When bringing in a new team member, HR professionals in the UAE have a checklist to ensure a warm welcome into the business. How new employees are treated during onboarding sets the tone for their entire journey. So, keeping the process smooth and simple makes a big difference. According to a study by SHRM, 69% of employees are more likely to stay with a company for three years if they experience great onboarding. The need for new talent is constant, yet the available pool of qualified individuals is decreasing.
However, the challenges don’t just end there; an even bigger hurdle emerges once the right person is found. Streamlining the onboarding process, delivering effective training, fostering cultural fit, and ensuring smooth adaptation to the team and wider business are critical areas that require attention and improvement.
infithra, an end-to-end HR management platform, addresses these challenges with a comprehensive suite of modules designed to transform the entire employee onboarding journey. With a single, central HR system, organizations can ensure that the transition for new hires is not only efficient but also fosters a positive and adaptive experience within the company.
Let’s First Understand Employee Onboarding and HR Software
Employee onboarding is crucial for integrating new hires into an organization, ensuring they understand their roles and assimilation into the company culture. HR software is a comprehensive platform that plays a fundamental role in simplifying the onboarding process by automating and unifying various HR tasks. This software, usually run on the cloud, offers an efficient, centralized platform for managing employees and HR-related information , including routine tasks from handling paperwork to conducting orientation sessions.
Challenges in Traditional Employee Onboarding
Traditional employee onboarding processes often face various challenges. This can directly impact the effectiveness of the onboarding experience of the new employee. Some common challenges include:
Lengthy Paperwork and Manual Processes
Traditional employee onboarding often involves extensive paperwork, consuming valuable admin time, and leaving room for human errors. Relying on manual methods to gather and handle vast amounts of information can be inefficient and also burden HR teams with additional work.
Inconsistencies in Onboarding Procedures
The onboarding process can become confusing due to differing practices among organizations, different locations or departments. HR policies influenced by diverse business practices and cultural norms can significantly impact the onboarding approach. These inconsistencies often lead to new hires feeling uncertain and less connected to the company culture or team workflow.
Formalism and Hierarchy
New employees might find it challenging to navigate the formal and hierarchical workplace structure. It might take some time for them to adapt to the new organizational culture. The strong focus on hierarchy often leads to a more top-down approach to onboarding, limiting opportunities for new hires to share feedback or ask questions. While this is a standard onboarding method, it may make the process less engaging or interactive for newcomers.
Enhancing Employee Onboarding with infithra’s HRMS Suite
Core HR solutions are essential for effective HR operations. This module, usually a critical part for most HR software in the UAE, streamlines employee onboarding checklists, automates repetitive HR processes, and reduces overall administrative workloads.
At its core, an HRMS (Human Resource Management System) platform is designed to integrate all aspects of HR tasks efficiently through a single tool. This comprehensive solution facilitates the complete employee lifecycle management on a unified platform, encompassing seamless onboarding, streamlined payroll processing, and more. Designed with busy teams in mind, an HRMS aims to streamline and simplify HR management, allowing businesses to focus on growth and innovation.
infithra’s Core HR includes various essential features, contributing to a holistic and cohesive HR experience. Key features that contribute to an exceptional onboarding process include:
Flexible Configuration
In a Core HR system, personalization is key to swiftly integrating employees into their roles. Administrators or HR managers have the permissions to easily set up custom workflows that align with the requirements of the business or individual departments. The system’s flexibility in configuration ensures a personalized onboarding journey. This facilitates a smooth and rapid integration of each employee into their respective roles.
Document Management
Having a single place to store all your employee information makes it easier to bring new hires on board by converting heaps of paperwork into digital format. This is particularly important for businesses in the UAE as they navigate changing labour law regulations and managing diverse workforces across multiple locations. A central hub for managing employee documents (such as; visas, Emirates IDs, labour cards etc.) and HR documents (HR policies, IT policies and onboarding materials) ensures quick access, better compliance, and reduces administrative overhead.
