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Checklist to Improve the Small Business Employee Onboarding Process

Your business is agile, nimble…you’re capable of taking swift, decisive action in a short period of time. For example, it’s Thursday afternoon and your team has just finished interviewing the last of the final candidates for a newly-created job in your firm. You needed to fill the position yesterday. But, if all goes as planned, the offer will be extended yet today, the candidate (who seemed really excited) will accept on Friday, and…in the spirit of chaotic, yet productive startups, he will start work on Monday! He can just grab a notepad and some pens out of the supply closet, and do without a laptop for a few days (argh…we need to order that today) because he’ll just be shadowing other people during that time.

Sound familiar? Hopefully not, but don’t be ashamed if it is a sometimes accurate description of the employee onboarding process at your small business. It can be easy to ignore the importance of employee onboarding in the SMB space, especially if you happen to be growing like gangbusters, have a pretty good culture and perhaps many opportunities for upward movement across the organization. The thing is…those positive attributes are likely in play despite your lackluster onboarding process. Since your onboarding process is akin to your new hires’ first impression of your company, the business needs to put some effort and time into this new employee experience. The results of your efforts will exponentially improve your business.

Download ExactHire's Employee Onboarding Checklist

Here’s a checklist a small organization may use to start talking about employee onboarding process change.

1 – Envision future success

There’s no point in initiating a change effort if you won’t recognize success when it finally happens. If you’re not sure where to start, consider your organization’s current definition of employee onboarding, and then think outside the box to include other items that are now commonly attributed to this effort by the modern HR practitioner.

Think about broad stroke adjectives that could be used to describe your future successful onboarding process. Do you want to make it more: special; professional; efficient; niche-focused; standardized; personalized; etc.? Pulling out some key themes will then allow you to brainstorm more detailed ideas.

It’s key to visualize success simply so that you actually know when you accomplish it someday. And certainly the journey is never over. Upon reaching your first milestone accomplishment you’ll want to create new success goals; however, you must know where you’ve been and where you are going first. That’s why it’s important to identify potential performance indicators, establish starting benchmarks, and then evaluate movement and impact over time to determine which metrics are the most influential to positive change. Stay tuned for more details on this in a future blog.

2 – Discuss planning considerations

Before embarking on the change effort, along with brainstorming ideas, it’s important to note constraints that may impact your re-engineering endeavors, as well. For example, identify potential obstacles such as:

  • Availability of certain employees to participate in various steps of the onboarding process
  • Any existing policies prohibiting certain activities within the organization (i.e. new hires can’t watch videos about company culture and training on YouTube if your company blocks that site from employee computers)
  • Fulfillment time for provisioning employee equipment is set at a minimum number of days (no matter what)
  • Lack of the availability of hiring software to facilitate electronic signatures and approvals and task notifications

Additionally, bear in mind that your approach will vary depending on whether your human resources function is centralized or decentralized. For example, in a centralized system, an organization with different locations will likely rely even more heavily on supervisors to carry out the majority of the tasks associated with pre-boarding and onboarding since HR staff won’t always be directly available.

The complexity of your business will of course drive the development of your new onboarding plan, too. If you have multiple divisions and/or departments, then it would be to your advantage to take time to customize different versions of your plan so they each include items specific to their respective department to better engage employees. These customizations will range from different statutory forms being required depending on employee location to different long-term training curriculum options being offered depending on employee role level.

As you plan the many elements of your revised employee onboarding process, continuously evaluate how the number of stages you choose to include impacts the overall length of your process. And remember, it’s not a bad thing to have a comprehensive onboarding process that lasts for a year or more; however, it is underwhelming to cram a bunch of information into a new employee’s first couple of days — particularly, if that’s all she wrote for the onboarding experience.

3 – Identify potential onboarding process players

Planning a stage in which you get buy-in from the stakeholders involved in your employee onboarding process is a critical port-of-call on your voyage to improvement. People will more likely be active (rather than adverse) participants in change that they help shape. So, at the onset of your project, think about people who have relationships with new hires, and then also consider how the scope of their relationships will impact the extent to which they should be involved in the project. Some will be champions for your cause; while others are sufficient as supporting cast members…but you do want to engage all at the appropriate level. Potential onboarding process players may include:

  • newly hired employees
  • human resources department members
  • hiring managers / supervisors
  • people that provision equipment / resources
  • people that approve forms
  • existing department members
  • members of senior management
  • mentors and buddies assigned to new employees
  • external vendors who interface with a new hire’s role
  • customers of your organization

Depending on both the individual as well as his/her role in the onboarding effort, different communication styles may be appropriate. Take time to mutually create expectations with others about communication preferences that will efficiently support the execution of the process.

