What should you know when onboarding employees to a new software? The idea is that you want this user to adopt the new software and continue to engage with it – that last part is often the hardest to tackle. However, there are some things you can do to increase both user satisfaction and long-term use or retention. In this article, you will learn the importance of onboarding, the benefits of good onboarding, user onboarding best practices to follow, some mistakes to avoid, and more. 

Definitions: onboarding vs. adoption

Before we go any further, let’s clarify what we mean by onboarding and how it’s different from adoption.

Here are some quick definitions to get started:

• Onboarding

A process by which a new person, product, or tool is introduced and integrated.

• Software Onboarding

Integrating software into the daily workflows of new employees or users.

• Employee Onboarding

The introduction and integration of employees into the workplace.

• Software Adoption

Implementation and integration of new software, including onboarding.

• The Digital Workplace

The digital components in a work environment, including the tools, workflows, and so on.

• Digital Transformation

Digitally driven organizational changes that leverage new technology to transform a company’s operations and customer service.

• Digital Adoption

Employs software to streamline the digital workplace and maximize software ROI, utilization, efficiency, and productivity.

First impressions last

Onboarding’s importance lies in that it is often the beginning of a relationship between a user and a particular technology. And, as we know from the physical world, first impressions matter. If an employee detests a new system (whether they are required to use it or not) or is onboarded incorrectly from the start, their engagement levels with that software system will likely be minimal at best – and it’ll end up costing you.

Take these statistics for example:

• A lack of technology is blamed by 36% of HR professionals for their inability to automate and organize onboarding programs (Businesswire, 2018).   
• The likelihood of an employee staying for three years increases by 69% when they participate in a structured onboarding program (ClickBoarding, 2020).
• Businesses that offer formal onboarding training are estimated to retain 50% of their employees (Harvard Business Review, 2018).
• Employees who have a poor onboarding experience resign from their companies approximately 10% of the time (Business News Daily, 2020).

Benefits of good onboarding

Good onboarding can not only gain you significantly more employees, it can gain you loyal employees. That means promoters – people who will essentially advertise for you. That’s because people love to talk about their good experiences. But, be warned, the same goes for bad experiences. 

If someone has a terrible time doing anything, they will tell someone about it, whether it’s a colleague, friend, family member, or even their dog. So, if your goal is to retain loyal employees that love your company and will even act as advocates for you, onboarding is not a step to take lightly. 

Common onboarding mistakes

While the range of mistakes you can make in planning an onboarding process is almost endless, these are some of the most common (and, perhaps, most detrimental) to be mindful of:

Not understanding that onboarding is ongoing

Onboarding is not just a sign-up page, a welcome email, a virtual company tour, and “good luck!”. It’s an ongoing process that requires nurturing, education, and guidance, not to mention support. There aren’t many things more frustrating than finishing an introductory training video and finding that you have no further instruction beyond an external help center or an unapproachable colleague. 

Failing to set expectations

What often disappoints people in new jobs (and life in general) is a gap between expectation and reality. To avoid this, be upfront with your new hires. Let them know what they can expect from their role, what is required from them, where they can find support, and so on. In the absence of this, they will make assumptions based on who-knows-what. 

Having hard-to-use or missing support options

Have you ever started a new job, needed help, and couldn’t find it? If so, then you know it can be disappointing at best and disheartening at worst. It’s crucial to make support options visible, accessible, and user-friendly to ensure a smooth hiring experience. 

Not measuring or monitoring

It’s quite common that users will get stuck on one or multiple stages of an onboarding journey. However, if you don’t know where, you have no chance of fixing it. Monitoring and measuring the user journey can make a huge difference to your success rate, since it gives you the flexibility to make changes where needed. Tweak by tweak, the employee experience can be truly optimized for success.

Software onboarding best practices

Design a user journey

The first step to mapping out your desired user journey is knowing thy employee. This should include personas, needs, ambitions, and anything else that will help you resonate with them. Once that’s clear, design the user journey in a way that is clear, helpful, and delivers value.

