Onboarding is crucial. For any employee, the first days at a new company set the stage for what’s to come. New hires immediately pick up on how current employees use their time, what’s causing frustration, and whether or not everyone has the resources they need to do their job.
Employees who have a positive experience tend to stick around, but those who don’t make a quick exit. 1 in 10 employees has left a company because of poor onboarding. And a bad first impression can have significant financial consequences. Companies can lose tens of thousands of dollars in replacement and productivity costs for every employee who chooses to move on.
At Moveworks, we know that employees need the most support during the first moments at a new company. That’s why, when it comes to onboarding, we have a mandate:
- Give every employee help the moment they need it;
- Personalize support for every new hire;
- Constantly improve our onboarding process; and
- Ensure employees are productive on Day One.
Give new hires what they need. Now.
On Day One, a new hire has a million things to do. From enrolling in benefits and getting the right hardware to figuring out the VPN and even getting their hands on some swag, the Day One to-do list seems endless — especially when they don’t know who is who, where that one conference room is, and why their Zoom keeps disconnecting 40 minutes into every meeting.
At Moveworks, our own chatbot — m8 — takes all the effort and complexity out of first-day busywork. Have a question about benefits? Ask the bot. Need a Zoom Pro license? Ask the bot. Want to make sure your first paycheck is going to the right account? m8 lives right in Slack, ready to help.
Figure 1: m8 understands what new hires are looking for, even if they’re new to Moveworks and don’t know who or how to ask for help.
Not only does m8 have all the answers, it engages conversationally, interpreting an employee’s needs with natural language understanding (NLU). For example, m8 understands that when an employee has a question about payroll, they will need help from our Compensation team. It shouldn’t be the responsibility of any employee, let alone a new one, to know all the ins and outs of something that isn’t their job. With conversational AI, if an employee doesn’t yet know a specific company’s terminology, they can still get what they need immediately.
Incorporating a conversational AI strategy into your onboarding program keeps new hires from waiting for answers. When you put all the information they need at their fingertips, they’ll feel like a part of the team in no time.
Onboarding is personal. Make sure it stays that way.
In our hybrid world, a well-planned onboarding program is personalized, taking into account that people work in different time zones, speak different languages, and live in different countries. One-size-fits-all onboarding can easily confuse your new hires, leading them to quit.
At Moveworks, we use our bot m8 to deliver a customized support experience — tailored to each employee. m8 knows when someone is a new hire. It knows their title, department, function, cost center, and seniority. It knows where they live and even the language they speak. And because m8 never sleeps, it’s available to help even when it’s 2 AM at HQ.
Figure 2: m8 speaks our employee languages, personalizing support to their location, department, and more.
Since our platform has access to thousands of support resources, m8 can provide the right solution to employees’ requests, such as snippets from knowledge articles in half a dozen languages. They can not only check remaining PTO balances and inquire about benefits, but can also review company holiday schedules and learn more about maternity leave without confusion, since they know that information is tailored to their region, and not HQ.
Employees can even take action over the bot. Requesting PTO, updating benefits, and signing up for parental leave only take a simple conversation with the bot. No one has to waste time finding and learning how to use various backend HR tools.
Get the information you need to improve your onboarding.
Let’s be real for a minute. You most likely already have an onboarding process in place. Here’s a question, though: Is it working? If you don’t know what’s working — and what’s not — you’ll never improve.
This is just another way we rely on m8. We regularly review our Performance Insights Dashboards to break down engagement with our bot in real time. We can see what employees are asking in their first week. We know when new hires are having trouble getting office access, need help setting up their 401k, or have questions about our parental leave policy.
Because we know what employees are asking, we can adjust accordingly, building resources or reaching out directly to ensure people get everything they need to succeed.
Figure 3: With the insights provided by our dashboards, we know how to best improve our onboarding process.
We set up our people for success, on their terms. You should too.
Here’s the situation: You want to hire the best people. The challenge is keeping the best people. And that starts on Day One. In a tight labor market, onboarding shouldn’t be an afterthought. You only have one shot to make a good impression, so you’d best take a long look at your Day One onboarding plan.
When done correctly, onboarding can engage your new hires, lower your turnover rate, increase retention, build employee loyalty, and sustain motivation. But this success hinges on you being there for your employees. At Moveworks, we rely on our own tech — our bot, m8. This way, new hires have everything they need to succeed in their role on Day One.
Request a demo to see how you can onboard new hires with conversational AI.
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