4 – Build a framework for accountability

Where many small organizations fall down is in their tendency to repeatedly bandage their process gaps instead of making time for re-engineering efforts and strategy sessions. Their immediate pain is often getting product out the door in time, delivering service that is personalized, and other issues that arise from narrow staff bandwidth. Or, if they do have a periodic project retreat to discuss action steps, they may later fail to execute those items and stay on track to realize change.

The same macro-level tendencies of the organization are often recreated at the employee onboarding micro-level, as well. To overcome this pattern, it’s important for companies to specifically document their plan for change, assign tasks to specific individuals and set milestone deadlines for project completion so that the revamped onboarding process can be put into action for future new hires. Your initial approach may involve the eventual creation of a Gantt chart; however, if you’re a small business ready to foster team collaboration, using colored sticky notes at a team meeting can go a long way, too. Brainstorm all facets and tasks involved in the process, narrow down a sequential order and then assign stakeholders action items and responsibilities by adding initials to the sticky notes. The note color coding strategy can be applied in whichever way is most appropriate for your organization. Here are some ideas:

  • task category (tactical vs. strategic vs. cultural?)
  • task location within onboarding process timeframe (first week vs. six month anniversary)
  • person responsible
  • new onboarding process items vs. old process steps
  • priority for completion (if process is being rolled out in multiple phases)

As you and your team hammer out the details, be sure and think about how employees’ task assignments and roles can affect their onboarding experience and adjust accordingly. For example, some tasks may be completed independently from one another; whereas, others require certain prerequisite items to be completed beforehand.

5 – Incorporate external feedback, tools and resources

It’s easy for small businesses to only consider how their existing resources might be altered to impact employee onboarding process change. However, SMBs do themselves a disservice if they assume that external resources may cost too much, take too much time to research/implement, or have too many bells and whistles for their needs. Here are a list of ideas that could further raise your employee onboarding process game:

  • Survey stakeholders – While the HR team is accustomed to looking out for employees and striving to make improvements, they have only one perspective of what needs to change–their own perspective. By taking time to survey other players in the process who are external to HR, valuable ideas can be gained.
  • Research other employers – If you admire any other organizations for their low turnover and ability to assimilate happy new employees, then make time to take some notes on how your organization can incorporate some of their best practices…or at least take their ideas and tweak them to fit your culture.
  • Don’t forget the legalese – The more tactical side of employee onboarding includes the requisite paperwork and documents…some of which are required in order for the individual to be in your employ legally. The employment law landscape changes over time, and especially if you hire in different states and certain industries, being aware of the latest updates is essential to avoid big costs later. A trusted employment law attorney is someone you should have on speed dial.
  • Make the most of employee assessments – A validated, job-relevant assessment tool, when embraced and used by the entire team, can dramatically improve a new hire’s productivity earlier in the employment relationship. Especially those assessments that have cognitive and behavioral elements…as they allow both new hire and manager to peer into one another’s hard-wiring right off the bat so that they can begin to work together effectively that much sooner. Scheduling onboarding sessions to discuss assessment tools and how they tell a story about one’s skills, motivations and/or preferences is time well spent.
  • Reserve a spot for technology in your onboarding process – Especially because some software companies now focus on working with small- and medium-sized companies, many web-based tools now exist that are budget-friendly. Whether it be using social media to publicly welcome new employees to the firm, building in gamification activities to improve training activity retention rates, and/or implementing employee onboarding software to make your process paperless and improve accountability further into your onboarding process with the use of task assignments and notifications…the cost of tech resources is often insignificant when compared to the savings realized by the resulting improved productivity, lower turnover and quick access to web-based information.

If you’re committed to avoiding future next day new hire scenarios, then follow this small business employee onboarding checklist to be on your way to planning innovative change that will positively impact your organization.

ExactHire’s hiring software solutions are specifically designed for small- and medium-sized organizations. For more information on our employee onboarding software, please visit our resources section, try our pricing estimator tool and/or contact us today.

Common Problems With Employee Onboarding

Let’s face it…employee onboarding can be problematic. Particularly because it plays second fiddle all too often to its predecessor – the recruiting process. Furthermore, onboarding is complicated by the fact that so many moving pieces must align to effectively realize an organization’s end goal for the effort…arming a new hire with the tools and knowledge to thrive in her new organization. Oh, and doing so while also instilling in her a real sense that she’s found her new work home.

Make no mistake though – the employee onboarding process must be a regular priority if you want your organization to be the coveted employer of choice in your industry and/or community. However, before you can determine what adjustments should happen with your own company’s process, it’s helpful to be familiar with potential red flags. In this blog, I’ll review a list of common problems with employee onboarding.

Failure to Launch – No Compelling Business Case

If you find yourself surrounded by members of senior management that think onboarding is still just about getting new hire paperwork completed the first day, then it will be an uphill battle to sell your boss on how the benefits of onboarding improvement will outweigh the costs. However, making a business case for employee onboarding process reengineering doesn’t have to be too difficult if you go about it the right way.