Welcome & set expectations

Beginning the employee journey with a warm welcome and setting expectations is a great way to ensure a smooth experience. Negative surprises will only steal from a great first impression. 

Provide a product tour + more

Concise but detailed walkthroughs can be the perfect way to acquaint new hires with new software. Like this, you can take them step by step, hand-in-hand through the user journey to remove any confusion or frustration. This is your opportunity to explain all the important details, including where to go for support and how to use critical software functions. 

Offer clear value 

By the time the user has finished the initial set-up process, they should have no further questions as to what they need to do and where they need to do it. Naturally, they may still have questions about how they should be doing certain processes, but that’s expected. If you find there is still room for improvement after doing a test walkthrough yourself, take the time to smooth out the edges before rolling it out.

Be a guide

Beyond the help resources and tour, what other guidance do you offer your new employees? A great way to add an extra layer of support is to include pop-ups and clickable bubbles that provide users with on-the-go guidance. Having these as options can make an incredibly seamless user experience, since they won’t have to exit software or open a new window to find the help they need. 

Monitor struggle-points and adjust

Having visibility over your user journey is the best way to optimize your employee experience. If you can see where users are getting stuck, you can make the necessary changes to avoid it. Let’s say you notice a drop off on a particular form handler or process often, you investigate it, and find that there is a bug that is rejecting all email addresses, whether typed correctly or not. You have immediate insight into what’s impeding user signup and you can deploy your team to fix it in minutes, not hours or days. Employee productivity monitoring capabilities such as the UI intelligence offered by Walkme is truly game changing.

Optimize for mobile

Mobile phones now account for almost 55 percent of all our online time, according to GWI’s latest research (We Are Social, 2022). However, you didn’t need to know that statistic to know how prevalent mobile use is now, did you? What this means is that mobile optimization is no longer a nice addition to your offering – it’s a requirement. In absence of this, you are bound to lose users quickly and forever.

Gather employee feedback

In any business, feedback is an incredibly important and valuable resource, and it’s not to be taken lightly. In order to make it truly frictionless, you can build it into existing processes and simply make it part of the journey. Still, for it to be effective, you need to turn that feedback into action. 

Guiding questions to fall back on

So far, we have provided a decent amount of information to get you started on your journey of onboarding new employees to your team. However, if you are in doubt of your progress at any point, here are some important, guiding questions to keep in mind:

Have you kept the interface and employee journey simple?

Is your interface and user journey simple and logical or does any part of it cause hesitation or confusion? If any of the latter is remotely true, make the necessary changes.

Has your onboarding process remained relevant to user goals?

Have you kept the range of predetermined user goals in mind during the creation of your user journey? Or have these goals gotten lost in the process? 

Have you provided sufficient support options?

At each and every stage of your user journey, is it clear where users can turn to for support? Do they need to go digging for a help button? Does clicking on said help button make it easy or difficult to return to what they were doing? 

Is your value proposition crystal clear?

Is it 100% clear from the get-go what the exact type of value your software offers your user? Is your copy clear? Your story straight? 

Is your user journey optimized?

If your user needs to access your software from mobile, how will it look? If there is an option to export documents, are there a range of formats to choose from? Are your images so large that they take more than an instant to load? 

Conclusion

Hopefully, this article has provided you with the confidence to go forth and create an incredible employee experience using these onboarding best practices. We have covered the beneficial impact of good onboarding, common mistakes to avoid, best practices, and beyond. Whether you are planning to set up your onboarding manually or with WalkMe’s digital adoption platform, these tips will help you on your way. 

Tools for success

Salesforce implementation is the best way to jumpstart your sellers’ productivity and efficiency, enabling them to take it to the next level. Salesforce and other CRM platforms are being utilized by businesses all over the world to collect, store, and amass huge amounts of sales data, which can then be precisely leveraged to increase targeted sales activity and boost revenue growth.

Common CRM challenges

The complex system of smart platforms such as Salesforce can result in a multitude of challenges, including onboarding problems, time-intensive tasks, and fractured workflows. These difficulties can compromise the productivity-boosting benefits of your CRM system, negatively impact your sellers, and decrease your sales velocity. But with the right strategic implementation, businesses can realize the full potential of their business goals and get the most out of valuable CRM software. 

