Employee onboarding is the first important stage where a new recruit interacts with an organization. Every employee wants to go through a seamless, smooth, and consistent onboarding experience. Employers also desire to build and nurture strong relationships with employees from start to finish. But inefficiencies during traditional onboarding practices create hindrances and affect the onboarding experience adversely. There are several rule-based processes that are executed during onboarding. You can automate such repetitive processes using Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to deliver mesmerizing onboarding experience and assist human resources personnel to retain top talents for a long time.

Why is RPA Needed for Employee Onboarding?

  • Improving employee retention
  • Reducing employee turnover
  • Creating confidence & trust
  • Boosting productivity and engagement
  • Setting proper expectations and goals
  • Strengthening teamwork and bonding

How RPA Can Transform Employee Onboarding?

1. Reduces Paperwork

Employees need to fill up a lot of documents post their selection. HR personnel also need to collect, analyze, and verify all things to approve the candidature of selected people. Recruiters also need to fetch data from different forms to add in payroll and other important HR documents. All this consumes a lot of paper, time, effort, and many times leads to inconsistency & errors as well. By using robotic process automation (RPA) solutions, you can solve all such concerns.

RPA system or automated HR software can:

  • Send auto-reminders to candidates about the required information
  • Extract information and store digitally in the required format
  • Ask candidates about missing documents or information
  • Avoid data duplication
  • Save paper by managing all things digitally

Also, RPA in HR helps recruiters to send electronic documents to the right people in the right order. It helps in accelerating the approval process and makes onboarding much swifter than usual.

2. Better Coordination Between Departments

Services of numerous departments are needed when an employee joins any organization. Right from HR, IT, Finance, Operations, Accounting, and many more. Although the HR team has control over the functioning of its department but can’t do much to pacify the approvals/work sent to other departments. Delayed response from other departments affects the onboarding process and creates a negative experience.

Robotic process automation (RPA) software or RPA system helps you create a unified workflow that is accessible to all and enables a seamless flow of information between departments. As it is done digitally, it brings transparency as well as establishes accountability for each department. By implementing RPA in HR, every department gets aware of their individual task with stipulated timelines. Through RPA solutions, you can also set alerts. By embedding proper logic into the robotic process automation (RPA) software, you can auto remind executives about any specific task and notify them to act timely as per policy.

3. Promotes Consistent Experience

No matter for which role an employee is hired for but as far as the onboarding experience is concerned, everyone should receive a good similar experience. But it is often found that when done manually, it does not happen. It creates a feeling of unequalness and leads to disengagement for a reason that you can handle very swiftly, easily, and efficiently using the RPA solution/RPA system.

Robotic process automation (RPA) helps you build a proper workflow through which all stakeholders involved in the process know exactly what they need to do at which stage for smooth and consistent onboarding. As it is done digitally and executes stage-wise, all processes are followed uniformly. Moreover, enablement of RPA in HR helps you send auto notifications to new recruits and their concerned reporting manager to bring greater transparency in onboarding. Definitely, there may be some unique ways to handle people of different job roles. But the aesthetics or look & feel of the onboarding process must be similar.

4. Makes Transition from Hiring to Onboarding Memorable

The human resource department puts a lot of effort into getting the right candidate on board. But once a candidate is selected, the human resource department often gets disconnected from the newly recruited till the day of joining. It is an opportunity for recruiters to engage them and build their trust in the brand for which they are about to work in the very near future.

  • Robotic process automation (RPA) solution can help you send a personalized welcome mail to countless people in one go.
  • Enabling robotic process automation (RPA) in HR can help you trigger special messages at the time of festivals/days of national importance etc. Through email automation, you can engage them and create a positive appeal about your company.
  • You can automatically send them different collaterals that state the company’s progress in the past, future road map, and opportunities for growth.
  • You can also create an automated chat portal where new recruits can clarify the doubts that they might have in their minds. Better clarity and transparency prove more beneficial for the organization in the long run.

A candidate that has accepted the offer might not join the company. But if you engage them with the right content, chances of joining increase substantially. And robotic process automation (RPA) solutions can play a vital role in it by automating several communication threads.

5. Stay Compliant

The HR department needs to follow several government legislations along with implementing the company’s own policies. These things are not always constant but subject to change periodically. Whenever a change occurs, the HR team needs to make mandatory changes into countless files/documents for all the employees. It becomes very time-consuming and irritating for HR professionals to invest their critical time in doing rule-based work. Through RPA deployment or using robotic process automation for employee onboarding, you can automatically update all necessary documents without any laborious efforts. The Robotic Process Automation (RPA) system also sends you updates when it finds any violation as per laws and helps you protect against financial penalties.

6. HR Staff Does More Important Work

Last but not least. Usage of robotic process automation (RPA) empowers HR professionals to focus better on doing high-value work. It not just improves the productivity of HR personnel but also makes them feel more engaged and enthusiastic about their job.

Since the enablement of robotic process automation (RPA) solutions frees up enough time, they find the right balance to do proper justice to complex tasks in a more efficient and comfortable manner. A good RPA software acts as a helping hand for HR personnel and eases many of their jobs. Ultimately, it helps in better retention amongst HR professionals as well.

Final Words

It is quite shocking to note that despite having humongous benefits, automation has not been rolled out in the HR vertical at a pace as it should. Many RPA solutions are cloud-based and do not require a huge investment in IT infrastructure. In fact, RPA solutions can provide you with impressive ROI within a very short period of time. There is a need to create more awareness amongst senior executives about RPA benefits so that companies can deploy RPA solutions for creating a long-lasting onboarding experience.