Consider the business outcomes that matter most to your company. Now ask yourself how many of those outcomes are driven by people? I’ll be surprised if you don’t say all of them…and so that’s where you start building your momentum with management. While there are certainly costs associated with addressing your onboarding issues, your objective is to demonstrate how the expected return on investment of the change will outweigh the current opportunity cost of doing nothing. After all, engaging your people to be more productive and content over a long tenure with your organization will ultimately drive your bottom line.

As you make your case for change, don’t just go for a blessing from upper management. In order for your program to succeed, you absolutely must get their involvement and public buy-in, as well. Otherwise, the program will lack the credibility it needs to succeed long-term.

Poor Participation from Stakeholders

Speaking of getting company brass to cheer on your revolutionary onboarding efforts, don’t forget the importance of rallying your peers. These are the other stakeholders included in employee onboarding such as hiring managers, new hire buddies, mentors, cube mates; and, those tasked with the administrative side of the process including equipment provisioning, payroll enrollment, form approval, etc. Even though the HR team is often the department that champions the importance of onboarding and is therefore tasked with keeping others accountable, the other stakeholders must embrace the process and make it their own, too. All too often there is a disconnect here–other departments must be encouraged to jointly own the onboarding process with HR. Otherwise, they are only hurting their own departments’ (and organization’s) productivity and morale in the end.

A root cause of this problem is the failure to train stakeholders on how to deliver an optimal experience to new hires during onboarding. Additionally, part of training should include dialogue about why the process is critical to success; and, it can easily borrow from the business case details already made to upper management.

Details Slipping Through the Cracks

Many circumstances can affect the extent to which details are missed during employee onboarding. If you don’t yet have a documented onboarding checklist then some of the following items may sound familiar. Some common examples of missed details include:

  • employee’s key card doesn’t function on the first day
  • a key piece of equipment did not arrive before the employee did (i.e. laptop, computer mouse, cell phone, etc.)
  • new hire arrives before supervisor does on the first day
  • email address isn’t set up by IT in time
  • employee uniform wasn’t ordered before the new hire arrived
  • a benefits enrollment meeting was forgotten and the new employee is rushed to make decisions as a result

Not only does the omission of these details leave your team scrambling at the last minute, but it also makes a shoddy first impression on your brand new employee. For additional motivation, think about what new hires facing these setbacks may be saying about their first few days to their family and friends. Now, think about how that might be amplified on social media. Great onboarding is great PR for your business.

Blind Onboarding Faith

Many of us in human resources appreciate the opportunity that our profession offers to really help and support people. That inclination toward a glass half-full mentality can quickly turn into the belief that doing something different is good enough…because at least it’s better than what we used to do, right? It’s not enough to just fix it and forget it…you’ve got to measure, too!

Here’s what happens when your process isn’t documented and you don’t have any ongoing metrics.

  • No one owns the effort, there is no project champion to keep others accountable (which leads to…see “Details Slipping Through the Cracks” above)
  • Because there is no benchmark (even if it starts at the bottom of the barrel), you don’t really know when real improvement has been made
  • Therefore, it becomes unclear whether the process is failing, flailing or actually fulfilling

A documented employee onboarding process enables you to state objectives and identify key performance indicators that support business outcomes. It includes periodic opportunities to evaluate progress, discuss lessons learned and enact action steps. Central to the lessons learned component, is the necessity to gather feedback from all participants…both new employees and stakeholders. Not doing so really does leave you flying blind for the future.

Not Taking Your Time

Timing is a strategic element of rock star employee onboarding. Without support from others involved, if you start off too strong, the effectiveness of efforts can fizzle out too early due to lack of direction. Or, in the absence of preparation and organization, activities can lag leaving the new employee bored and disengaged.

Many organizations don’t devote enough time to employee onboarding. If your current process isn’t comprehensive enough to go beyond paperwork and directions to your breakroom, you have room to grow from both ends of the process. Incorporate pre-boarding activities before the new hire’s first day to calm his nerves and get some of the administrative items out of the way. Then, expand your view of onboarding beyond a few days to include opportunities for training, mentoring, culture assimilation, performance management and employee feedback during the first year.

Conversely, some organizations have good intentions but try to pack too much into a short time period in the hopes of making the employee productive sooner than reasonably possible. Don’t force new hires to drink from the fire hose. Trying to digest too much information in only a few days will lead to poor retention anyway. To alleviate this potential issue, some smaller companies invite full-time new employees to work a few half days their first week. This allows the new hires to soak up the information with a better chance of retention, and it places less demand on the process stakeholders in a small business to be with the new hire constantly (thus, pulling them away from getting daily work done for a long period of time, too).

Not Customizing the Experience

Depending on the size of your organization, allowing for a good deal of flexibility may be necessary within your onboarding process. After all, some of the activities and requirements for onboarding a C-level executive at corporate headquarters will differ from the details associated with welcoming a new machine operator at a production plant in another region.

