Many HR Professionals like you, whether you are an HR Director, HR Generalist, or HR Administrator, believe that copying and pasting candidate or new hire information from one application (like Greenhouse Recruiting) to another (like BambooHR or Workday) is what you are supposed to do. Their onboarding workflow often looks like this:
The candidate accepts the offer. HR will then notify the hiring manager via email or Slack that the candidate accepted. Then they will login to the HRIS and enter in the new hire info - either copying and pasting information from the ATS or manually typing it in. Then they will open email or Slack and notify the Finance team to set up payroll. If the HR team is responsible for setting up payroll and 401K, they will then login to another application, and again copy/paste information from their HRIS into it. Then they will switch back into email or Slack to send to update the hiring manager. Finally, they will then login into a ticketing system (ServiceNow or Zendesk) and open a ticket with IT or send them an email to setup accounts in various applications. Also, if there are many new hires to process, the HR team will be tracking what needs to be done in a spreadsheet (Google Sheets or Excel) or a task management application (Monday or Asana) - which means yet another place that information needs to be entered.
The workflow described doesn't even consider the dozens of other communication interactions between teams if information is missing or incomplete. This often leads to mistakes, errors, or at best, an inconsistent experience for all involved. When the onboarding workflow is manual like this, it is impossible to scale and keep up with the hiring demands of the company. This often leads the Head of HR/HR Director to think that hiring more HR staff is the answer.
What if there was a way your existing HR staff didn't need to do any of those mundane administrative tasks and instead could focus on higher value projects like improving diversity and equality in the hiring process, enhancing the Learning and Development programs, or helping managers be better at managing conflict? Those are the types of projects that can really make an impact on the company, yet most HR departments simply can't because they are weighed down with administrative tasks that need to be done.
Automation changes how you work. Most people today can't imagine washing their clothes by taking them down to a river, scrubbing them with a rock, wringing them out, and then drying them out in the sun. Instead, they load their clothes into a washing machine, add some detergent, and hit the start button. Then they go about their day doing other things while the washing machine does its job. Yet, the "old" way of washing clothes is exactly how most HR teams operate. Most teams don't realize that the onboarding workflow (and many others) can be handled by a "machine" as well. You can essentially provide this machine a few inputs, let it do its job, and go on with your day.
So how does this look like?
In a fully automated onboarding process, when you mark a candidate as Hired in the ATS, the automation "machine" closes out the job opening in the ATS, and imports all information about the new hire including signed offer documents, resume, cover letter, interview tests, etc into the HR System. It then sends initial notifications to all stakeholders (Hiring Manager, HR team, Finance team, IT Team, etc) informing them that the candidate was hired. It then sends out a welcome email to the New Hire and asks them to fill out personal information (direct deposit info, emergency contacts, preferred name, prefer gender pronouns, etc) and upload any required documents (I9, identification, etc). When the information is filled out, the automation detects this and imports all required new hire information into the Financial ERP system, creates accounts in the 401K/payroll/benefits systems. It then adds the New Hire into a daily drip email sequence with content about the company, its culture, its policies, its benefits, company FAQs, which all keeps them engaged and excited about starting. It reaches out to the company "swag" vendor and submits an order for a Welcome Kit to be sent to the New Hire. It opens an IT ticket with specific information required for hardware and software provisioning. The automation records information about what it did and when so that it can be later reviewed for compliance or optimization needs. It also keeps all stakeholders informed at various milestones leading up to the New Hire's first day.
And all you did there was one thing. How does that compare with the many steps you take today?
