HR employee engagement

1. Ultimate
GuideGuide
ONBOARDING
to

2. Most new hires have already bought into your company story and they want to take part. Onboarding
takes these enthusiastic new people and rapidly engages and connects them to the life of the
organization. That engagement leads to employee commitment. And their commitment leads to
accomplishment.
Why is proper onboarding so important? Because
turnover is expensive—astronomically so. The
cost of replacing an entry-level employee is 30-50
percent of the person’s annual salary. And, for mid
and senior-level employees it can reach 150 - 400
percent respectively. At every departure, morale
and productivity suffer. That’s why it’s vital that all
organizations hold on to their people, and they
can start by providing a well-designed onboarding
process to educate new employees about their place within the larger culture.
In this onboarding series, you’ll read about:
• Onboarding basics
• Essential components of the process
• Ways to measure return-on-investment (ROI)
• Ways to improve existing onboarding programs
A study by analyst firm Aberdeen Group found that 86 percent of respondents felt that a new hire’s
decision to stay with a company long-term is made within the first six months of employment. That
requires a great first impression! New hires are expensive. You want to protect your recruitment
investment. An awesome onboarding process that lasts more than one day or that begins even before
the first day with engagement and information can do that. Relying on a one-day HR orientation, a
series of unrelated administrative tasks, and a folder of forms doesn’t work. Especially with the new
generation of workers who expect speed and automation.
“Onboarding is the perfect opportunity to make a positive, lasting impression on a new hire,” says Ben
Eubanks, a blogger at UpstartHR. “It really is the honeymoon phase for new employees. They’ve just
agreed to come and work for a new company, and they are prepared to be wowed. But the employer
must deliver.”
“Onboarding is the perfect opportunity to
make a positive, lasting impression on a new
hire. It really is the honeymoon phase for
new employees. They’ve just agreed to come
and work for a new company, and they are
prepared to be wowed. But the employer
must deliver.”

3. Objectives of Onboarding Programs
An onboarding program that delivers in all the right ways will accomplish these goals:
Reduces Time-to-Productivity
The time-to-productivity metric,
which is rapidly gaining acceptance
as a critical measurement in
recruiting and talent management
circles, has a few meanings. Some
define it as the time required for new
employees to have all of the information, skills, and equipment necessary to perform
their jobs at a productive level. Others say it’s the time required for new hires to
achieve the job proficiency of an employee who has been at the organization for two
years. Either way, proper onboarding gets employees up to speed much more quickly,
so that within weeks, it’s hard to tell the difference between new and seasoned hires.
Reduces Stress
The guesswork required by new employees is enough to cause a significant amount
of anxiety. By telling new hires what they need to know before they need to know it,
proper onboarding reduces the negative affect that naturally occurs when entering a
new situation and makes it possible for new hires to concentrate on their jobs rather
than their angst.
Reduces Turnover
In many industries, organizations lose as many as 15 percent of employees per year,
and we’ve already mentioned why this is very costly. Strong onboarding programs
assure new and existing employees that they are valued and have all the necessary
tools to succeed. They demonstrate in tangible ways that the organization truly cares
about its employees, and make it far less likely that they will look elsewhere.
83% of best-in-class organizations start
onboarding prior to Day 1 by welcoming
new hires warmly and tackling
administrative matters in advance.

4. Develops Job Knowledge
In addition to teaching new hires abut the mission, vision, values, and culture of the
organization, proper onboarding ensures that new employees fully understand their
roles and how they relate to the organization’s big picture operations. New employees
learn what’s expected, how to deliver, and how and when they will be evaluated.
Upfront education prevents damaging mistakes down the road.
What the Best Do
In their survey, the Aberdeen Group
found that the world’s highest
performing organizations have
implemented onboarding initiatives
that achieve these goals. As a result
of their efforts, 66 percent report
better assimilation of new hires into
company culture, 62 percent report higher time-to-productivity ratios, and 54 percent
report higher employee engagement.
These companies do a stellar job at retaining new hires, getting them to a desired level of performance
quickly, and improving manager satisfaction with the process and the hires. Their onboarding
processes also minimize disruption to the rest of the organization and strategically build trust between
new and seasoned hires.
Eighty-three percent of best-in-class organizations start onboarding prior to Day 1 by welcoming new
hires warmly and tackling administrative matters in advance. Fifty-two percent have a senior leader
actively involved in the process. For example, a department head might send a personal note to each
new hire, or the CEO might do a presentation for a group of new employees.
According to the Aberdeen Group, the top performers also place a majority of the onboarding
responsibility on hiring managers and line of business stakeholders. These individuals are tasked with
assimilation and alignment rather than the mundane tasks that can be handled by HR coordinators
(e.g. securing a parking pass for a new hire).
Whenever possible, put new employees
together with team members who have
positive personalities. While you can’t
control everything, you can start with
putting the right staff out in front.