Failing to customize the employee onboarding experience can be just as detrimental as not having much of an onboarding process, too. No new hire wants to feel like the latest model coming off the just-in-time onboarding assembly line. Determine the core elements of your process…those activities that should be introduced to all new hires, and then flex the experience to cater to different new hire requirements that may be based on:

  • employee geographic location
  • department and/or division
  • employee role / level in organization
  • special accommodations for employee
  • assessment results

Overlooking Technology Solutions

Because the definition of employee onboarding encompasses so much more than in the past, it’s no surprise that so many potential problems now exist. There’s so much to track, so many others to involve. Growing organizations begin to utilize independent systems to alleviate some of the administrative burden. Emails are manually sent to different stakeholders to remind them to order business cards, create a timesheet and coordinate their department members’ schedules for a new hire lunch. Excel spreadsheets are used to keep track of which employees have signed off to acknowledge the latest policy update.

This piecemeal approach to systems is a step in the right direction; however, it pales in comparison to the efficiency and productivity that can be realized with web-based onboarding technology. Having a single system to integrate all onboarding-related forms, tasks and activities can fix many other problems…and at the very least free up time to address the other more strategic aspects of the onboarding process.

Robust employee onboarding software can handle your tasks, notifications, employee signatures and HR countersignatures, form updates, prompts for benefits enrollment, equipment provisioning, training curriculum and more. Plus, moving cumbersome paperwork into the cloud means no more illegible handwriting and incomplete fields on statutory forms.

The popularity of gamification has important ramifications for onboarding, as well. Use it to revitalize the way you train employees and hold them accountable for progress. By turning what might otherwise be tedious sessions in memorization into interactive, rewarding simulations, knowledge retention will increase and employment brand perception will improve, as well.

Shabby Face Time

Despite the increasingly prevalent role of technology in employee onboarding, it’s imperative that companies still build in frequent “face time” opportunities. Think of these sessions as chances to deepen the employee-employer bond, as well as a window to take the temperature of your onboarding process.

Companies that neglect these activities will fail to reiterate and elaborate on their expectations for the employee in her new position. Valuable discussion regarding timelines for achieving certain performance levels will be lost. Conversation about specific job success factors will be forgotten. If you don’t recognize the importance of the timing of these discussions, as well as your follow-through on any relevant action steps that result from them…your precious employment brand will undoubtedly suffer–specifically, in the form of early turnover that probably could have been thwarted.

Overcome Your Onboarding Problems

Now that you are better equipped to see your problems’ impact on your own onboarding process, it’s time to start laying the groundwork for innovative change. But with any process improvement, it’s important to visualize your destination before charting your course.

Examining the approach and creative ideas of peer organizations can be a helpful exercise at this stage of the game. Good ideas elsewhere may not always work well with your own industry/culture/location; however, a few golden nuggets will surely surface.

ExactHire works with small- and medium-sized organizations to help them leverage technology in hiring. For more information about our employee onboarding software, try our pricing estimator and/or schedule a live demo with us today.

Image credit: Seedling by Ray_from_LA (contact)

The Unsung Benefits of Effective Employee Onboarding

Now that you have hired the employee who you envision to be part of your team for the long-term, how do you help ensure that this newest member of your team stays for that long-term? One way to help fulfill your prophecy is through effective onboarding.

Onboarding? Yes, onboarding! There are many facets of onboarding that encompass a smooth transition for newly hired employees, and which will benefit all parties involved. A new hire wants to feel informed, connected and valued. An organization wants team members who actively contribute and who fit well within the existing work culture. Both goals can be achieved and solidified through an effective onboarding process.

The first day for new hires should be geared towards bonding with their new team, learning first-hand what the new culture is like, and building rapport. Onboarding is not just a manager’s task; it is the responsibility of all team members within the organization itself to provide accurate information in an encouraging manner. Teammates need to welcome new hires and provide a climate of support for them during the acclimation time frame.

The Time in Between – Pre-Onboarding

In the immediate days after new hires accept an offer–and definitely before their first day–you should ensure that they complete many of the “to-do list” tasks that often bombard them on Day 1. Send new hires any packets, paper or paperless, that contain items like tax forms, personal data forms, and insurance registrations. They can review, complete and submit the information to HR before arriving to work. This will help them avoid a first day solely spent on documentation, while providing them with time to become acclimated to team policies and departmental/organizational expectations.

Keeping Connected – Onboarding Technology

Onboarding technology helps an organization keep in contact with new hires during the time between their offer acceptance and their official first days on the job. A lapse in communication between new hires and their managers at this critical time can potentially cause a big disconnect, which can be detrimental to relationships that must be developed between new employees and their teammates. Onboarding technology is also the most efficient means to continue promoting your organization’s employer brand that was introduced during the recruitment phase–especially for new hires that are working remotely on a full-time or part-time status.

