Tech & Tools: July/August 2023
IN FOCUS: Smart ways of onboarding.
Nobody would underestimate the importance of onboarding. However, the practice hasn’t always been used to maximum effect by organisations. Research published last year by UK HR software and systems supplier Cezanne HR found that more than a quarter of remote workers surveyed said they’d been let down by poor onboarding and 20% of new employees felt they’d been left isolated or alone during the process.
Worryingly, it also revealed that more than a fifth of new hires said their onboarding made them question their choice and only half felt capable of doing their role. Meanwhile, research by the Fosway Group found that onboarding is one of the lowest-rated areas in talent acquisition technology but one of the most in-demand areas for future investment.
The rise of specific onboarding platforms and tools are enabling recruiters and employers to make onboarding much more targeted, personalised and meaningful. Such tools also facilitate virtual and remote onboarding, which gathered momentum during the pandemic and has become part of the new world of work. It also means the process can begin earlier and the individual can do it at their own pace. Crucially, talent platform technology providers are also helping to shift onboarding from being a relatively transactional process to a more value-added one that directly addresses some of the concerns highlighted in the Cezanne HR research.
Ben Slater, senior vice president of marketing at talent lifecycle specialist Beamery, explains that its focus is not the functional/operational aspects of onboarding – such as sending someone a laptop – but allowing companies to start developing employees before they even start. Pre-boarding is designed to help employers understand any skill gaps or training opportunities for new joiners, while onboarding aligns new joiners with mentors and career plans that help them upskill and learn in their role.
“To successfully improve the productivity of new joiners, you need to start before someone joins the organisation,” said Slater. “The first step is to understand the skills that someone has today, and what they need to learn to thrive in their new role. This will allow you to match them with pre-boarding mentors that will accelerate their development from day one and help you build a clear career path to help keep them engaged.”
One of SmartRecruiters’ aims when it launched SmartOnboard last year was to automate activities and free up onboarding teams from managing paperwork, allowing them to focus on gearing new hires up for success in the role. It also allows new hires to manage their onboarding tasks. When it launched, Sven Elbert, senior analyst in the human capital and talent management practice at the Fosway Group, said the technology enables hiring teams to “own the onboarding process” and see it through to the end, accelerating the drive to productivity.
Another trend is the rise of tools designed to facilitate international onboarding. G-P (formerly known as Globalisation Partners) wants to help companies build “borderless teams” and to be able to do so “in minutes, not months”, it says. Its G-P Meridian suite of products provides a control centre for building and managing teams from a single dashboard and includes G-P Meridian Core for onboarding, management and compliance.
Earlier this year, Localyze revamped its talent platform, which aims to make it easier for organisations to relocate employees around the world. “At its core, good onboarding is about getting your employees set up for success in their new role,” said Localyze co-founder and CEO Hanna Asmussen.
“When a new hire relocates to join your company, it’s not just a new work environment they have to adjust to; their whole lives transform. They have to establish a new home, adjust to a new culture and build connections with a new community. Not to mention the bureaucracy involved with visa and immigration questions...
“Navigating these details can completely sidetrack onboarding and distract from their new role, so our part is to bring everything in one place and make the relocation process as smooth and efficient as possible.”
As new employees join, the Localyze platform provides a clear overview of their immigration and relocation journey, with a structured timeline and outlined steps on tasks to move things forward. Localyze encourages recruitment and talent teams to monitor how their people are progressing through the process via the platform’s reporting dashboards.
“But even more importantly, we recommend using these insights to think about the bigger picture with their employee mobility strategy,” said Asmussen. “Our team works with hundreds of employees and authorities, and can help advise on relocation trends, what employees are looking for, and how companies can enable their people to move for work more efficiently.”
In brief
Self-service analytics identifies room for improvement
Recruitment platform Modern Hire is launching a self-service reporting system to help recruiters and employers identify opportunities to improve their candidate recruiting and hiring funnel. The system allows filtering by job title, stage type, recruiter team, location, and job custom fields. In a separate launch, Modern Hire has made its Virtual Job Tryout (VJT) simulation assessment technology available for flight attendants.
Remote technical talent network expands
Andela, the global network for remote technical talent, has acquired Casana, a Munich-based network of IT professionals. The acquisition means the network has more than 4 million technologists across 175 countries. Earlier this year it acquired Qualified, a skills assessment platform to identify, qualify, and certify top engineers.
Bringing consistency to virtual interviewing
Video interviewing, assessments, and text-enabled recruiting platform HireVue is combining its structured interview generator with its live
Leaving interview notes to AI
Technology company Metaview has launched a tool that generates interview notes via AI. AI Notes synthesises candidate’s responses into bullet point summaries so recruiters don’t have to worry about note-taking during the interview. It integrates with the recruiter’s calendar, applicant tracking systems and video-conferencing tools. The information is editable so the recruiter can make additions or amendments.
Image credit | Shutterstock
