Many organizations have implemented onboarding applications in the hopes of helping new hires "hit the ground running" and reduce time-to-productivity. However, most of these applications focus solely on the HR related activities of onboarding like completing W2 and I9 forms. The reality is new employees need far more than having their HR forms processed in order to be productive. They need laptops assigned, network access granted, and an office or cubical to work from. This is where most of these traditional onboarding solutions fall short. Because they focus only on the HR related onboarding task, they fail to deliver an enterprise-wide onboarding solution that truly sets up new employees to be successful from day one.
Standing room only - Brian Wagstaff at Overstock presenting Enterprise Onboarding with #servicenow at #workdayrising pic.twitter.com/mBj52MmSxy
— Deepak R. Bharadwaj (@drammohan) September 27, 2016
On the first day of sessions at Workday's annual user conference, Workday Rising, Brian Wagstaff, Director of Technology Services, at Overstock spoke of exactly this issue.
Brian Wagstaff of @Overstock "Biggest killjoy for a new employee is showing up on the first day and not having anything ready" #wdayrising
— Mike Vilimek (@MikeVilimek) September 27, 2016
"For each new associate, it took at least 60 to 80 interactions to get everything in place. We had to perform last- minute miracles, and even then we weren't ready. On average, new hires wasted three days waiting for everything they needed," said Brian.
Brian told of how each department had created solutions to their specific part of the onboarding puzzle. HR had a solution. IT had a solution. Facilities had a solution. But these solutions were created in isolation, so none of them worked together, requiring a large amount of manual intervention for each new hire.
He then shared how he led an initiative to integrate ServiceNow and Workday to create a truly enterprise-wide onboarding solution.
By creating workflows in ServiceNow based on an "if this, then that" framework, Brian was able automate and streamline the onboarding of new employees across multiple departments, ensuing that all new employees had exactly what they needed on day one.
The results? "New hire satisfaction went through the roof," says Brian. And the solution is reclaiming 1,000 days of lost productivity every year. It's also self-learning, allowing new role profiles to be automatically created when HR adds a new type of hire.
The success of the project has left the team, as Brian puts it, "salivating for more." They are now looking to leverage the same integration, but for different business processes, such as offboarding and job changes.
Learn more about Overstock's successful ServiceNow and Workday integration story here and checkout Three ways ServiceNow HR delivers value to Workday customers.
