Employee Onboarding — An HR Technology Seeking a Definition

On the aisles of the expo hall at IHRIM ’08 in Orlando last month were no less than a dozen vendors with an Onboarding product. It didn’t take much more than three booth stops to come to the conclusion that there are as many definitions of Onboarding as there are vendors selling Onboarding products. For that matter, there are additional definitions for each consulting firm and HR industry analyst that writes on the topic of Onboarding. So what, then, is Onboarding? Can a universal definition of Onboarding be written?

Their answer is likely to be skewed in the direction of the strengths of their own product when you ask a vendor with an Onboarding product what Onboarding is. Instead, ask an HR professional what Onboarding is and they will universally define Employee Onboarding simply as moving a candidate for a role into that role. The candidate can be new to the organization, or may already be participating in the organization as an employee, contractor, partner, or in any number of peripheral capacities. The role the candidate is moving into may be any working relationship with the organization, most typically an employment role, but the role may also be an expansion of duty or responsibility, either permanent or temporary.

Products that address a myriad of aspects of the above definition are offered by Onboarding technology vendors; all claiming their approach is the most important. So, the only approach that matters is this. It’s not surprising, then, that all of the vendors with Onboarding products at IHRIM ’08 showed off widely varying approaches to Onboarding. It is revealed that there are two basic approaches to Onboarding: transactional Onboarding and acculturation when you take a closer look at each of the vendors and their products.

Transactional Onboarding focuses on automating the data transactions and processes related to moving the candidate into their new role. Data transactions generally include the collection of data from the candidate and the generation of forms, such as tax and benefits forms, as well as employment policy acknowledgement forms. Transactions may also include the data integrations between other systems, such as talent acquisition and HRMS, or between the organization and their third party partners such as background testing vendors. Basically, processes associated with Onboarding, industry best and accepted practices, processes that are defined through a combination of the organization’s business policy, by are sought to be automated and made perfect by transactional Onboarding through regulatory bodies.

Acculturation focuses on making the process of moving the candidate into their new role as quick and as efficient as possible. Acculturation is about making sure the employee understands their new role and organization and helping them achieve productivity quickly. Acculturation is about making the candidate’s transition as smooth and painless as possible. If it seems that artistic-thinking side of the Onboarding persona to transactional Onboarding’s left-brain logical-thinking side of the Onboarding persona, and acculturation is the right-brain, then this is for the better cause. There are many ways to smooth a candidate’s Onboarding transition, like through buying the Onboarding Software Free.

Acculturating a candidate (known also as socializing a candidate or more big-brotherly as indoctrinating a candidate, a term more often heard in Europe) can be achieved in many different ways. Some vendors implement acculturation in the form of a new employee portal, where candidates can access information of interest to newbie.

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TRAINING ONLINE s.r.o.

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Onboarding-Online.com is easy to use cloud based onboarding platform and e-Learning software for mid sized companies, educational agencies and coaching projects

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