By Andy Tillo
You never get a second chance to make a first impression. We’ve all heard that. But that takes on added significance when getting new employees acclimated to your company – fast.
A big part of making new hires feel welcomed and valued is ensuring they have everything they need on Day One. All the necessary HR actions. The right equipment. Access to the proper systems. Oh, and getting cool company swag. You know, all the big and small things that set them up for success. The last thing you want is chaos.
Creating a first-rate employee experience is more important today than ever. It’s also more challenging to create that warm-and-fuzzy glow when, thanks to the pandemic, more people are joining companies virtually. At Boomi, onboarding must be seamless because we’re in hyper-growth mode with plans to add hundreds of new employees this calendar year as we emerge as an independent company.
Fortunately, we can say: Go Boomi it!
Connecting applications and data is the foundation of the Boomi platform. That’s vital for onboarding because so many systems play a role in getting a new hire up and running. But onboarding also highlights the incredible breadth of the platform, as integration represents only part of the behind-the-scenes technology wizardry that contributes to getting new hires ramped up.
Without getting too deep into the technical nitty-gritty, here’s how we do it – thanks to the Boomi platform.
A New Beginning
We began using our platform as a pillar of our onboarding in 2019. One essential piece: Boomi Integration connected our internal processes with Dell Technologies. Everything that a new hire experienced began with Dell, such as interactions with HR, IT, and so on. That support would be going away with the divesture, so we needed a new plan.
As part of the carve-out transition, we continued to work within Dell’s onboarding structure while simultaneously setting up a standalone process that’s a better fit for a high-growth company.
Boomi is ideal for this kind of “lift-and-shift” balancing act that’s common in mergers and acquisitions. In our case, we continued to receive a daily report from Dell’s HR instance of Workday with basic information about incoming employees until the separation was complete.
The real magic is in how the Boomi platform transformed our onboarding process.
The “Hub” of the Process
Boomi Employee 360 is one example of our use of Boomi Master Data Hub. This is the brain of our internal system. It’s our repository for employee information and synchronizes data so that each person has a single “golden record.” The beauty of this is that Boomi Employee 360 contains all of our master data and can instantly share it with all the systems each employee uses in their jobs. We control all of our data, and it’s easily accessible. We’re never at the mercy of an outside vendor.
So, a new hire will be starting. Great! Boomi Employee 360 alerts our Okta credential provisioning and Jira project workflow tools – utilizing Boomi Integration and Boomi API Management. And we’re off to the races! Okta sends back the message to Boomi Employee 360 that a new profile was created and it needs to be recorded in the repository. From there, messages are sent out requesting access to the appropriate systems and equipment for the new employee.
The critical word in that last sentence was “appropriate.”
Yes, everyone will get a laptop and most will order business cards. Much of what every new employee requires is the same. But it’s not one-size-fits-all. What systems you use will depend on your role and team. Boomi Employee 360 makes sure you get access to only what you need. That way, the employee is ready to roll, but Boomi also is not paying for unnecessary licenses – so can realize massive cost savings.
When Boomi cuts the final cord with Dell, our Workday environment went live to complete the “shift.” It was a silky smooth transition.
New Hire Dashboard
We designed an interactive, front-end application with Boomi Flow that our new Boomsters use as a checklist for tasks, and so they can track their progress. Filling out benefits and payroll information. Setting up Slack for fast internal communications. Reviewing the company code of conduct. And so on.
New hires are always drinking from the firehose. Why make it worse? We streamlined the dashboard to contain only the most necessary tasks. That way, they don’t feel so overwhelmed.
For the company, rethinking our onboarding process gives us:
- Significant savings in money, time, and resources. We project Boomi will save 90% in ongoing costs related to maintenance and additional licensing fees.
- More automated processes. For instance, auto-provisioning access to systems like email, Salesforce, Okta, Slack, and so on, is expected to result in time savings of 80% to 90%. That could save 400 hours of time on Okta provisioning alone in 2022.
- The ability to onboard more people, faster. Managers have complete visibility into where everyone is in the process, eliminating manual tracking and constant check-ins with new hires for progress reports.
And most importantly, new employees get that great first impression of Boomi. They’re not spinning their wheels — or feeling like their heads are spinning. (Not too much, anyway.) And they maintain a sense of excitement about what comes next on this new step in their career. They might even take a photo of their new swag and post it on LinkedIn as they brag about the amazing company they just joined.
Read the previous blog in our “Boomi on Boomi” series to learn how we use the Boomi platform internally for employee referrals.