The Ideal Employee Onboarding Checklist for Increased Efficiency, Visibility and Accuracy.

Emails get lost in the inbox, physical documents get misplaced, and that’s when management starts to notice the communication issues in the workplace. This is perhaps the primary reason organizations are drawn to SharePoint, as it provides much-needed workflow functionality. Examining the employee onboarding process as a whole, there is a multitude of incumbent tasks to follow up with. Having an organized process that helps new employees settle into the company and makes them feel welcome, capable, and valued results in significantly higher rates of employee satisfaction and retention. Preparing for a new employee includes coordinating a workspace setup that will involve multiple departments working in collaboration. In this blog, we have penned down a checklist for employee onboarding to help you build a structured employee management program to prevent employee requirements from being overlooked.

Employee Onboarding Using SharePoint Functionalities 

The Employee Onboarding process can be managed at two levels, HR and Managerial, wherein the roles and responsibilities are assigned to different departments within the organization. This will likewise establish clear communication with the new hire and help the HR and Managers to facilitate the new hire checklist that can be viewed as their virtual assistant. Furthermore, the progress indicators will give you an overview of the completed tasks and deadlines to help offer a smooth onboarding experience to the new hire. SharePoint helps you outline the route to streamline this by providing the necessary workflow. You can create a list of incumbent tasks, assign them efficiently, and keep the appropriate people notified of any dependencies. What you will get is a turnkey, boxed solution that’s custom-built based on your organizational needs, thereby boosting efficiency, visibility, and accuracy. 

Easy Information Access

Using a dedicated dashboard to assign and manage a structured employee onboarding program at the departmental level can effectively address disengagements in work for the initial period. Managing standard tasks by simply filling out the details for the anticipated new employee is the first task in the checklist.   You can check the items off the onboarding checklist and track their status. The employee onboarding checklist at this level may have different departments working in tandem; below are a few examples of checklist items:

• Library access
• HR policy information 
• Background check
• Contract signing
• Contact information
• Parking
• Assigning assets 

Analytical Dashboard 

A streamlined process ensures that tasks at hand are clearly defined across the organization. As an HR associate, the information you have shared with the new hires about their goals and your expectations must be identical to what you’ve assigned to the respective team members. This will make sure both parties are working toward the same purpose. Below is a checklist to track and monitor progress:

• Count of onboarded employees
• Overdue tasks on a single view
• Customization of task categories, standard tasks, and templates
• Quick view of pending tasks list
• Automated email notifications for new hires and new tasks  
• Review, Edit and Delete a task

Streamlined Mentorship 

Task-driven onboarding usually guides the mentor to help the new employee navigate the company culture and individuals he or she will be closely working with. This can be achieved by reviewing the tasks based on their completion. Once you have created all the standard to-do lists for each category, you can utilize task templates to simplify the work assignment process. Your ideal employee onboarding checklist must have analytical access to the employee onboarding tasks in hand. Tasks scheduled on new hire checklists usually include, but are not limited to:

• Federal Tax Forms- Such tasks might require inputs from multiple departments and individuals; having the ability to upload these forms from a dedicated directory and have everything in one place will save time and resources
• Health Insurance Forms- This task can be assigned to a current team member along with the HR department
• Managing the usual socialization tasks such as an office tour, introductions, or welcome lunch
• Training material and videos for induction 
• An additional paperwork and other administrative details

Employee Offboarding 

Employees who undergo structured onboarding programs often expect smooth departures at a similar level. A study indicates that new hires who underwent a streamlined onboarding process are more likely to remain with the organization for a longer period; also, properly onboarded employees display higher time-to-productivity ratios. A smooth offboarding process requires task management that is as simplified as the onboarding process. Here is the ideal employee offboarding checklist:

• Notifying associated people of the offboarding 
• Recollect the assigned assets 
• Knowledge sharing, client access, and credential access 
• Sharing NDA 
• Documenting events that triggered the resignation or termination 
• Providing document access to departure policy 
• Task management for different departments like HR and Accounting 

Usual workflows built on SharePoint are amendable and can be combined in elegant ways to craft a reliable internal process. What was mentioned in this blog is a basic overview of how swiftly you can manage your new employee onboarding process. Have you implemented your own process? We’d love to hear about it and consult you on improving the onboarding experience new employees have. Try our SPFx for employee onboarding software, which utilizes SharePoint built-in capabilities. The add-in is suitable for all organization sizes. Have additional questions? Contact our team at [email protected].