Can Onboarding Give You a Competitive Edge?

Enhancing Your Brand Through Mobile Onboarding Staffing Technology

Ask recruiters which part of their job causes the most aggravation and hands down, many will point to onboarding – the process that transforms potential talent to actual employees. Subject to federal, state and local laws, onboarding can expose your agency to costly fines and lawsuits if any part of the process is mishandled. Moreover, each client served by a staffing agency has specific onboarding requirements that they expect to be met.

Consequently, for talent that wants to work, onboarding requires them to gather credentials, navigate documents and tax forms, and provide attestations, often with information needing to be reentered multiple times. And, for recruiters, onboarding is a no-win situation. You don’t get paid until the talent is working. Yet you’re forced to waste time babysitting candidates to ensure they finish all necessary steps before placement.

All this leads to the biggest problem with onboarding – it’s arguably the single largest choke point in the talent funnel. At many staffing firms, less than 50% of found talent ever complete onboarding, and of those that do, only 60% show up for the first day of work.

Unfortunately, first generation staffing technology often requires multiple systems and logins that don’t integrate with your ATS. As a result, early attempts to automate onboarding have at times worsened the process.

Staffing firms have come to see onboarding as a necessary evil. But what if you could put the right technology and processes in place to raise completion by 50%? And what if you took the hardest task in staffing and turned it into your own competitive advantage?

Think about it. If done well, onboarding is an important step to get new hires acquainted with your agency and ready for their upcoming work assignment. Just as an overly complex onboarding process can spell disaster for your recruiting firm, a pleasing experience will enhance your brand and entice workers to come back for more by demonstrating that you’re a modern company that’s easy to do business with. 

If you can get onboarding right, you’ll go a long way in helping your employees, your recruiters, and your clients – everyone wins!

Go Mobile! Why the Right Staffing Software is Key in Building an Effective Onboarding Strategy

So, how does one go about building a more seamless onboarding experience? To start, having the right mobile staffing technology is key! A best-in-class onboarding solution will:

Simplify the Process and Put It in the Palm of Your Candidate’s Hand

The best solutions will simplify complex steps and create an intuitive process for your talent that minimizes transaction time, eliminates redundant actions, offers clear direction, and provides immediate feedback and status updates.

And by supporting all these actions through a candidate’s mobile phone, you will allow them to move through all onboarding operations and retrieve important job information with the convenience of anytime, anywhere access. As a result, you’ll get more employees to complete the process – and faster.

A best-in-class onboarding app can also deliver customizable pre-boarding packages that distribute necessary compliance forms and various welcome materials – such as quick FAQs, training guides, and links to orientation videos – to help keep new talent engaged prior to final placement. With the use of the right mobile talent enablement app, you can dramatically boost speed-to-fill and improve show-up rates by building a more streamlined and engaging onboarding process that is fully accessible from your candidates’ mobile devices – a win for your clients, your recruiters, and your agency’s bottom line.

Create Configurable Workflows That Support Unique Client Requirements

Clients are reliant on the recruiter to quickly find a pool of qualified, available talent, move them smoothly through all necessary onboarding steps, supply important on-the-job instructions, and ensure they’re engaged and ready to work on their very first day! 

This is no easy task. Depending on the role, location, and company, clients often have a variety of specific onboarding requirements which can result in an overly complex process that leads to procedural errors. And, if any part of your onboarding process goes wrong, your business – and theirs – could be exposed to compliance risk.

For clients, a staffing firm’s ability to follow through on their personalized onboarding needs while placing qualified talent quickly is a critical consideration when selecting agencies. Imagine if your recruiters can easily set up a highly customized workflow that can be quickly adapted to meet your clients’ specific needs – and saved for continuous use. And, with just a click of a button, they can instantly send only the correct, relevant forms straight to their candidates’ mobile phones, streamlining the entire process while removing the chance for human error and lowering compliance risk. 

And, if the mobile technology seamlessly integrates with your main ATS, all applicant onboarding data can be stored in one place to help recruiters quickly redeploy talent once an assignment is complete. This will create a more engaging talent experience that raises show-up rates, speeds time-to-fill, and sets your agency up for success.

Keep Recruiters Informed with Real-Time Updates and Automated Notifications (So They Can Intervene Less)

For recruiters, onboarding represents the single biggest pain point in the hiring process. They’re always on-the-hook to get talent to complete paperwork and show up for work. And though they have little control over the process, they spend a lot of time making sure necessary forms are filled out, instructions are given, and the candidates turn up when they say they will. The result is a lot of stress on your recruiters, as well as wasted effort that could be better spent doing what they’re paid to do – recruiting more talent and creating a better employment experience for both employees and clients.

Thus, your onboarding solution should include automated communications, such as reminders of incomplete forms to fill out and next steps, that can keep talent on track throughout the process, while also updating recruiters on how their candidates are doing. Automated onboarding communications help talent remain engaged in the process while keeping recruiters updated on their progress. That way, your recruiters can intervene less often and only when necessary. This will improve speed-to-fill while giving them significant time back so they can focus on value-added work.

Build an Onboarding Strategy that Makes Your Agency an Employer of Choice

Employees have less time and more options when it comes to finding work. And, since the pandemic, the ability to manage a completely remote onboarding process via mobile technology is no longer a nice to have – it’s an expectation! Talent will gravitate to those employers who are easy to work with and offer a more modern hiring experience. And clients will select those agencies that can place qualified talent quickly while still guaranteeing compliance with their personal onboarding requirements.

For these reasons, onboarding is more than a set of burdensome but necessary tasks; it’s a critical opportunity for recruiting firms to delight talent and enhance brand loyalty!

In an increasingly competitive marketplace, those who deliver a more streamlined employment journey for both their candidates and recruiters will immediately differentiate their agency from competitors who don’t. A highly engaging and streamlined mobile onboarding process will create a winning talent experience that will allow you to put your best foot forward and establish your agency as the employer of choice for both clients and employees.