In a Core HR system, this feature helps administrators and HR teams by automatically notifying them of pending documents and their expiration dates. This allows them to concentrate on more important projects like strategic people planning and growth.
Organization Management
Imagine having a clear picture of the roles of people in your company from day one! infithra’s organisation management feature uses visual charts to display the business hierarchy, making it easier for new team members to understand the structure and relationships within the company. Organizational charts update automatically as new people join, displaying their names, job titles, and who they report to. This helps busy teams communicate roles and responsibilities faster, making it a breeze for new hires to fit into the team.
With Core HR’s feature, you won’t need to update charts or use separate tools manually – everything happens automatically. This simplifies the onboarding process, ensuring that new hires get the latest info on the team structure and quickly become part of the action.
UAE Labour Law Compliance
By leveraging HR software tools like infithra , you can spend less time hunting for labour law updates – and let the system do that for you, saving time and lowering the risk of compliance issues for your busy teams. This takes care of updates related to contributions and leave allowances, ensuring that everything complies with the rules. It’s helpful for companies in the UAE and wider GCC region to make sure that onboarding follows all the local labour laws.
Approval Workflows
The implementation of dynamic approval workflows is important in enhancing efficiency and productivity within an organization. Core HR offers you a consolidated platform for efficient approval processes within the organization. By centralizing manager requests and unifying approvals, personnel workflows are optimized, resulting in a significant reduction in the onboarding time for new employees. Enabling self-service for specific processes also enhances efficiency, freeing up HR and managerial resources to concentrate on strategic tasks.
Components of an Effective Employee Onboarding System:
Automated Workflows for Smoother Processes
Leveraging automation plays a crucial role in simplifying onboarding processes. Automated workflows within infithra’s HR system handle various repetitive tasks, such as tracking expiration dates for credentials, handling leave requests, managing attendance, and ensuring the completion of essential tasks. This reduces the likelihood of oversights and delays.
Integration with Other HR Tools and Systems
Making sure the system seamlessly synergizes with existing HR and business ERP systems for an easy collection of data via different platforms for smooth data integration. This integration includes biometric tracking devices, government compliance applications, and broader business automation and productivity tools. This enhances data accuracy and facilitates efficient workflows across the organization.
Personalized Onboarding Experiences
Making new employees feel valued and involved is important, and personalization is the way to do it. This customised onboarding could mean personalized training plans tailored to each individual’s role, as well as specific introductions and induction training to connect new hires with team members and important contacts in the company. In addition, providing personalized access to employee handbooks and company policies will ensure that newcomers are well-informed about the organization’s values, departmental or job-related expectations, and guidelines from the start.
How to Select the Right HR Solution for Your Onboarding Needs
Assessing Onboarding Needs:
- Evaluate your current onboarding processes to identify gaps or challenges the new system should address.
- Identify specific onboarding requirements unique to your organization and HR teams.
Selecting the Right HR Software:
- Evaluate available HR solutions, considering features, pricing plans, user-friendliness, and scalability.
Planning a Smooth Transition (30-60-90 Day Plan):
- Develop a clear project timeline with key milestones for the first 30, 60, and 90 days during the software implementation.
- Include sufficient time for critical tasks like integration to existing systems, training bigger teams, and monitoring the adoption progress.
Training:
- Ensure you’ve confirmed with the vendor that there will be sufficient training sessions for key stakeholders to grasp the system’s functionality.
- Make sure that these sessions include training for the broader HR teams on adopting the new standard operating procedure (SOP) for onboarding.
Conclusion
Effective onboarding is crucial for a seamless employee experience. Traditional methods for employee onboarding bring several challenges for HR professionals, especially in the fast paced and regulation sensitive UAE market, highlighting the need for innovative, modern solutions. infithra’s all-in-one HR platform stands out as an end to end solution, making onboarding efficient, engaging, and automated. Its focus on personalization ensures that employees have a tailored and effective onboarding process, making it a more pleasant and enjoyable experience.
As organizations in the UAE continue to evolve, adopting such integrated solutions is essential for maintaining a positive and productive work environment.
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