Setting and Meeting Expectations

New hires have a lot on their minds. Whether they are recent graduates or seasoned workforce veterans, they will have acquired notions of what a workplace should be from their previous environments. They will bring these past mindsets along with them in the back, or possibly the forefront, of their minds when starting at a new place. The norms of the environment from which new hires come can affect the way they perceive and perform their tasks and acclimate within the new culture.

Since it is inevitable that some form of internal comparison will take place in the new employees’ minds,  it is important for current team members to be cognizant of this as they interact with new hires. Having a component within the onboarding process that shares norms and expectations of your organization will give your manager and team the opportunity to communicate expectations, as well as learn more about the new hires’ past experiences.

Improving Your Onboarding Experience

Simply put, there are always additional means to improve a process whether it is part of the onboarding process or an organizational based procedure. Within each new hire’s onboarding process, solicit feedback from each person. Ensure new hires that constructive criticism will help improve the organization’s onboarding process, and reiterate that their feedback will be taken positively.

The new hire’s feedback could lead to change that could positively impact the morale of the organization along with profitability.  With feedback from a new hire, additional training and employee development opportunities could develop.  The fresh, open mind of a new hire can help stimulate others to open their minds and discard the “But We Have Always Done It This Way” mentality.

As you develop and implement your organization’s onboarding process, realize that continuous improvement of the setup, content and delivery of the onboarding process itself is an objective for which to strive.  What works today for your new hires will not necessarily work for tomorrow’s new hires since we are in the midst of rapidly changing workforce dynamics.

Resources for Building an Onboarding Process

SHRM Foundation’s Effective Practice Guidelines Series outlines the Four Cs of Onboarding which gives an organization an excellent foundation on which to customize its onboarding process.

  • Compliance – Teaching employees basic legal and policy related rules and regulations
  • Clarification – Ensuring employees understand their new jobs and job related expectations
  • Culture – Providing employees with a sense of organizational formal and informal norms
  • Connection – Creating relationships and interpersonal networks that new employees need

Creating and delivering an onboarding process which encompasses the Four Cs provides initial direction that can be adapted to the intricacies of any organization delivering the onboarding piece.

A Final Note: Enthusiasm Is Contagious

Ultimately, the quicker new hires feel connected and knowledgeable about their job duties, the quicker they will be positively contributing to the overall goals of your organization. Onboarding should not be perceived by new hires and the organization’s team as something tedious and monotonous.  Onboarding is not that at all!  Onboarding helps generate excitement for something of high value–your organization, its team and your organization’s mission and vision. Enthusiasm is contagious!  Build excitement on what you do and who helps you do it!  Your organization’s mission is a calling, and positively communicate that calling to new hires in your onboarding process.  If new hires hear that calling, let them answer.

Image credit: Speak Your Mind by Ben Grey (contact)

New Goals For HR Efficiency

‘Tis the New Year!  Whether that brings you joyous excitement or “Bah Humbug”, the new year is here, and changes are sure to come. And while we cannot slow time, we can control how we respond to the changes that the New Year will bring.  With positivity, wonder, and excitement, we can look forward to those changes and learn from them.

In our personal and professional lives, resolutions for change are a common concept for this time of year.  However, often these resolutions are not in line with what we actually need. And when those lofty resolutions are not met, additional stresses often erupt for us. Life can be stressful enough as it is.  Why add more stress with unrealistic/unneeded resolutions? It may be better to look at existing needs and set goals to meet them.

In the world of human resources, we mix with people daily.  And in the grand search for the “holy grail” candidate, we often neglect the needs of our organization and ourselves . Let’s look at three goals that could enhance organizational efficiency and make each workday a more positive, productive experience.

Streamline the Hiring and Onboarding Process

Explore tools to help you manage your organization such as  Applicant tracking software, employee onboarding software, reference check software, employee assessment solutions, and paperless HR resources. ExactHire offers these tools along with a support team that values forging relationships through hands-on installation and implementation of our solutions. After all, successful partnerships are built on solid relationships. 

Organize Applicant Data for Daily Use and Internal/External Reporting

Are you familiar with the Reports Dashboard of ExactHire’s HireCentric portal? There are numerous standard reports here to organize your data with report options that include various types of applicant searches, EEO data, and time calculation among many other topics.

For example, there is a report that shows a list of incomplete applications.  By running an “Incomplete Applications” report, you can see who started an application for your organization but has not yet submitted it.  If you want to reach out to those individuals who have incomplete applications, HireCentric has a useful feature that allows you to email those applicants.  If you want to create custom reports, you can do that in HireCentric also.

