Forms can make onboarding of new staff and a myriad of other inhouse office processes more effieinct. In short, forms lead to better productivity, accountability, and savings.
All too often businesses consider that digital investments are useful only in helping with growth. From branding to interacting with customers to generating more revenue, a significant amount of digital and technology budgets are directly evaluated based on how much revenue they do – or do not – generate.
But behind the scenes, that form submission reduces back-office check processing work, and frees up staff time that was required to manually take card payments over the phone, and a host of other time and money leaks that plague service businesses.
The lost part of this evaluation, however, is how those digital investments can also improve workflows, instill processes and organization, and ultimately save time and money. In some cases, these savings are significant, leading to a waterfall effect of an improved bottom line and customer experience.
For example, creating a form that takes a payment for a doctor’s office does indeed help generate revenue. But behind the scenes, that form submission reduces back-office check processing work, and frees up staff time that was required to manually take card payments over the phone, and a host of other time and money leaks that plague service businesses.
Making New Hire Onboarding Smoother with Forms
One place where forms can provide similar benefits is when it comes to onboarding a new hire. Consider that as with most activities in a business, onboarding a new hire consists of a series of steps that must be completed. That being the case, the use of a form to standardize onboarding and make the associated workflow more efficient is a no-brainer.
Using Forms for New Hire Onboarding
As with many initiatives, the key to f for new hire onboarding comes in having a solid plan from the start. Before a single pixel is designed or a single line of code is written, you absolutely must plan for all aspects of the form utilization.
Plan the work, work the plan, forms will get you there
The most obvious part of planning is how the form will function. What types of conditional logic will be utilized? Are any APIs required to tie the form submission into other software you are using? What departments and what specific roles will be impacted by the form and its workflow? If someone in HR is used to making physical copies of all records and suddenly those records come over digitally, how is that impact felt? Planning is key before you actually get started.
Collaborate with your team for effective forms
Next, we recommend gathering input from everyone impacted when a new hire starts. From departments to individuals, you do not want to introduce a new workflow without consideration of others. For example, if you are onboarding a new salesperson, your form workflow will impact not only human resources but also sales operations (setting up the CRM and other tools), information technology (setting up phone and computer), training, and sales leadership. Before implementing your new hire onboarding forms, work with each of these departments to minimize impact but maximize efficiency.
Test, test, test your forms for functionality
Before using your form to onboard real employees, make sure and test the form and all integrations from start to finish. Confirm that each piece of the workflow and each utilized API is not just operating correctly but operating in a way that reduces the workload for your team. Trading the old way of doing things for a new way doesn’t make much sense if the new way doesn’t create new efficiencies and improve effectiveness.
It cannot be stressed enough that a lack of quality control and testing in your forms can create pain across the organization that is difficult to unspool. Be patient as you build, patient as you test, and patient as you deploy to insure success over time.
Be open to change in how your forms collect data
Finally, be open to iterating and improving your form and the associated workflow as time passes. Your business will change, the needs of new employees and the departments they join will change, and the way that your organization works will change. Forms to help with new employee onboarding are not static in nature but rather open to iteration, evolution and – most of all – improvement over time. Take advantage of this and evaluate your forms regularly.
Technology changes quickly. Being open to new ideas and iterations will maximize the effectiveness of your forms and the resulting workflows.
Is onboarding new employees a challenge for your business?
Utilizing forms for new hire onboarding is not hard, but it is complicated. From tying into your payroll and HR systems to making sure all privacy and compliance requirements are adhered to, even completely manual new hire onboarding is fraught with risk. Now, use technology to execute that process and things can get even riskier.
The good news is that utilizing forms to onboard new hires is exactly the kind of initiative that can positively impact the bottom line. Time saved can be applied to other critical tasks. Errors omitted can mitigate organizational risk. Efficient and streamlined workflows can drastically reduce onboarding time, placing your new hire in the role and working much quicker.
Our team at Bet Hannon Business Websites has helped countless organizations improve not just the new hire onboarding process but also other critical tasks and activities throughout the organization. Contact us if you would like to learn more about how forms can improve workflows and structure in your organization.
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