Normally I think of onboarding along two dimensions: efficiently handling the administrative work and welcoming a person onto the team so they can be effective. Onboarding, even the basic administrative work, can be hard to do, and technology can help a lot. However, I was particularly impressed with how Accenture is using HR technology (in this case SilkRoad) to move onboarding four steps forward.
Here are the four steps forward:
1. Make the administrative work fast and easy — This includes getting the necessary documents back and forth, tracking the process so that both new employee and HR know the current status, reducing the need to chase missing documents, and making sure the tools employees need to do the work are available (e.g. a place to work).
2. Enable a fast start on the job itself — Make sure new hires get the relevant background on their job and know what they need to do on day one.
3. Create a user good experience — Creating a good user experience largely flows from doing steps 1 and 2 well; on top of that a modern software interface helps create the right experience and one that is consistent with the company’s brand.
4. Personalize the process — Accenture is a huge global firm with different lines of business so they’ve worked to personalize the process as much as possible for each given role.
It’s great to see how onboarding can be much, much better than it usually is and the role of technology in making that possible.
What is interesting
Accenture stresses the need for their processes to match the pace of change, so the mindset is not “build a good process then move on to the next thing,” it’s “build an agile process that we can continually configure to meet changing needs.”
What is really important
- The technology itself is not the whole answer, Accenture invests the time to create and update the processes and content to make it work for their environment.
- If we think of onboarding as paperwork we’ll never have a great process. If we think of it as a means to quickly launch employees into an engaging and productive career, then we are on the path to creating real excitement.
- Almost all the tech stories I’ve heard talk about going from a mess of non-standardized processes to a straightforward standard one. This story is unusual in using the configurability of tech to let different units customize and personalize the process.