5. Onboarding Technology Systems
Having a centralized employee portal that serves as a hub for everything your people
could possibly want to know and do requires some upfront investment, but will save
you time and resources in the long run. Solutions like SilkRoad’s Life Suite Onboarding
system, the premiere onboarding application, introduce new hires to their job virtually
while acclimating them to your culture and procedures before day one.
For example, as soon as new employees receive job offers, they also receive access to the onboarding
portal. Here they discover content that’s designed to engage them early: a friendly note from their
manager; first-day information; welcome messages from and photographs of their new teammates;
a glossary of company buzzwords and acronyms; and your organization’s social, sports, or volunteer
calendar. The portal may include a virtual copy of your employee handbook as well as other details about
the new hire’s department and job responsibilities. All will help new hires ramp up that much faster.
New hire portals also provide visibility to managers and HR through dashboards so they can organize
and track internal tasks that need to be completed during onboarding - and manage forms electronically
(like W-4 or I-9, benefits, payroll) to ensure completeion on time. Given the time-sensitive nature of many
government forms, there are substantial benefits to using a system that automatically reminds new hires
to respond within the deadlines and that integrates to Federal verification systems.
Once onboarding administration goes online, you solve all of the familiar headaches. Content is easily
updated and current so you’ll minimize misunderstandings and avoid potential compliance issues.
And you’ll make a terrific first impression on new hires who are accustomed to organizations where
onboarding is a somewhat careless operation.
Systems Set-Up
We’ve all been there: You start a new job. Find your office or cubicle empty - or better
yet, no office or cubicle at all. Maybe you find your desk wedged in a hallway or make do
sitting in the lobby or at someone else’s station until your new employer finally gives you
the tools you need to do your job. Not very confidence building, is it?
If you don’t have an automated system to alert all of the various departments involved in onboarding a new
employee, you’ll need to take manual steps. Take responsibility for stocking every new hire’s workspace
with supplies in advance of their start date. Work with your IT department to ensure that the new employee
has some sort of computer (laptop, desktop, phone), an operational e-mail address, and usernames and
passwords for essential online tools and resources ready for use. Have business cards, parking permits, and
ID cards ready so that new hires can move freely around your facilities.
An onboarding technology system can automatically assign these tasks to the appropriate parties and
ensure proper tracking and follow through. With this many moving parts, you don’t want to risk something
falling through the cracks.

6. What Does Onboarding ROI Mean for Your Organization?
Before you start creating metrics, understand what goals you want an onboarding
program to achieve. Then what those goals mean for your organization. Is your
goal to build a great team with excellent peer relationships, top levels of initiative
and creativity? Do you want to mentor employees to instill a sense of continuitity
and tradition? You want to create goals that cultivate retention. You may want
your onboarding program to support employees in achieving early successes. What is that worth to your
business?
Even if you think you’ve mastered your organization’s mission, vision, and values, it can’t hurt to revisit
them within the context of onboarding. Many HR leaders will ignore setting some baselines for ROI. Why?
Because this tends to be gathering metrics on soft skills and that can be pretty subjective. Evaluating
the value derived to the company when new employees are brought on and acclimated and then
establishing a baseline on time-to-success can be daunting.
So, take your time. Get the right partners involved and have the necessary conversations. Not only does
this provide business context, but ensures that what you discover will provide some strategic insight and
will help educate others about HR’s roles and responsibilities.
What Are the Most Critical Onboarding Metrics?
Aberdeen, the analyst firm, identifies best-in-class organizations as being nearly
twice as likely to have specific onboarding metrics. These companies rank
employee engagement (4.49), retention (4.44), and time to productivity (4.42) as
having the greatest value to both HR and the business.
Employee engagement can be measured in all sorts of ways, but experts recommend the assessment
of new hire satisfaction with organization-wide and group specific onboarding initiatives at 30 days, six
months, and one year. At the same time, it’s a good practice to measure the percentage of your hiring
managers who are satisfied with the onboarding process and the preparedness of their new hire.
You can create surveys to generate insights from both new hires and their managers.
Why is retention of new hires so important? Because employees who transition through a consistent
onboarding program engage more and with greater intensity. Likewise, they demonstrate they are less
likely to quit. Unllike new hires who get thrown into a job cold. If you have experienced the “quick quits”
phenomenon - new hires who quit within 90 days or six months - you know the risk to the organization.

