According to Gallup, 1 in 5 employees either report receiving a poor onboarding experience or no onboarding program at all. Yet the 70% of employees who did have an excellent employee onboarding experience were 2.6x more likely to be satisfied with their workplace. This illustrates the importance of a quality and consistent employee onboarding experience for retaining employees within your organization. 

AI-powered employee onboarding solutions can help improve your current onboarding process and retain more employees, while making the creation and execution of your onboarding experience much easier and effective. 

Personalized employee experience 

AI easily gathers unique information about your employees to help create a highly personalized onboarding process. By personalizing your onboarding experience to include employee’s information and interests, organizations have an opportunity to illustrate their investment in their employees’ individual needs, skills, and experience. This helps create a sense of camaraderie, and shows employees your appreciation while offering a warm welcome.

One example of an employee onboarding AI solution in action is the analysis of an employee’s skills, job position, and learning style to provide personalized training materials that will get them up to speed on the tools and skills necessary for their new role. As your employees learn in a way that works best for them, they are more likely to reach their full potential and feel well prepared for their role. 

Enhanced employee engagement

A poor onboarding experience can make new employees feel unsure and unmotivated in their roles. In fact, a 2023 Global Culture Report showed that only 43% of surveyed employees had an onboarding experience of more than a simple one-day orientation program. 

With employee onboarding AI, you can not only tailor the onboarding process to individual preferences, but leverage interactive content such as gamification, utilizing features such as progress bars, checklists, and fun animations to help drive engagement. Interactive content encourages employees to actively participate and feel motivated as they start their new roles, and helps prepare new hires for success.

Employee retention with predictive analytics

Predictive analytics refers to using AI to make predictions about future happenings. With employee onboarding AI, you can predict which employees will likely leave their jobs through identifying patterns and recognizing red flags such as employee burnout or suggesting an employee might be dissatisfied. These indicators include low engagement scores, frequent leave, and declining performance. 

Having immediate insight and access to this information equips HR and managers with the resources necessary to help re-engage employees. Scheduling 1-on-1 meetings to offer an opportunity to better understand their concerns and challenges are among the necessary measures to improve job satisfaction. With these actions, you can reduce your employee churn rate and save substantial costs saved in training and additional benefits. 

Automate time-consuming tasks 

Harnessing the power of AI tools for HR management can help automate many of the time-consuming onboarding tasks HR teams are often burdened with. Instead of spending hours on manual paperwork, AI can now handle tasks such as processing employment agreements, tracking tax forms, and sending out correspondence such as employee onboarding emails to help streamline the onboarding process.

Moreover, AI can help schedule important onboarding activities, such as meetings with colleagues, teams, and regular training sessions. Automating these repetitive tasks will give you more time to focus on other core HR functions such as learning and development initiatives or building company values. 

Provide consistent experience 

AI-powered onboarding helps companies create consistent and organized ways of welcoming new employees. In fact, a Deloitte survey showed 62% of organizations reported that using AI in their employee onboarding processes improved the overall experience of new hires. 

Instead of relying on manual processes, AI ensures that all employees experience the same onboarding regardless of their role, team, or whether they’re receiving remote onboarding or an in-person experience. With a continuous increase in remote working, it becomes crucial for a productive onboarding experience without being physically present in the office. 

Implementing Employee Onboarding AI in 6 Steps

Implementing an employee onboarding AI solution requires focusing on various aspects, such as your organizational goals, shortcomings in the current onboarding process, and training employees to make the most of the tools. Here we’ve broken the process down into 6 simple steps for a smooth and efficient onboarding experience.

1. Set clear goals 

Clearly define your objectives to align your onboarding process with your overall organizational goals. Start by understanding what you want to achieve within your onboarding process. Are you aiming to streamline administrative tasks, increase employee engagement, or provide a consistent employee experience? 

Once you cover the broad goals, break them down into small and measurable outcomes, such as SMART goals. For example, instead of setting a vague goal such as, “improve overall onboarding experience” set a specific target, such as “increase employee satisfaction ratings by 20% in the next three months.”

