One of my favorite scenes in the entire realm of movies is from the late Robin Williams' “Mrs. Doubtfire.” Spoilers if you haven't seen it, but at the end when it's revealed Williams has actually been the nanny in Sally Fields' house for months, she runs through a series of emotions. She repeats one line, "The whole time?" But the look on her face as she processes the flood of information suddenly moving through her brain about just what Williams has been privy to is a thing of glory. You see the confusion, then shock, then outright anger and rage as she relives the past few months in her head and realizes everything she thought was one way was really another.
This reaction is exactly the opposite of what you want when a new person joins your company. You don't want them going through the interview process in their head and going, "Wait, what?" as they're being onboarded. Nor do you want your existing IT and HR employees to experience confusion, shock, and rage as they're completing tasks to bring someone new on the team.
But don't worry. We're here to help you avoid having a bunch of Sally Fields in your office whenever you go through the hiring process. (Don't get me wrong, she's an amazing lady, but having hundreds of Sally Fields from that particular scene at any given time during the hiring process would be a little much.)
By now, you've probably heard a work management platform provides a bunch of great things like a single source of truth for projects, automated workflows, customized request forms, and so much more. Using templates in your collaborative workflow management platform means similar projects can be completed in the same way, every time. It's like a souped-up version of the packing checklist you may have so you don’t forget your toothbrush for the 1,000th time.
Who Wrike's employee onboarding template helps
1. Overwhelmed new hires
There's a reason they call moving from one job to another a "venture" or "journey." (In fact, 9 in 10 executives say hire retention is an issue for them.) For any new position you take, there's likely a wealth of new information you have to learn in order to do that job well. Even just figuring out who to ask when you have a question can be a challenge. There are hundreds of new names, several new tools, and potentially an entirely new set of processes for how to get your work done, not to mention the administrative stuff (pick benefits, complete security and/or product training, etc.).
Now, imagine you had a place where you had a step-by-step guide (that was always updated) with a daily agenda of tasks to set you down the right path. In addition to your task list, you're also given a repository of pertinent information you can reference whenever you have a question or forget how something works. These are all things a remote onboarding process template like ours can help with.
2. Inundated IT & HR team members
In any large organization, there are many people starting on the same day. Each one needs help with the same types of tasks: new computer setup, employee authorization forms filled out, benefits information given, provisioning granted, and more. But each employee also has different nuances to these tasks. An SVP usually has an entirely different compensation package than a summer intern, and a new developer needs a set of permissions that only just barely overlaps with someone in Marketing. According to BambooHR, 45% of HR estimates that over $10,000 a year is wasted on ineffective onboarding. Setting up dynamic forms that change the necessary tasks and create an employee onboarding checklist based on the role of the hire can help save time, reduce errors, and ensure a smooth onboarding.
"Wrike is growing quickly, so I'm always thankful for our staff onboarding templates whenever we have a new hire. It's saved me so much time and because of it, I know I haven't forgotten anything in the rush to get everyone what they need before their first day." – Victoria Copriviza, HR Business Partner
3. Strained managers
They say it takes a village to raise a child, but it takes almost the whole organization to hire a new employee. In addition to the flurry of activity on the part of the new hire themselves, plus the involvement of HR & IT (as well as the new hire's own department), you can't forget about the new hire's manager. Oftentimes, they're already overworked and overstressed just with their daily responsibilities, so figuring out the onboarding process flow each time someone new is hired only adds more to their already overloaded queue.
While adding a new team member pays off in the long run, there is a cost upfront. (Glassdoor estimates it takes 24 days and $4,000 to hire a new worker). Simply having to dig deep and remember what's important for that new person to learn takes time that could've been spent on projects already in flux. But with a template that pre-populates tasks, remembers important information, and sets reminders for follow-ups automatically, you can prevent weekend work from becoming a regular occurrence.
Ready to get started?
Our employee onboarding template has everything you need to smoothly and consistently bring new hires into your organization — without incurring any extreme emotions while ensuring you work in a Sally Field-free environment.
