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How do you define a great first day at work?
For a new joiner, it would mean starting their first day without having to scavenger hunt and chase Sysadmins for access, identity creation, and resources. Organizations rely on outdated manual onboarding methods that leave new joiners with no idea of how to start their day. More than 37% of HR professionals state that manual onboarding increases their workload and often leads to delays in the start date of new joiners.
However, what if you can automate the onboarding process? A process that ensures that your new joiner hits the ground running on their first day.
Leading companies like Hitachi have slashed their onboarding time by 4 days and reduced HR work by 8 hours just by implementing onboarding automation. In this blog, we will break down how you can automate employee onboarding workflows and discuss the tools that can help you achieve it.
The Business Impact of Automated Onboarding
A Superior New Hire Experience Drives Retention
Manual onboarding processes waste HR and IT teams’ time with repetitive administrative work, and employees suffer when they are unable to follow deadlines.
However, by automating these workflows with effective workforce identity management solutions, they can deliver a better employee experience.
This is one of the most effective ways companies can enhance employee retention. SHRM found that a structured onboarding experience increases employees’ likelihood of staying with a company for at least three years by 58%.
Faster IT Onboarding Avoids Lost Productivity
Automation also reduces overall onboarding times, as the IT onboarding process is completed in minutes instead of days.
That means new employees can hit the ground running on day one, with the tools, group memberships, and access privileges they need.
Research from Digitate shows that automated onboarding workflows reduce the onboarding timeline by as much as five days. For larger companies, this saves millions of dollars in lost productivity.
Key Software for Automated Workflows
To successfully automate employee onboarding, it’s important to integrate your HR and IT systems. These are the systems that your enterprise uses to manage employee operations.
Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS)
Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) are the foundation of modern hiring processes. They help in streamlining recruitment by managing everything from job postings to interview scheduling, and much more. They help HR teams stay organized during the candidate interview process.
After recruitment, ATS platforms also play an important role in onboarding. By capturing and storing PII (Personally Identifiable Information) during the hiring process, they allow HRs to pre-initiate the IT setup for a great first day at work. This improves the onboarding and ensures that the new joiner has all access at the time of their joining.
Popular Options: Workday, Greenhouse, Lever by Employ
HR Information Systems (HRIS) Systems
The onboarding process starts in the HRIS or HCM. It acts as the system of record for new employees and captures employee data like names, departments, roles, and start dates.
These HR systems serve as the trigger point and source of truth (SOT) for automated onboarding workflows.
Popular Options: ADP, BambooHR, UKG Pro
Identity Providers (IdP)
While HR systems are the starting point of the onboarding workflow, Identity Providers (IdPs) are the endpoint. They handle the creation of user accounts, email setup, and access provisioning to required systems. They also enforce security protocols like SSO (Single Sign On) and MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication)
They support RBAC and ABAC to ensure that new hires get appropriate permissions to start their first day.
Popular Options: Active Directory, Entra ID (Azure AD), Google Workspace, Okta Universal Directory
IT Service Management (ITSM) Systems
For new hires, resources like laptops and others must be configured before they start. They also need to be shipped on time if they are working remotely.
IT Service Management (ITSM) platforms streamline this process. They automatically generate service requests and support tickets as part of the onboarding workflow.
Popular Options: Jira, Freshservice, ServiceNow
What IT Tools Can Automate Employee Onboarding?
When it comes to choosing the right tools to connect workforce identity systems, one must consider different factors.
The right option should fit your company’s size, budget, skilled coding resources, and development timeline.
Custom-Built API Scripts
Almost all the core workforce identity systems offer REST APIs. Building custom scripts to connect these APIs provides full flexibility and customization.
- A Good Fit For: Organizations with skilled in-house development resources and unique business needs.
- A Bad Fit For: Companies without coders and developers, or looking for a quick, low-maintenance solution.
iPaaS Integration Platforms
Tools like Workato and Zapier offer pre-built API connectors to HCMs, IdPs, and other applications. It allows companies to connect their systems without any requirement of technical expertise.
- A Good Fit For: Small-scale companies who do not wish to invest in code-intensive automation.
- A Bad Fit For: MNCs with complex work environments, strict security requirements, or multiple connectors.
IGA Platforms
Identity Governance & Administration (IGA) platforms like Hire2Retire are one step further than other iPaaS tools. They seamlessly integrate HCMs and ATS systems with IdPs, helping enterprises automate their entire employee identity and access management.
A Good Fit For: Large corporations that hire regularly, have seasonal workers, and need no-code lifecycle automation.
A Bad Fit For: Early-stage startups or smaller businesses who may not be ready for complete IAM automation.
An Automated Onboarding Workflow in Action
Here is a scenario of the automated onboarding workflow in action. This scenario can be achieved with any of the above integration tools, but for this example, we’ll use Hire2Retire as a lightweight IGA platform.
1. A lifecycle event is triggered in a new hire’s HRIS/HCM/ATS profile.
2. The new hire’s IdP profile, UPN, and email are created using data from their HRIS/HCM/ATS profile.
3. The new hire’s IdP profile is provisioned with role-based user access privileges.
4. A service request is created on the ITSM platform to provision and configure the new hire’s laptop.
Once an event is triggered, each task assigned to the workflow is automatically executed. With automation, all these tasks can be executed before the new hire’s start date.
Conclusion
For enterprises that are looking to excel in today’s high-paced environment, it has become crucial to automate employee onboarding. It can help them deliver superior experiences to new hires and improve their operational efficiency. No matter what the business scale of operations is, there is an integration tool that can help make your onboarding a great experience.
