Paperless HR Streamlines Onboarding

At EventBoard, most of our desks don’t have drawers. I don’t know if this was a conscious choice by our founders or not, but it works because it’s helping us eliminate the need for paper.

In my department (human resources), the beauty of paperless HR is especially obvious during our new hire onboarding process.

Once the hiring decision is made, everything is done online. The employment offer goes out digitally. The person accepts the offer electronically and creates an account to complete all of the necessary paperwork before the first day of employment: W-4, I-9, direct deposit, transportation passes, benefits, security information, non-disclosures, etc.

On the first day of employment, all of the paperwork is complete. The employee can focus on job training and get to work rather than spending hours poring over forms to sign.

For me, paperless onboarding is great because HR doesn’t spend hours helping a new hire fill out forms. We get each of our new hires into the “working” stage quickly.

Paperless HR = Less Stress

It’s beautiful. We’ve eliminated some of the stress typically experienced on the first day of work and the process is seamless.

We’ve had a paperless onboarding process since we were a tiny company with eight employees. Now we have 49 employees and the feedback we have received is nothing less than fantastic. Our employees love it.

We’ve actually expanded the paperless onboarding effort to other areas of HR.

We have an online platform that hosts nearly all of our HR functions digitally: pay raises, vacation requests, hourly recording, stock options, benefits information, compliance, etc. All of our documents have been uploaded into this system and it is super easy for our employees to access everything they need from HR in an open, friendly environment.

Our efforts to take paperwork out of the equation are expanding to other areas, as well. We are currently reviewing our manual processes and trying to get rid of as many of them as possible. In many instances, the computer printer is the middleman, a bottleneck. Hence, we want to get rid of it.

We are currently researching systems for purchase orders and other manual processes like repair tickets. The joke around the office is “there’s an app for that” and there often is.

Paperless HR = Convenience and Transparency

One of our core values is being candid and transparent. Paperless HR goes along with that. For us it is part of our culture. It’s a movement that is efficient, convenient, transparent and productive.

People strive for convenience in their non-work lives. Why not apply that principle at work? When our employees step into the office we don’t want them to feel like they have been shot back in time.

For us, creating workflows that are online and convenient has reduced the tediousness of some of our processes. That has made a huge difference. So, go paperless. You’ll eliminate a headache – and save a tree.

Photo courtesy of Knoll.