Data and the Onboarding Experience

Originally published in Express Computers

‍

When you think about People Processes at companies – you often think about just the HR team. However, for a great overall people process and employee experience, there are multiple teams, systems, and processes that have to come together and work in unison. Much like a finely tuned orchestra.

‍

There are three core players when it comes to Employee Experience

- The Employee: who is looking for the smoothest experience that will let them do their best work
⁃ The People Ops Team: who is looking for the fastest, most efficient way to complete their work
⁃ The Leadership: who is looking for insights and data to make the right decisions and plan better

‍

Data is a common thread

‍
When you consider all three roles – there is one enabler that binds all of them together. And more so in the onboarding process than anywhere else. That unifying element or enabler is data. Data that the employee provides to their employer well before offer acceptance. Think resume, portfolio, information shared during interviews, etc.

‍

This is then used by People Ops to run processes and deliver a personalized experience designed to enhance Employee Lifetime Value or ELTV (the net value an employee brings to the organization over time) and overall business output. This, in turn, creates more data that the organization can then analyze, crunch, and hopefully, convert into profit.

‍

However, the challenge is that data is still a mystery that most organizations are still struggling to solve. There are multiple reasons for this. But none as ubiquitous as the fact that data is rarely unified in an organization.

‍

Companies have multiple systems and multiple teams working in silos which means data is never truly harnessed to deliver a better experience – for their employees or even for their People teams.

‍

Data you give your employer

‍

Consider this – the amount of data you give your employer through onboarding is perhaps 10x the data you give any other service. To your new employer, you are giving them your work experience, educational qualifications, family data, skills, preferences, health data and so much more.

‍

In comparison, whether it’s e-commerce or your favorite dine-in app – you give them a fraction of this data. And yet, the level of service you get from these apps is 10x better than what your workplace delivers. And there is a reason for it – the limited data they collect is milked for everything it’s worth to personalise, automate, and drive insights that will make the customer experience better. Every interaction you have with the brand or service is monitored for quality purposes and this informs iterations and improvements in their very product offering.

‍

On the other hand, the mountain of data available to your employer is sitting in multiple different systems, with HR teams struggling to collate and consolidate this information into spreadsheets so they can make sense of it. Not a very efficient start for employee experience.

‍

Harnessing data at the workplace

‍
Let’s look at how some data-adept companies have started harnessing employee data to deliver a better all-round experience.

‍

1. For employees

‍Companies are using data to personalize and streamline tedious and time-consuming onboarding processes like compliance, form filling, learning, and
communication. They are preempting bottlenecks and pain points in the onboarding journey, optimizing and customizing it for the individual. By improving the experience, they have essentially reduced time to productivity and enhanced ELTV. And we have real evidence that shows a direct correlation between a better onboarding experience and a 65% reduction in first-year attrition.

‍

2. For People Ops teams

Hyper-automation is a real benefit of efficient data orchestration. Automating complex inter-functional processes and workflows between HR, IT, vendors, payroll, and more becomes a breeze when data flows seamlessly between systems. When the right information is made available to the right team the
moment they need it. When data is synced across the entire workplace tech stack in real time. We have seen companies save as much as 18,000 human hours thanks to
this.

‍

3. For leadership

‍The key to good decision-making is the ability to use data for better intelligence and planning. With onboarding being a critical process to ensure hiring investments are not made in vain, company leaders must see and understand trends and insights as they happen. And for this, you need good, clean data and a system that connects all the dots for you.

‍

In Summary

‍

A great onboarding experience makes a huge difference not just to your new hires, but to the company’s bottom line as well. The ROI of good, data-driven onboarding is a topic for a different article on another day. But the fact remains that new hires today expect better from their employers.

‍

With an Employee Data Platform, you can drive the same level of experience personalization and optimization as you do for your customers. One that not just consolidates all your data into one single platform, but also gives you every single tool you need to be able to use that data in the best possible way.