2. Identify pain points

Identifying the shortcomings in your current onboarding process is crucial to make the changes that will boost employee engagement. Here are three ways you can effectively identify what’s not working within your current process: 

• Survey new hires

Surveying your new employees allows you to gather feedback directly from the individuals who have recently experienced the onboarding process. Alternatively, you can conduct a one-on-one meeting for detailed discussions. Employee onboarding experience is a crucial and insightful resource for building a strong onboarding process.

• Monitor key employee metrics

Monitor crucial metrics, such as employee engagement, turnover rate, and time to productivity rate. With these metrics, you will get a clear idea of how well your onboarding process functions and the areas of improvement. 

• Review your onboarding material 

Review your onboarding materials and ensure it’s clear and flexible for different people. Instead of just asking new hires, you can observe them to see where they struggle the most. These challenging areas must be addressed and replaced with more user-friendly material.

The idea is to rely on what new hires say, what the data shows, and what the observation concludes. Based on these three metrics, you’ll be able to identify the areas of improvement in your onboarding process.

3. Choose the right employee onboarding AI solution 

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to employee onboarding. Organizations should first determine their specific requirements, explore the available options, and make a selection based on their findings. Here are some points you must keep in mind when selecting the best employee onboarding AI solution:

• Business size

Take into account the size of your business and assess whether the AI solution is appropriate for small businesses or enterprise-level organizations. Some AI tools for HR, such as Omni are great for small to medium sized businesses, whereas other solutions may better suit large corporations.

• Budget 

Determine a clear budget before exploring the options. Employee onboarding AI solutions vary in price, so having a defined budget range is essential to understanding what solutions are right for your business.

• Onboarding goals 

Refer to the goals established in the previous steps and identify the features in employee onboarding AI solutions that align with those goals. For example, if one of your goals is personalized onboarding materials, look for AI solutions that offer customization features.

• Ease of use and customer support 

Prioritize a user-friendly platform to ensure your team can quickly adapt to it. Next, read reviews to understand the level of customer support the AI solution provider provides, ensuring that assistance will be available if any issues arise.

4. Implement 

When implementing your employee onboarding AI solution, it’s essential to take a gradual approach rather than rushing to automate the entire process. Work on adapting a problem-solving approach to address the issues at hand. 

For instance, if you’re struggling to foster a strong sense of welcoming for new hires, you can use employee onboarding AI to add more personalization to their experience. The AI solution can create customized welcome messages or introductions for each new hire, ensuring they feel valued and included from the start.

Similarly, if new hires are overwhelmed, simplify the onboarding process by breaking it down into smaller, manageable steps. With an AI onboarding solution, you can easily personalize the learning material, track progress, and offer feedback, making the process smoother and more effective.

5. Train your employees 

Once you begin implementing, you must train your employees to use the AI onboarding solution effectively. You can conduct employee training sessions to introduce employees as well as your HR team to the AI solution. These sessions should cover the basic features, functionalities, and how the AI solution integrates with the employee onboarding process. Keep the training sessions interactive and provide opportunities for employees to ask questions. 

6. Evaluate progress 

Begin by gathering relevant data to track the effectiveness of your employee onboarding process. Use employee satisfaction surveys, monitor onboarding completion rates, and assess productivity. Once you have the data, identify areas where the onboarding AI solution may be lacking. Based on the results, make the necessary adjustments to enhance its performance.

Suppose you implemented an employee onboarding AI solution to improve completion rates. The goal is to have at least 90% of new hires complete the process within two weeks. Use the AI solution to get insights and analytics on the completion status of different tasks. Moreover, you can survey your new hires to understand their experience and challenges during onboarding.  

After collecting the data, analyze it to identify the areas where the AI onboarding solution may fall short. For instance, you may find that specific modules are too complex and lengthy for new hires. In response, you can break down the information into manageable steps. 

3 Tools for Employee Onboarding AI

Choosing the right employee onboarding AI solution for your business can be tough with so many options out there. We’ve rounded up and highlighted the key features of the top 3 solutions for growing businesses to help simplify your search.

1. Omni