the company to help provide a better experience and guide them through their onboarding journey. This makes the entire onboarding process much easier and more efficient for the HR managers and the new employees.
Small businesses and startups may also find value in free employee onboarding software when it comes to their efforts to embrace a paperless operation. Obviously, no company can completely go paperless overnight, but you can start with transforming your onboarding process into a paperless operation. If there’s anything that can cause staff members a lot of unnecessary headaches, it’s paperwork. The paperwork involved in onboarding new hires can be a laborious endeavor for anyone. However, good employee onboarding systems can make the entire process significantly less time-consuming by allowing for a completely paperless approach.
Some of the better suited free onboarding software in the market offers a number of features and tools that will allow you to go paperless, which includes builders and templates for offer letters, non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), W-2s, I-9s, background checks, payroll forms, as well as access to digital employee handbooks. All these can be created inside the solution and automatically sent to newly hired personnel where they can simply complete the electronic paperwork on their own. With the addition of mobile functionality, the whole process becomes more user-friendly and convenient for new employees and signing such forms and documents is possible through native e-signature tools.
Free employee onboarding software can also be used by small businesses and startups to improve their organization and implementation efforts, especially when it comes to administering employee onboarding programs. Good employee onboarding systems will provide you with customizable onboarding checklists and workflows, allowing you to quickly and easily identify the individual tasks that have been completed and the ones that still need to be done. Built-in notification systems will automatically alert your HR department and onboarding team when a particular form has not been completed/submitted or when a task is yet to be done.
For every business or organization, regardless of size, successfully hiring and retaining talent depends on a wide variety of factors, among them are delivering a clear goal/objective within their onboarding program and providing better experiences for the new hires. Any company, even small businesses and startups that simply want a seamless onboarding process, will have a lot to gain by investing in the right employee onboarding software. But not everyone can afford a robust HR software solution with onboarding functionality, hence the free alternative.
Free employee onboarding software offers a smoother and much simpler onboarding process for companies with limited resources. Many cloud-based onboarding systems, including their free versions, use automation to automate a number of key onboarding tasks and processes. This helps to streamline the creation, delivery and administration of onboarding programs. This approach doesn’t just remove manual processes, it also helps you save time, money and effort when you’re onboarding new hires.
A good onboarding software solution provides a smooth and positive experience to your new employees that go way beyond the traditional welcome emails. You can make them feel welcome, while also giving them the opportunity to learn about your organization, your mission, values and policies so they can assimilate into the workforce and your company culture relatively quickly and easily. With a central platform that contains all the information they need, new employees can onboard themselves on their own time and with mobile functionality, they can learn everything they need to learn and complete every form necessary even before they first set foot in the office.
Having access to all the required tools and resources can make the onboarding journey an enjoyable and hassle-free experience for new hires. Even when you’re using a basic, free employee onboarding software solution, you have the ability to set simple goals and objectives for your new employees and give them the opportunity to learn about their role within the organization. With your free onboarding tool, you can setup clear and realistic work expectations, you can provide your new hires with the right resources and environment for them to assimilate successfully and most of all you have the power to align employee objectives to your business goals.
Even the most basic employee onboarding solution is equipped with the right features and tools that will enable you to streamline the new employees’ onboarding formalities. A built-in alert system will automatically notify different departments that are involved in the process about the new hire, allowing them to prepare and provide everything to help the new employee onboard. This way, your new hires can immediately start working on their objectives with no hiccups, from day one.
Free employee onboarding software adds reasonable value to the onboarding process of small businesses and startups by streamlining the core tasks and responsibilities of the HR department and the new employees. It might be limited in certain aspects, but the free access to the available functions and tools can still provide a significant impact to an organization’s onboarding process, especially for those with limited resources.
When looking for a free onboarding solution, you should keep in mind that you’re not going to get everything you want in terms of features and capabilities. But if you focus on a specific function or two, you should be able to find the right free onboarding software that can meet your requirements. You can just invest on a more advanced onboarding system later on, when you have the budget for it.