Enlighten Your Team

Without a doubt, our support team is here to answer your questions and be your advocate whenever you need us.  Also, we have a library full of tip sheets located at support.exacthire.com that can help you get the most out of your tools. With this knowledge base, you are empowered to fully learn new features that you can share with your team. We are ready to assist you as you explore our tools, and we want you to have the resources that are most beneficial to enhancing your organization’s functionality. 


There are countless opportunities that lie ahead this year, but let us take a few moments to appreciate where we have been and where we are going.  At ExactHire, we value our clients, and we are here to assist you and your organization not only in this New Year, but in the many years ahead. To learn more about how ExactHire can create HR efficiency for you, contact us today!

Image credit: High Efficiency by Tom Magliery (contact)

Offboarding Is Just As Important As Onboarding

Organizations of all sizes continue to hear about the importance of new-employee onboarding as it relates to employee engagement and overall retention. But many have found that the days of tracking all of these functions manually or in a spreadsheet are over. They are looking for better ways to organize the new-hire onboarding process and increasingly are moving toward paperless, interactive solutions to do so.

Once an employee is fully onboarded, most companies then utilize an HR and/or Payroll software solution to manage employees through the duration of their employment.  This is often where things like paid time off, pay increases, and performance reviews are kept. Again, keeping these types of records in a single, automated place streamlines the workflow and helps keep employees happier.

But how about when an employee leaves the organization — either voluntarily or involuntarily?  Do you have a definitive process to offboard that person?

Offboarding Defined

Like employee onboarding, employee offboarding will vary significantly from one organization to another.  Along those same lines, because there are a variety of things that must be done/tracked when an employee leaves, there’s a case to be made that automating this process is a good move.

As employees move on from your company, below are some common things that may be part of your offboarding process:

  • Retrieve office keys / entry swipe badge
  • Retrieve company laptop and/or phone
  • Confirm date of last paycheck
  • Provide COBRA information
  • Provide retirement plan options upon termination
  • Conduct exit interview
  • Provide copy of any non-compete or NDA agreements signed by employee
  • Setup auto-forward of the former employee’s corporate email

There certainly are many other things that might fall into this list, but it’s easy to see these are not trivial items.  As with new hire onboarding, you may choose to manage these tasks in a physical checklist or in a spreadsheet.  Likewise, there are solutions emerging to help automate this in the same way as new-hire onboarding.  Whatever methodology you choose, be sure to have a process in place to avoid exposure for your company and to make things as smooth as they can be.

To learn more about how ExactHire can help with your onboarding and offboarding processes visit the resource section of our website or contact us today!

 

Image credit: Delta B-727 (1970’s) by Hunter Desportes (contact)

What Employers Need to Know About Ban the Box Legislation

Ban the Box.  Whether you agree or disagree with the concept, one thing we all can agree on is that this movement requires our attention in our organization’s hiring practices.  Depending on the states in which an organization hires individuals, “Ban the Box” takes a heightened level of importance since states and cities throughout the United States are enacting various forms of this legislation.  The future of hiring is rapidly changing so it is important for human resources professionals to be aware of existing and pending legislation that directly affects daily hiring practices in order to prevent an organization from experiencing legal ramifications due to noncompliance.

About “Ban the Box”

“Ban the Box” is the removal of any questions asking about an individual’s prior criminal record from an employer’s job application…essentially, barring any check boxes that an applicant might have had to mark on an employment application in the past.  The “Ban the Box” concept is based on the idea that limiting the employer’s access to the applicant’s conviction records prior to a job offer can help ex-offenders find employment based on their merit and skills instead of being eliminated from consideration for the position potentially due to the applicant’s past criminal record.  Through the “Ban the Box” movement, advocates of this concept express the belief that if hiring representatives did not know about the applicant’s criminal background, hiring representatives would not factor that information in the decision making process as the applicant goes through the employer’s hiring channels resulting in a more “fair chance” approach to ex-offenders.  The biggest benefit according to “Ban the Box” supporters is that when ex-offenders acquire employment, ideally, the recidivism rate would decrease which would also provide a boost to our overall economy.  According to an article published by NBC News, the latest U.S. census figures estimate approximately 70 million adults in the United States have some form of criminal record.  This equates to approximately one in four individuals in the United States with a criminal record.

Ban the Box legislation does not force an employer to hire an individual with a criminal record.  The ban would not necessarily prohibit an employer from conducting background checks; the checks would possibly occur later in the hiring process and/or once an offer is extended to the applicant.  Exceptions could exist for certain jobs as mandated by federal law (ex. prohibiting pedophiles from working with children, etc.)

History

In San Francisco, the “Ban the Box” campaign was started over a decade ago in a civil rights movement of formerly and currently incarcerated individuals and their families in an organized group, All of Us or None.  They began to encourage the local government to remove questions related to convictions from job applications so ex-offenders could be evaluated on their qualifications and not their prior record(s).  In their vision, any questions about convictions could be asked later in the hiring process, if needed.  The efforts by All of Us or None paid off; the city of San Francisco was the first to remove the question from city job applications.  This victory was the catalyst for the current “Ban the Box” movement.  In 1998, Hawaii was the first state to pass legislation to “Ban the Box” about conviction related questions on both public and private sector employment applications, statewide.