7. Measure the six month and 12 month retention rates of new hires and compare the results to when
you had a manual, paper based orientation and compare to the consistent, individualized onboarding
process.
Calculating New Hire Productivity
New hire productivity, especially time to productivity, is not as easy to calculate as employee
engagement or new hire retention. Before you start, you need to understand what employees do, what
actions they take or perform, that indicate they are productive. Does full productivity mean that they
have a low error rates? That they require little supervisory time? That they can write code to spec at a
specific rate? Make outbound calls or field inbound calls in a service center at a certain rate per hour?
Once you define 100% productivity you can then define 50% productivity, 25% and so on. Then measure
the cost of that lower productivity - including the extra work needed from other staff to cover the lower
productivity. Or the lost opportunity cost of failing to perform to that level.
The key to leveraging the time to productivity metric is to understand what your new hires’ output looks
like from the day they walk in the door to the day they are fully productive employees. If it takes six
months and costs $5,000 to get someone up to speed, then an onboarding program that reduces that
timeline and expenditure to three months and $2,000 is clearly producing a positive ROI.
Onboarding metrics can include:
0Days to achieve minimum productivity.
0Turnover rates of new hires - the “quick quits” within
the first six months.
0Termination rate of new hires who fail during the
first six months.
0The completion rate of training and education
sessions to new hires over the first two weeks.
0Retention rate for the onboarding information provided during the first one month - using a random
sample of new hires.
You will incur extra costs including
manpower, additional staff coverage,
and even morale while everyone is
waiting for the new hire to get to the
full 100 percent.

8. The ROI of Onboarding Technology
The implementation of an onboarding technology solution will result in greater
efficiency with regards to company resources and business processes. The use of
technology to facilitate your onboarding process is critical to successfully getting new
hires in the organization and getting them productive.
While measuring the ROI of less tangible benefits
like time to productivity, engagement, and
retention may show more true long-term benefits
to the organization, determining the ROI of your
onboarding technology investment shouldn’t be
overlooked.
Task-related ROI, such the number of employees
processed per year, cost savings on the
production and processing of employee materials,
and time savings on logistics tracking and the
collection of employee documentation are a few
of the key measures to take into consideration.
The following table captures sample costs and
savings associated with onboarding automation
through one year:
Getting the Most from Your ROI
If measuring the ROI of your onboarding programs is new to you, start slowly. Devise
one metric per major business goal and practice tracking it, analyzing your results,
and communicating value before adding more metrics to your arsenal.
Also, don’t view onboarding ROI in a silo. The ROI of your onboarding initiatives will be intimately related to
the ROI of your recruitment and talent management programs, so look for ways you can measure success
once but cut the data in different ways. For instance, the retention and time to productivity metrics have
implications not only for onboarding, but also for recruitment. Hopefully, effective recruiting and onboarding
practices are working in concert to ensure that new hires are brought up to speed, engaged, and integrated
into the team as proficiently as possible.
Most onboarding technology systems have functionality that facilitates the measurement and management
of ROI. If you’re unsure about how your technology can help in this process, ask your account representative.
CASE STUDY: REPORTING ROI
Challenge: With nearly 33,000 employees in
28 countries around the world and minimal HR
resources, eBay recognized their need to improve
the new hire experience and create efficiencies
through a comprehensive technology solution.
Solution: By using SilkRoad’s RedCarpet
onboarding software, eBay improved the new-hire
experience by automating both tasks and
socialization aspects of onboarding.
Results and ROI: eBay quickly reduced the
administrative cost of onboarding by 25 percent
and saved significant operational
costs and improved productivity by reducing its
onboarding process steps by 60 percent.