Salesforce is an extremely complex and intricate platform, especially for businesses that are large in size and have no prior experience. It goes far beyond the initial purchase and requires weeks (if not months) of setup work to fully realize the benefits. 

The ultimate Salesforce implementation checklist

We have identified a 9-step Salesforce implementation checklist to help you get the most out of your  CRM. 

1. Define your goals 

The first thing you need to do when implementing Salesforce and CRM solutions is to understand why you are using them in the first place. The following questions will help you define specific, measurable goals: 

• What do you want to accomplish with your Salesforce implementation and why? 
• What are the specific problems that you hope to resolve with Salesforce? 
• How can Salesforce specifically help to solve your issues? 

All of your goals should be practical, feasible, and easily quantifiable. The best way to achieve these goals is through the SMART framework, which helps you define specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound goals.

Following this framework is the best way to separate certain project goals into smaller chunks that can be easily implemented and measured cross-departmentally.  

2. Assess implementation risks

As with any CRM solution, there are certain risks associated with implementation. Not everything will be smooth sailing, and businesses should consider possible issues and work to avoid them at all costs. 

The core risks associated with Salesforce CRM implementation are: 

• Wasting time on needless features that don’t support overall goals
• Slow adoption
• Unfriendly end-user solutions

3. Decide on your end user

Determining the correct Salesforce implementation end user is crucial to the ongoing success of your sales teams. 

Defining whether the sales team, marketing team, or the finance team will benefit most will help to streamline cross-functional team collaboration and will tie up any loose ends that could otherwise be overlooked. 

In most cases, Salesforce CRM solutions will need to be implemented for multiple departments and it’s important to determine their exact requirements.  

4. Establish a timeline 

Establishing a workable timeline for your Salesforce implementation process is crucial. It’s especially important because sales-based businesses have concurrent ongoing projects, so you’ll want to avoid overlapping or interference. 

A fully formulated timeline that takes into account the risks of associated projects will ensure that the Salesforce CRM implementation process causes the least amount of disruption to your business processes. 

5. Set specific, measurable metrics for your goals 

Once the initial implementation phases are out of the way, it’s time to measure the results and determine if the solution is effective or not. Performance metrics play a vital role in Salesforce implementation and need to be fully realized before any real changes can take place for primary users.

Not only do metrics help to establish sales targets, but they also enable organizations to manage and lead a successful deployment with little hassle. It also enables businesses to provide clarity, focus, and motivation to achieve goals related to CRM management. In the long run, technology silos are broken down and give businesses an overall view of customers that interact with your brand, products, and services.    

6. Build your team

Salesforce implementation teams should be organized into the following key members: 

• Executive sponsor – Responsible for the overall success of the Salesforce project

• Project owner – Responsible for leading the implementation team  

• Project manager – Measures the success of the project and holds team members accountable 

• System administrator – Responsible for managing and setup of overarching systems

• Power user – Responsible for providing crucial feedback and highlighting issues regarding system demands of top management and end-users 

• Salesforce consultant – Helps businesses meet sales targets and objectives by driving client-specific implementation and ongoing systems improvements 

7. Ensure adequate training

When implementing Salesforce, it’s easy to overlook crucial details that can result in a loss of efficiency and potential. This means that each team member needs to be sufficiently educated and undergo training before, during, and after implementation. 

Try not to rely solely on online resources and documentation. Instead, focus on high-quality employee training that equips teams with hands-on skills and an in-depth understanding of the complex systems within Salesforce. 

Additionally, utilizing the expertise of a Salesforce implementation partner and having them join your team is a great way to expedite the process and minimize potential risks. A Salesforce implementation partner can also help to maximize the effectiveness of your solution and streamline your particular business needs.

8. Systemize your data 

Another key success driver of your Salesforce CRM implementation checklist is the correct management of data resources. Without adequate quality data, it’ll be impossible for sales teams to increase user adoption, identify flaws and act quickly to resolve them. 