Current Ban the Box Laws and Ordinances

According to the National Employment Law Project (NELP), thirteen states have implemented some degree of a statewide “Ban the Box” Fair Chance Hiring Law.  Thirty states have enacted a local or state “Ban the Box” Fair Chance Hiring Law.  With the “Ban the Box” trend in motion, it is just a matter of time before additional states, cities and jurisdictions enact similar legislation.  The statewide “Ban the Box” legislation enacted in Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Rhode Island include employers in both the public and private sectors, and Illinois and New Jersey are following in their footsteps beginning in 2015.

To keep abreast of States and Cities who enact “Ban the Box” legislation, NELP has an interactive map that provides an overview of the current legislative status.  An overview of the legislation for the locations with “Ban the Box” legislation can be found here.  For the actual legislation, you will need to go directly to the state or city government website to access the passed law(s) in its comprehensive language.

Employers need to be aware of the legislation that exists and which is pending to be prepared for the potential impact on their organizations.  If your organization currently has hiring practices in multiple states and cities, or posts job listings nationally, it is important to be cognizant of the locales’ legal expectations.  At ExactHire, we take pride in doing our best to ensure our clients’ satisfaction is the highest possible. We do whatever we can to resolve clients’ current needs and identify potential needs.  After you speak with your legal counsel, and if you and your legal team decide changes need to be made to your employment application(s) to comply with legislation, the ExactHire team can work with you to create a new application with the verbiage you specify for compliancy.  Also, please know that one of the benefits of using HireCentric as your applicant tracking software is that you can create multiple employment applications, each specific to your needs.  For more information about updating your current employment application(s) and/or creating additional employment applications, please email support@exacthire.com.

Please note:  The ExactHire team is not legal counsel, and we do not offer legal advice, so any questions regarding your company’s eligibility for exemption with the “Ban the Box” legislation and/or proper verbiage for your company’s employment application(s) should be discussed with your company’s legal counsel.

Related links of importance:

If you are not yet an ExactHire client, but are interested in using an applicant tracking system and online employment application, please visit our resources page for additional information or contact us today.

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10 Tips for Small Businesses to Start an HR Department

Recently, I wrote about making your first hire, but I probably should have prefaced it with this blog which asks the question…how should your small company approach creating a human resources department?  Eventually any growing business will have an HR department so here are some items to think about when starting up a company or expanding your HR needs:

Compensation structure

Know ahead of time what your payroll budget is and how raises or bonuses will be handled. This will make negotiating salaries less stressful when the time comes.

Benefit packages

What benefits will be offered to the employees? Keep in mind 401k, sick days, flex spending accounts as well as health, dental and eye care.

Staffing plan

It can be helpful to lay this out in such a way that you can view the management hierarchy of the company.  It’s important to know for which departments managers are responsible and who reports to the upper management. Having a clear, scalable design for future growth in mind is also important.

Keep an up-to-date profile of jobs

When hiring for jobs, keep accurate descriptions of the job requirements for each position within the company. This information will be useful to the overall structure of your organization in the future.

Performance measurements

Decide how job performance will be measured…it could be through peer assessments or manager reviews or measures of sales performance – or perhaps a combination. Regardless of the way, set these standards up right away and then set the proper expectations with employees well in advance of review time.

Travel or expenses

This might not pertain to every company, but it’s important to think about and document your processes. If you have lots of people that travel or turn in expense reports, it is important to have an expense policy stating what will and will not be reimbursed, and how the company needs documentation of the expenses that have incurred.

Time and attendance

Depending on the type of company, having a strict time and attendance policy can be vital. If it is a production facility, “clocking in” on time to make product is important. Make sure employees know their expected times and what penalties there are for being tardy or absent. Other organizations may be more flexible but there is still a need to keep employees informed of the expectations.

Employee referral program

This is a great opportunity for the employee and the company when hiring. The employee is incented to recommend others that would be a good fit within the organization and the company is able to find potential candidates more easily. Make sure to document the referral bonus and time requirements necessary to earn the bonus…and then promote the program frequently to your employees!

Training & future development

Even if you have a relatively flat organizational structure and a small company, thinking about the future of the organization is imperative. Ask yourself what kind of development plan you have for your future employees for training and growth purposes.

Vacation days

Ask yourself if these will be handed out in a standard amount to all employees or if they will be “earned” as the employee works longer with the company. Also, document how vacation days are to be requested to allow for efficiency on the job (i.e. avoid too many people being out of office on the same day).