9. End-to-End Talent Management silkroad.com
Talent Acquisition | Talent Development | HRMS | Talent Portal
Once you are able to demonstrate a compelling business case for your onboarding programs, don’t stop
there. Use your data to regularly revisit your initiatives and make tweaks. Talk with other HR professionals
about how you can take onboarding excellence to the next level, and make sure you close the loop with
the senior executives with whom you started this process. If your ROI is significant, they will have a vested
interest in your ongoing success. Visit the SilkRoad Awesome Onboarding Portals Gallery to understand
what makes a great employee onboarding portal.
Alexandra Levit is a business and workplace writer and speaker who educates organizations on how to better connect
with and retain top talent.
Copyright2014,SilkRoad.AllRightsReserved.Alltrademarksarethepropertyoftheirrespectiveowners.Onboarding301_072014

10. www.tenneco.com
HEADQUARTERS In North America, Lake Forest, Illinois
EMPLOYEES 25,000
Tenneco Deploys SilkRoad Onboarding Software around the
Globe: Saves Hours, Engages Employees from Day One
The SilkRoad system improved Tenneco’s onboarding in myriad ways: We saved $250,000 within the first
year of use. Now our onboarding process is 95% paperless. New hires are more quickly acculturated into
the company. Best of all, managers and employees are enthusiastic about the software—especially the
Web portals customized for each Tenneco location.
– Matt Sims, Senior Human Resources Manager
©2013 SilkRoad // silkroad.com
A $250,000 savings for the entire
company within the first year.
Self-service, customized portals
that deliver both corporate and local
information new hires need.
A reduction in “non-value”
employee orientation time by
nearly 90%. The process of filling
out paperwork was reduced from 4
hours to .5 hours.
A dramatic increase in employee
satisfaction, shown in high scores on
new hire surveys.
Greater transparency and
alignment among managers, HR, and
new employees.
SILKROARD RESULTS
An onboarding process that is 95%
paperless.

11. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
PROBLEM
Tenneco pioneers technologies for cleaner, safer and
smoother transportation, yet it used a manual onboarding
process that was time-consuming, costly, and inconsistent.
The organization sought an onboarding system to support
its operational excellence and worldwide presence.
BACKGROUND
Tenneco is one of the world’s largest designers,
manufacturers and distributors of solutions for the
automotive and commercial vehicle original equipment
markets and the aftermarket. Globally, the company has
89 manufacturing facilities and 14 engineering centers
on six continents, and 100 countries that it services. The
organization has 355 hiring managers and 47 HR managers—
spread across a vast geography of different languages and
cultures. Annually, Tenneco hires hundreds of employees to
fill a wide variety of roles—from design, manufacturing and
operations, to finance, administration and management.
Tenneco wanted a new employee onboarding system that
would reflect its technical prowess and worldwide reputation.
Yet, their older, inefficient onboarding process was
burdensome for new hires, HR, and managers. New hires
would typically spend hours reading and signing forms,
which were routed and collected, then filed or scanned.
Moreover, the process varied from location to location; new
hires did not share a common experience, and first day
expectations were communicated inconsistently.
In brief, Tenneco had outgrown its outdated onboarding
process and clearly needed a new one. The company
selected SilkRoad Performance software for recruiting. At
the same time, the HR team recognized that SilkRoad’s
Onboarding system was easy-to-use, full-featured, and
completely integrated with other Life Suite modules, so
they purchased it too.
One of Tenneco’s key strategic imperatives is to institute
global business processes and capabilities. Our HR
team helped fulfill that imperative by choosing the
RedCarpet solution. SilkRoad Onboarding was so easy to
use; we knew that it could handle the scope of our entire
global onboarding process.
—Matt Sims, Senior Human Resources Manager
CHALLENGES
Move from a collection of manual
methods to a single, automated solution
that would provide a quality experience for
new hires.
Address global inconsistencies in
onboarding, all while recognizing regional
differences.
Reinforce Tenneco’s vision, mission,
values and distinctive culture.
Clearly communicate first day
expectations to new hires, speeding the
acculturation process.
Reduce the time and cost of processing
new hires by adopting a standard across the
organization.
Improve communication between
managers, HR, and new employees.
SOLUTION
SilkRoad Onboarding software has dramatically
decreased onboarding costs and time spent per
hire—while increasing new hire satisfaction
throughout the company’s global network of
offices and manufacturing facilities.
4
3
2
1
5
6