Follow the checklist below to make sure that you get the most out of your valuable data-driven resources: 

• Determine whether the data sets you currently have match your long-term goals 
• Evaluate the strength of your data and review it for errors and integrity needs 
• Assess whether supplemental data needs to be collected and analyzed
• Prioritize some data sets over others and disregard irrelevant information
• Ensure effective data migration, preserving comprehensive data integrity

9. Communicate with end-users

The last point on our checklist highlights the importance of effective communication with valued end-users. After launching your Salesforce toolset, you should strive to constantly gather feedback in order to determine whether the current iteration is suited to your business needs. When issues arise, IT teams need to be available to support and address any concerns from end-users while ensuring that queries are reviewed quickly and efficiently. 

Final words of advice

Salesforce CRM implementation is difficult for any business to implement, even those large in size, resources, and scale. In fact, the bigger the business is and the more customers and employees they have, the harder it is to successfully implement an effective solution that increases user adoption and streamlines digital transformation.

As a general overview, following this Salesforce implementation checklist will push your company in the right direction and enable you to develop a structured approach to CRM implementation. It will offer your organization the best chance of increasing revenue, decreasing overheads, improving customer satisfaction, and gaining more promising data insights and analytics. 

Successful Salesforce implementation isn’t easy, but with the right systems in place, project managers and sales reps alike will be more in charge of critical processes that enable a successful launch. 

Discover how W.L. Gore achieved a 75% reduction of enablement time for new features with WalkMe.

up·skill

/ˈəpˌskil/

verb

teach (an employee) additional skills.
“this is an opportunity to upskill staff and expand their capabilities”

• (of an employee) learn additional skills.
  “they will provide grants of up to 75% for staff who decide to upskill”

(Oxford Languages)

The new norm

The technological revolution resulting from the coronavirus pandemic ushered in a need to upskill. Whether it was for the purpose of sharpening existing skills or adding on an industry-specific skill set, a highly competitive job market meant that platforms like LinkedIn Learning, Udemy, and Coursera engaged with an unprecedented number of users in 2020 and onwards. 

In fact, following the pandemic, it has become a sort of norm to engage in this type of learning, both inside and outside of work hours. In many cases, workplaces will even sponsor the cost of courses as employers are increasingly interested in closing skill gaps for existing employees rather than hiring new staff or outsourcing contractors. 

Cause and effect

The World Economic Forum has named upskilling as being crucial to the post-pandemic world, claiming it could boost the global GDP by $6.5 trillion and create 5.3 million jobs by 2030. Forbes has called it “a tectonic shift in the workplace caused by technology”, adding that this shift has been driven by digital transformation. 

In our 2022 State of Digital Adoption report, we found that 67% of enterprises are under “incredible pressure” to accelerate digital transformation. This pressure is compounded by the concerns of decision makers, 60% of which worry that the progress of digital projects will be impeded by slow user adoption. 

An exclusive upskilling opportunity for DAP professionals

This year, at Elevate 2022, there will be a special opportunity that can further help qualify digital adoption (DAP) professionals: on-site certification. In-person attendees can pick from one of three learning tracks and return home with a new LinkedIn badge from WalkMe. 

Through this offering, DAP professionals have the perfect opportunity to establish themselves as leaders in an exponentially growing industry. 

What is Elevate?

Elevate is the event designed to propel you to the next phase of your development as a DAP professional. Broaden your perspective of what a Digital Adoption strategy can be, learn new tactics and best practices, and connect with the brightest minds in Digital Adoption today. 

This year, the event will be held in San Francisco. Those who can’t make it in person can join us virtually for select keynote presentations and success stories directly from our customers.

How to participate

Registration  for Elevate opens on August 23. Save the date to get a reminder to register for either the virtual or in-person experience.

Plus, stay tuned for more details on the event as well as the learning tracks mentioned in this post. 

See you soon!

With the shift to a more flexible and remote work environment, it’s paramount to deliver a seamless employee onboarding experience in order to ensure employees will succeed in their new position.