I know this is a long list and it may seem overwhelming to the new entrepreneur, especially. The good news is that all of this does not have to be decided upon immediately, but it’s good to have a general idea of where the organization will stand on all these topics. As the company grows, these items will evolve and change to meet the needs of you, your staff and the company overall.  Knowing in advance how the company will handle situations that fall into these categories will save a lot of work and stress in the long run.

For more information about ExactHire and our hiring software products for small business, please visit our resources page or contact us today.

Do Not Underpay Employees – 3 Reasons Why

Everyone wants to save a buck nowadays, and companies are no different. I am in finance so I understand. I am always looking for ways to help save the company money or find more efficient ways to function in order to be “leaner” overall.  That being said, here is one place that you do not want to “skimp” too much – what you pay your staff. Do not underpay employees!

Inspire Hard Work

When an employee is making a salary that makes him/her happy, it creates a stable happy environment for everyone. This will keep the employee working hard which will create an overall positive atmosphere in the office. Hard working employees will motivate each other to keep improving as individuals, and as a whole organization.

Keep Your “A” Players

If you underpay your employees, they are likely to eventually seek out employment elsewhere. By making sure they are paid adequately, you are able to retain your “A” players and also inspire others to work hard and improve as well.

Appeal to the Best Prospects

Keeping the best employees and having a happy work environment will appeal to the best potential applicants when you have new positions available.  Your reputation as a great employer will help attract the best applicants for jobs based on how your current employees feel. This could be through word of mouth or other networking avenues.

These three simple motivators demonstrate the importance of fair pay for your employees. When you are ready to hire your next “A” player, please contact us to learn more about how our applicant tracking system can streamline the hiring process.

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Combat Employee Poaching

I have a friend who does hiring in the service industry. Let’s call her Jane. There have been many times where Jane and I have gone to a restaurant to have a meal or have decided to run our errands together while catching up. Nothing out of the ordinary.

However, Jane always has her business cards on the ready. They’re fun and funky; they contain Jane’s contact information and her company’s career website. She’s in Human Resources so Jane wanted to add a little “something different” to her business cards by using the careers site.

Oh, I almost forgot, Jane’s always evaluating the customer service employees that she encounters.

“I really appreciated your patience with us,” or “Your customer service skills are great,” and then with some type of go-go-gadget arms and a swirl of magic, her business card appears in the hands of this employee – your employee!

That’s called employee poaching.

Employee poaching is the art of luring good employees away from their existing place of employment, usually a competitor, with intention to hire the employee at their organization. It is real. If your employee is visible to the public with a great skillset, chances are high that someone has attempted to poach this employee.

There are all types of articles you can read about the legal limitations and the ethics surrounding employee poaching, but I am focused on how to protect your employees in the event poaching does occur.

The best line of defense with this threat is developing a good employee retention plan. An employee retention plan helps you to articulate your retention strategy to management as well as employees directly. For some employees, the sheer notion that a company has thought highly enough of their employees to create a retention plan begins to earn the employer bonus points. The plan itself will only get your organization so far, the content must be valuable as well as the follow through consistent. So, what type of items would go into a retention plan?

Supervisor review

Most employees leave an organization because of management, not because they did not enjoy the work or the organization. One way to keep an eye on this would be to schedule bi-annual or annual supervisor reviews where you ask the employees to review their supervisor. There are assessments you can utilize to help with this. What you should be looking to understand is, “what is the supervisor doing well,” “what could he/she do better,” and “how could he/she do that [thing] better”. Then use this information to help improve and motivate the supervisor.

Skill utilization & development

Is the employee showing interest in developing other talents in an area that would be helpful to your organization? Does he/she have a passion for something? Often these skills or talents will come up in casual conversation. Sometimes they will appear when an employee is given a special project. Keep an eye out for exceptional skills, and then engage the employee by allowing the employee to utilize the skill and/or continue to develop that skill.

Appreciation/recognition

Often employers think this must be done with grandeur and cost a fortune. It doesn’t. In fact it should not be something expensive as employees may be turned off that the money is not going toward a bonus or was not paid to them in a monetary way. There are very simple things you can do. Set monthly or quarterly goals and if the employee meets or exceeds that goal, do something special like providing lunch, car wash, a tank of gas, workplace conveniences, etc. If you have a group of employees that meet the goal they could spend an afternoon doing an off-site activity together. Keep in mind, if the goal is exceeded by a large amount the token of appreciation should also be increased. The employee must know that you are happy he/she is part of your organization and that he/she is valuable to you.

The very best way to protect against employee poaching and to build your employee retention plan is to create relationships with your employees. When employees understand they are valued and they feel as if engaging in open conversation with their employer is possible, great things can happen. You will not be able to keep all employees from being poached, but creating a retention plan is a good way to begin to protect your assets.

For more ideas on how to keep your employees engaged, check out my teammate’s post here. Or learn how the powerful software solution like ExactHire, can help you build a strong foundation to better engage with your employees–starting on Day 1.

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