12. SPEED, EFFICIENCY,
AND COST SAVINGS
The SilkRoad Onboarding solution has resulted in significant
time and cost savings for Tenneco. No longer does HR
spend time ensuring that employees have signed all
paperwork, nor do new hires sit for hours, signing stacks of
paper forms; now most forms are electronic. Managers no
longer spend time on the phone, trying to determine when
an employee is ready for work; rather, they receive system
notifications after the new employee has completed all pre-
hire forms.
Tenneco’s onboarding metrics are remarkable: After the first
year of using SilkRoad, the HR team estimated a savings of
$250,000 to the company globally. The onboarding process is
now 95% paperless, eliminating waste and cost. In addition,
the time that a hire spends signing paper forms has dropped
from 4 hours to .5 hours—all hours that can be more
productively spent adapting to the new work environment.
ONE BRAND, LOCALIZED
WEB PORTALS
Tenneco has an extraordinary brand that conveys the
company vision, values and approach to business. That
brand has been incorporated into the Onboarding Web
portals to help reinforce new employees’ understanding of
the organization. Moreover, the portals also carry
standard corporate information that an employee might
have forgotten during orientation, such as questions about
the 401K plan or payroll schedule. All critical information is
stored in one place, thus eliminating questions for managers
and relieving any anxiety the employee might have.
What’s more, Tenneco’s employee portals are customized
for each facility or engineering center. A new hire in Grass
Lake, Michigan will find the same strong Tenneco brand as an
employee in Shanghai, China or Buenos Aires, Argentina. Yet,
the content has been localized to make the employee aware
of hours of operation, nearby restaurants, amenities, and
other information. Best of all, SilkRoad has enabled Tenneco
to deliver content in the language of the new hire—helping to
bring employees up to speed quickly.
INCREASED ORGANIZATIONAL
ALIGNMENT, NEW HIRE
SATISFACTION
The SilkRoad Onboarding system has helped create greater
alignment across the organization—from the hiring
manager and HR, to other departments, such as Facilities.
One system ensures all parties are accountable and aware of
the roles they play in the onboarding process.
The software has also helped Tenneco fill an important
piece of the onboarding puzzle: new hire satisfaction.
The company surveys new hires about their onboarding
experience after twenty days on the job. Before adopting
RedCarpet, the scores were below average; now the company
receives high marks for its organized, clear-cut process.
Last but not least, Tenneco’s onboarding activity has evolved
from being tactical to strategic, supporting the company’s
core values of teamwork, innovation and transparency.
The company now quickly transforms enthusiastic new hires
into dedicated employees who are prepared to help realize
the company vision: pioneering global ideas for cleaner,
quieter, smoother and safer transportation.
MANY COUNTRIES AND LOCATIONS: ONE
ONBOARDING SOLUTION
Tenneco locations around the globe really
appreciate the RedCarpet software. The user
portal is customized for each location to show
restaurants, health clubs, attractions, and
“need to know” company information. Best of all, the portal
is translated into the language of the new hire, so that the
person comes up to speed quickly.
Copyright2014,SilkRoad.AllRightsReserved.Alltrademarksarethepropertyoftheirrespectiveowners.CS_Tenneco_RC_081913
End-to-End HR Software silkroad.com
Talent Acquisition | Talent Development | HRMS | Talent Portal

13. Required: A more efficient, accountable and robust
onboarding system — no more frustration!
Scania Group are an internationally renowned manufacturer of trucks, coaches and engines,
employing 34,000 people worldwide. In Australia the group is represented by Scania Australia,
with a workforce of 380 employees nationally.
When onboarding new employees into Scania Australia, it became apparent the current
procedure was not working as efficiently as required. With only a small HR team, the process
was proving to be manual, lengthy and was also impacting the time available to work on other
strategic HR activities. Recruiting managers found the onboarding process time consuming
and labour intensive which impacted on their day to day activities making it difficult to
complete the required tasks to have an employee set up for day one.
Scania Australia chose SilkRoad to help design an onboarding program to ensure new
employees are informed about the company and have completed their new starter
paperwork online so they were ready to hit the ground running, allowing them to be focused
on important learning activities on their first day.
Background
For more information: asia@silkroad.com | www.silkroad.com
“
It’s just made life easier,
and it works.
Case Study: Automotive Auto Services
Jean Incorvaia
Payroll Officer
Scania Australia
Scania Australia Onboarding Portal
Making Hiring Seamless:
How SilkRoad gave Scania Australia a new and
improved ‘new-hire experience’.