Here’s our ultimate employee onboarding manual to boost engagement:

1. Introduce new employees to the company and team culture

The first thing you should do when onboarding a new employee is to introduce them to your company and team culture. Cultural fit and how well an employee understands the values of a new workplace will have a tremendous influence on how well they integrate into a new position.

A CultureIQ poll of 28,371 employees identified that work environment, support systems, and mission and value alignment are the cultural factors that have the greatest impact on employee satisfaction.

By paving the way for new hires to understand their role in the organization and how they contribute to the vision, they will be able to adapt much faster.

2. Provide comprehensive software training and support

The vast majority of knowledge workers’ jobs today are performed on enterprise software, platforms, and apps. That means the need to efficiently navigate numerous systems and complete business processes is a core competency.

Failing to provide adequate training and support for enterprise technology learning is the kiss of death in onboarding. Not only will your employees become frustrated and stressed about their work performance, they will also produce worse outcomes.

Not understanding how to complete business processes correctly leads to errors, compromised data integrity, and the greater likelihood your employees will “drop off,” or quit a process altogether. But with a comprehensive solution that provides 24/7, tailored support, employees will never need to worry. They can learn as they complete tasks, even if they are completely unfamiliar, and access real-time, proactive support in the moment of need.

3. Set and understand expectations for the role

Clearly explaining the responsibilities and expectations that come with a new position is a vital component of your employee onboarding manual.

Without clear mutual understanding of what’s expected of the new hire, misunderstandings and differences are inevitable.

Setting expectations out early can also help to reduce the risk of poor performance as employees will know what they need to be doing to meet targets.

4. Introduce them to mentors and resources throughout the company

Employees will automatically be more engaged and committed to their role if they view it as an opportunity to advance their careers. Most employees have aspirations of developing their skills and experience. You’ll put yourself at a disadvantage if you don’t go out of your way to facilitate that.

In addition to clarifying expectations of the role, ask them about their personal ambitions. Then, determine who in the company is the best resource for them.

Whether you introduce your new hire to someone for a single lunch, or they establish a formal mentorship, you will demonstrate a strong commitment to their indivudal development by facilitating the connection. This will go a long way.

5. Assign a buddy to new hires

It may sound trivial, but assigning new employees a buddy to help them cover the ins and outs of working at the company has proved to be one of the most popular methods of employee onboarding.

An HCI survey finds that 87% of organizations that assign an ambassador or buddy during onboarding discover that it’s an effective way to speed up new hire proficiency and get them acclimated to the culture.

A buddy can guide new hires through their first steps and provide their extra tips for success in the new company. It is also a good way for a new hire to get to know someone they’ll be working alongside every day.

Exceptional onboarding attracts and retains employees

There are various techniques and strategies your HR leaders can use to handle the online onboarding process, but there are some basic tips that work for almost all situations. 

The benefits of a well-designed employee onboarding manual can be monumental. According to Glassdoor, organizations with a strong onboarding process improve the productivity of new hires by 70% and retention by 82%.

With a solid employee onboarding manual and the right preparation, it can be easy. Below we’ll break down how to onboard new employees to build engagement and promote long-term retention.

A smooth onboarding process is critical, as remote work continues to be a staple work arrangement offered by companies. According to Upwork, 56.8% of teams are still working remotely at least part time, and 26.7% of workers overall will continue working remotely.

Because of the increase in remote work, your HR leaders had to take the onboarding process online, which has now become the expected process for new employees. 

To help you, we’ve put together an employee onboarding manual, our training manager’s best-kept secret for successful onboarding and employee training.

Keep employees engaged from day one with your employee onboarding manual

Understanding expectations, building professional relationships, and learning technical procedures are all essential parts of an employee onboarding manual. Letting new employees know what they need to do to perform well in their new role gives them the chance to be a productive member of your team.

Going the extra mile to onboard new employees and make them feel like a valued contributor will help to keep them in their position for the long haul. Creating an employee onboarding manual allows you to start customizing your onboarding process to keep new hires engaged and build a productive workplace.

With WalkMe, you can streamline employee onboarding with personalized training in the flow of work. Learn how.