Any business will tell you they have an onboarding process in place, but how many can tell you how effective that process really is? For many, it boils down to an exercise in paper-pushing, but getting your new hire set up on the payroll is very different from helping them integrate with a brand new team in an environment that’s completely alien to them.

A strong onboarding process improves retention by 82%, & increases productivity by 70%

It turns out first impressions really are everything. According to research, companies that have a strong onboarding process improve employee retention by around 82%, and increase employee productivity by around 70%. In other words, if you start your new hires off on the right foot, with all of the tools, knowledge and connections they need to do their job effectively and feel like part of a community, they’ll thrive. 

For a lot of businesses though, that’s easier said than done. Did you know that more than 58% of businesses in the UK centre their entire onboarding process around paperwork, and for the majority of businesses the onboarding process lasts less than a week? This is a recipe for low morale, poor productivity and high turnover. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel for businesses that see effective onboarding as an insurmountable challenge. That light comes in the form of technology; namely Engage4. 

Introducing Engage4

For any organisation a common challenge lies in creating and nurturing the ‘cultural glue’ that keeps workers happy, connected and engaged. The formation of that glue starts with effective onboarding, and that’s where Engage4 shines. 

Engage4 is the ultimate people engagement app, and the only tool your business will need to onboard new hires in an engaging, productive and inclusive way. That means no more paper-pushing, no more mundane processes and no need to spend time firing emails back and forth with messy forms attached. Instead, take a digital-first approach.

Engage4 for effective onboarding

Once you’ve offered a job to a candidate, the next steps are usually quite awkward and cumbersome. Wouldn’t it be great if they could just download an app, log in to your company portal and have everything they need literally at their fingertips? That’s what Engage4 offers. 

With Engage4, employees can start interacting with your company as soon as they have accepted a job offer, perhaps days or weeks before their first official day of employment even begins. Why not greet them with a welcome video from the CEO, or the chance to sign up for a new employee challenge to break the ice. They’ll even have access to a community forum where they can introduce themselves and start getting to know the team, asking any burning questions they have. 

Enage4 makes onboarding a community activity rather than putting the onus squarely on the business or team leader. In community forums, current employees can share their own experiences of starting at the company, offering unique and helpful insights that will resonate with your latest hire, making everything feel far less daunting by immediately connecting new starters with their colleagues and the organisation. 

Then there’s access to the Knowledge Base which will be home to all the documentation and content you need to provide access to, from company values to payroll information. There’s even a Micro-Learning section that your new hires can take advantage of if they want to get a head start on employee training, and a news feed that will allow you to share business-wide announcements and critical information that will make them feel like they’re immediately part of the team. 

What’s more, all of this can be tailored from department to department or business to business. Someone joining the sales team might, for instance, have a completely different Engage4 experience to someone joining the operations team. 

Engage4 is an all-encompassing solution that helps you connect, onboard, unite and retain your valuable team members. 

Learn more about the Engage4 features or get started today with a 30 day free trial.