14. SilkRoad Onboarding (RedCarpet) was able to coordinate deadlines and reminders for
departments across Scania Australia for the individual to be successfully set up and
onboarded. This allowed the HR department to be informed on the status of completion
of paperwork and coordinate first day arrangements.
Day One Readiness
Originally, new employees would receive a hard copy starter pack in the post to complete
and send back prior to the first day. This process was taking up to 4 weeks to complete
before the new starter could even be added to internal systems. With SilkRoad
Onboarding, new employees can now familiarise themselves and start learning about
Scania whilst completing the necessary forms before they step through the door on their
first day. Being able to complete the onboarding process online and from home before
starting greatly simplified the process and decreased lead times.
Using SilkRoad Onboarding, managers now complete online e-forms and are clearly
informed of the deadline of each task. Once a form is completed by the manager, it is
streamlined to other areas of the business. In addition, managers are given notice when
probation periods are coming to an end — something that had often been missed
previously —simplifying their performance management duties and giving managers
ample time to consider each employee and their level of ‘fit’ within the business.
Getting rid of the guesswork
RedCarpet ensures all required steps are taken in the right order when onboarding new
employees. Previously, managers often forgot or skipped steps due to time constraints
or unfamiliarity with the onboarding needs. Thanks to SilkRoad, the guesswork was taken
out of the equation and managers are given automatic reminders ensuring essential
tasks are completed on time and efficiently. Upon completion of each task, HR is
immediately notified. There is minimal paperwork being misplaced as copies are edited
and completed online ensuring no more resubmitting or follow up.
Warm reception
The SilkRoad Onboarding system was well received by new employees — satisfaction in
Scania’s induction process increased from just 30% to 65% in the first 6 months post
implementation. Thanks to the landing page for new starters, feedback is consistently
received asserting that new employees felt highly familiar with the Company before
starting.
The number one advantage of using SilkRoad is increased productivity in all areas of the
business. Scania’s HR department is no longer tied up with manual tasks and following
up paperwork. Employee onboarding activities have improved overall.
Solution
“
It has streamlined
our processes.
Lauren Asciak
HR Advisor
Scania Australia
End-to-End HR Software | www.silkroad.com
Talent Acquisition | Talent Development | HRMS | Talent Portal
56
Number of new hires pro-
cessed through new system
in the first six months
Participation in induction
process survey
Reduction in number of
follow-ups with the new
hires by the HR department
per day
Reduction in number of
follow-ups with managers
per day
65%
5:1
5:1
BY THE NUMBERS
61,051 TRUCKS
6,350 COACHES
7,063 ENGINES
Worldwide Deliveries, 2012

15. Lord Fairfax Community College Makes Onboarding
70% More Efficient, Improves Day-1 Productivity with
SilkRoad Onboarding
“Employees don’t spend their first days signing a hundred things. They
can start working with colleagues on day one. That makes a positive first
impression.”
—Karen Foreman, MSHRM, Director of Human Resources
Minimize missed paperwork that often
delays start dates and first paychecks,
frustrating new hires.4
Easily adapt the onboarding workflow as
the process evolves.
3
Provide customized, consistent
onboarding experiences across six
employee classifications and three
campuses.
2
Transition from a manual process to a
single, automated onboarding solution.
1
Free up academic and business leaders to
spend less time on paperwork and more
time focused on core responsibilities.5
Gain data and insights to identify process
improvement opportunities.
6
SILKROAD RESULTS CHALLENGES
A software solution
customized for varied
employee classifications
and adaptable when
processes change
One automated onboarding
process that virtually
eliminated paperwork and
bottlenecks, and shortened
the timeline by 70%
Self-service branded
portals that engage new
hires with personalized
experience and enable
productivity on day one
Full transparency that
allows HR and others to
see in current status on
onboarding workflows in
minutes
©2014 SilkRoad // silkroad.com

16. ONBOARDING DELAYS AND FRUSTRATIONS
An hour west of Washington D.C., Lord Fairfax Community
College (LFCC) serves residents of Virginia’s Shenandoah
Valley and Piedmont regions. The institution includes three
campuses, 18,000 students, and nearly 1,000 employees.
“We’ve received multiple recognitions for being a great place
to work,” says Karen Foreman, MSHRM, the college’s Director
of Human Resources. “That helps us attract talented people.”
Onboarding processes needed to deliver on that experience.
When Foreman joined the institution, onboarding was little
more than a 30-page packet of forms and materials. While HR
had a checklist and timeline for forms completion, most often
individual follow-up was required.
“With all the back and forth, new employee start times and
even their first paychecks were often delayed,” says Foreman.
“It was time-consuming, distracting, and frustrating for
everyone, especially the new employees.”
Her first step was to design complete onboarding processes to
accommodate six employee classifications. Then they sought a
tool that could make it all real. “As soon as we saw the SilkRoad
demo, we knew it was exactly what we needed,” she says.
SILKROAD TURNS THINGS AROUND
“It’s a night-and-day difference,” says JoAnn Ellwood, MBA. “Today
onboarding is usually wrapped up in three days. In a couple
instances, we’ve completed everything in less than 24 hours.”
Each new employee receives a personalized onboarding
experience via SilkRoad’s online portal. Everything is right
there keyed to the individual and the job classification. On-time
forms completion rate has increased from just 40 percent to 89
percent. And Ellwood says it’s still improving.
ACCOUNTABILITY MAKES A DIFFERENCE
In addition timely onboarding, SilkRoad brought accountability
into the process. “Every morning, I can see exactly where we
are in the process for each new hire,” Ellwood explains. “I can
spot problems and address them immediately.”
I-9 reports also used to be a particular struggle for the HR
team. “Now we have an I-9 dashboard and we’re one hundred
percent on time with those forms,” says Ellwood.
SilkRoad includes rich reporting. One example is the Assigned
Promptness report, which shows LFCC’s HR team which
employees and departments are on time and which are behind
schedule for each assigned onboarding task.
“Everyone was very happy with
the result. There were no more
desks full of paperwork.”
—JoAnn Ellwood, MBA, HR Analyst II
The personalized onboarding portal helps make a positive first impression.
“We’ve saved on labor costs,
paper and postage, and
frustration for everyone.”
—Karen Foreman, MSHRM, Director
of Human Resources
End-to-End Talent Management silkroad.com
Talent Acquisition | Talent Development | HRMS | Talent Portal
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17. www. ynhhs.org
HEADQUARTERS New Haven, Connecticut
EMPLOYEES 19,465 and growing
SilkRoad’s Onboarding Solution Adopted by Yale New
Haven Health System
Problem: Yale New Haven Health System is a rapidly growing, nationally recognized healthcare
organization, but it was using a manual system for onboarding—requiring enormous time and
paperwork for HR and new hires. The organization sought an automated process that would match
its reputation and excellence in patient care.
©2014 SilkRoad, inc. // silkroad.com
One, consistent, automated
onboarding process that
eliminated paper, errors in
employee records, and data entry
for HR and Payroll departments.
A self-service, branded portal that provides a superb
experience for new hires, giving them an introduction
to the organization and helping the Yale New Haven
Health System organizations win in the war to retain
healthcare talent.
Decrease in data errors, because
all information is typed and not
handwritten, and forms are
pre-populated. Electronic records
ensure that new hire information is
no longer misfiled.
Greater transparency and communication across the
Health System, since electronic notifications are sent
to departments, letting them know when the new hires
have completed all their paperwork.
SILKROAD RESULTS
Reduction in time spent on each
new hire by 3 hours, allotting more
productive time back to HR, Payroll,
Parking departments and new hire.

18. new hire. Because all incoming employee information is
stored online and easily accessible, the entire process is
transparent and more efficient for everyone involved.
Yale New Haven Health System estimates a savings of 3
hours per incoming employee, a significant metric for a
growing organization. In a typical year, Yale New Haven
Health System brings on board approximately 2,100
employees. Crunching the numbers, this means that the
RedCarpet software saves an astonishing total of 6300
hours annually—all productive time that can better be
dedicated to other priorities.
SilkRoad’s software has shown Yale New
Haven Health System significant time savings
—hours that HR and Payroll are using
productively to focus on other critical work.
CHALLENGES
Bring strategy, consistency,
and discipline to the process
of onboarding.
Move from a collection of manual processes
to a single, automated solution that would
provide a quality experience for new hires.
Reduce time and cost of processing new
hires by adopting a standard that applies
to all organizations in the Health System.
Eliminate delays in routing paper documents
to different departments for new hires.
Ensure that new employee data is absolutely
accurate, eliminating errors and inconsistencies
that can occur in paper documents.
Help make new employees productive, as soon
as possible.
SOLUTION
SilkRoad’s RedCarpet software solution, with
its sophisticated features and personalized
customer support, has completely automated
the onboarding process, dramatically
decreased time spent per hire, and ensured
greater new hire satisfaction.
4
5
Background
Yale New Haven Health System is comprised of three
hospitals, Bridgeport, Greenwich and Yale-New Haven,
and Northeast Medical Group—a physician foundation.
The health system is affiliated with Yale School of Medicine.
Yale New Haven Health has escalated hiring activity
to meet its rapid 2 to 3 percent annual patient growth
rate. As a result, onboarding is a constant and dynamic
effort within the organization. The HR team brings on
approximately 2,100 new hires per year—from surgical
technicians, ER nurses, and physicians to administrative
staff and leadership.
The Onboarding Challenge
Yale New Haven Health wanted a state-of-the-art new
employee onboarding system to match its cutting-
edge medical care of patients. Yet, the organization’s
onboarding system was cumbersome. The system’s HR
departments received multiple paper forms from new
hires, which were collected, routed to departments for
data entry, and filed. The process was highly variable,
depending upon the employee handling the onboarding:
Sometimes forms were missed, or misfiled. In short,
onboarding was burdensome for candidates and time
consuming for HR staff.
Without a doubt, Yale New Haven Health had clearly
outgrown its paper-based and time-intensive methods of
onboarding. After a rigorous evaluation of three software
vendors, the organization chose SilkRoad.
The Benefits Add
Up: Time Savings,
Productivity
SilkRoad’s RedCarpet software has shown Yale New
Haven Health System significant time savings—hours that
HR and Payroll are using productively to focus on other
critical work. Maintaining consistency throughout the
onboarding process, previously a headache for HR,
is now an easy task. The streamlined onboarding process
has also saved time and effort for other departments,
such as Parking. Automatic notifications are sent to
departments when the forms are completed by the

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A High Performance
Solution: Onboarding
3,500 Employees in
One Week
The power and efficiency of RedCarpet software were
put to the test under pressure in 2012, when Yale-New
Haven Hospital acquired Hospital of Saint Raphael, a 511
bed hospital also located in New Haven. As a result of
the acquisition, the organization’s hardworking HR team
needed to onboard HSR’s 3,500 employees rapidly.
Prior to Day One, the team began to integrate the
acquired employees into the organization, using their
RedCarpet system. Benefits and payroll information
had to be correct and completed within days, because
employees were scheduled to be paid the following week.
The RedCarpet notification feature was used to let the
acquired employees know precisely what they needed
to do to make the transition. HR was available to answer
questions. As a result, the whole operation went forward
without a hitch.
“The task of onboarding 3,500 employees at once
was monumental, but the entire process went
smoothly and seamlessly. We would have faced a
very difficult challenge accomplishing this with our
previous paper-based system. Just managing the
paper forms alone would have been very resource
intensive and time consuming.”
— Nancy Collins, Director of Recruitment,
Yale-New Haven Hospital
Superb New Hire
Experience
Healthcare organizations will face
significant workforce shortages in
the coming years, so it’s imperative for them to retain
employees. A smooth onboarding process gives a
new hire a positive first impression of the organization.
Moreover, it helps integrate an employee into the
culture and expectations of the workplace, speeding the
transition into a new job. The Health System’s new hires
now have the opportunity to review employee benefits,
the employee handbook, and campus maps before
they arrive for their first day of work. With RedCarpet
software’s Web-based interface, new hires have two
weeks to complete all their paperwork online at their
leisure. This includes automatic reminders as a new hire’s
due date approaches.
Most important of all, Yale New Haven Health System
has elevated the onboarding process, making it more
strategic and disciplined. HR now has a sharper focus on
other tasks, such as planning to meet the organization’s
future growth. And, rather than receiving a flood of paper,
new employees are integrated into the organization
quickly, so that they can better fulfill the mission of Yale
New Haven Health System: to deliver excellent care to
patients and the communities it serves.
“We’ve saved three hours per new hire with
the RedCarpet onboarding system, which is a
significant amount of time.”
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