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Onboarding for Staffing: Transforming Your Biggest Hassle into a Competitive Advantage
188 Plays2 years ago
Applicant onboarding can be a complex, time-consuming process and is arguably the single largest chokehold in the talent funnel. In today’s employee-driven workforce, successful agencies will be the ones who will find ways to make onboarding a more streamlined, pleasing process for both talent and recruiters. So, what should staffing leaders do?
In this episode of Avionte Digital Edge, Christopher Ryan, CMO of Avionte, sits down with our Professional Services Consultant, Katie Schulz, to discuss the challenges associated with onboarding for staffing companies, best onboarding practices, how the right onboarding technology can give your business a competitive edge, and how some future-forward agencies are using onboarding to create a true digital talent marketplace.
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Transcript
Challenges in Onboarding
00:00:00
Speaker
In a typical staffing firm today, roughly 50% of all found talent failed to complete their employment forms. Of those that do complete their forms, only 60% show up and stay for their first day of work. Onboarding is now the single largest choke point in the talent funnel. So, what can staffing leaders do?
Introduction to Aviante Digital Edge
00:00:22
Speaker
This is Abiante, Digital Edge.
00:00:26
Speaker
Welcome to the Aviante Digital Edge, a podcast series that explores the digital transformation of staffing and temporary employment in the US workplace. My name is Chris Ryan, and I'm the Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer for Aviante. And for the past 30 years, I've explored US labor trends and employment practices in the United States.
00:00:48
Speaker
With me today to explore the topic of onboarding for staffing is Katie Schultz, a veteran of Aviante and now a member of our new professional service team, which advises our clients on the best ways to optimize their technology. Before I introduce Katie, I'd like to provide perspective and I'll date myself.
Evolution of Onboarding Processes
00:01:08
Speaker
When I accepted my first job 45 years ago, the entire onboarding process took a few days. Enrollment was paper-based and I had to fill out one of those funny green bar forms where the instructions tell you to print carefully and you print each single letter of your name and address directly into its own little box. My background check wasn't completed until a week after I started and I came home with a 30-page employee manual.
00:01:37
Speaker
Now, to be clear, I was okay with this. There was a recession going on at the time, and I was hoping to stay with my employer for at least a few years, and I didn't have any special expectations about my so-called employment experience. I was grateful to have a job. Besides that, I got through college with an electric typewriter, and my personal computer booted up on a floppy drive, so it all seemed normal.
00:02:03
Speaker
Today, it's a little different. My smartphone is a supercomputer, which I use to manage my banking, travel, grocery shopping, and tickets. I expect my employer to use smart technology so that I don't waste my time. And I can view my paycheck, view benefits, and request PTO from my phone. And I, like millions of Americans today, now work remotely. The world of temporary and contingent labor is also very different.
00:02:30
Speaker
We now face major labor shortages in the US. If you want to work and work now, you have other options besides the traditional staffing company. You can look for gig work
00:02:41
Speaker
You can put your credentials out on a digital talent platform. You can accept one job and keep looking for a better job on your mobile job board. And some large employers are even developing their own part-time talent pools for contingent staffing.
Staffing Challenges and Onboarding
00:02:56
Speaker
In some use cases, it's now possible to buy and sell your work by the shift or even by the hour. In this kind of environment,
00:03:05
Speaker
Onboarding puts traditional W-2 staffing at a real disadvantage. The staffing company that can find and keep the most talent and put them to work quickest is going to win. You can't afford a two-day paper process to put talent into a short-term assignment.
00:03:22
Speaker
So for today's discussion, we're going to discuss the challenges associated with onboarding, especially for staffing companies. We are going to discuss best practices in onboarding, and we're going to talk about how the right onboarding technology can give you a competitive edge.
00:03:39
Speaker
And while we will start by looking at traditional staffing and workflows, we'll also explore the emerging role of onboarding as a cornerstone process that some staffing companies are using to build a digital talent marketplace. So Katie, welcome.
Insights from Katie Schultz
00:03:56
Speaker
Tell us a little bit about yourself. You've held a variety of roles at Aviante.
00:04:00
Speaker
Yeah, Chris, thanks for having me. So I've been working with Aviante for about seven years now in a variety of forms, including support, working with integrations, and working as a solutions engineer with our client management team before where I am now as a professional services consultant. So is it fair to say that you've specifically helped or spoken with a few hundred staffing agencies over the past few years
00:04:28
Speaker
You're kind of on the front line of technology issues like onboarding. Is that fair? Yes, that absolutely is. I've had the thrill of working on a daily basis with, like you said, hundreds of staffing companies, ranging from a small handful of head mom and pop shops to enterprise accounts from light industrial to professional health care.
00:04:52
Speaker
Yeah. So wide range of different firms, different vertical industries. And you've also seen a wide variety of onboarding practices and use among customers. Yeah, absolutely. There can be so much variety there ranging from vertical to client preferences. Maybe you have very specific customers that have rigorous onboarding requirements themselves that you need to pass on.
00:05:17
Speaker
There are just quite a variety of ways that onboarding can be done within a company. So you've seen a lot of different things. So, Katie, I have to ask, how would you feel if you were given an offer by an employer and then they handed you a stack of paper forms to fill out? How would you respond to that? Well, I might laugh inside myself or externally, depending, I suppose, on the pay.
00:05:45
Speaker
It would be a little striking in 2023 for sure. Yeah, a little bit of a red flag perhaps in the way it looks. So let's get into it. Why is onboarding so important to staff and companies? And I know that sounds like an obvious question, but sometimes it's good to just step back and say, what is it that we're doing and why is it that it's so important?
00:06:11
Speaker
Yeah, so there are a couple things there. First, onboarding really begins the process of socializing your candidate, not just to your organization, but also to the clients you represent. And part of that has to do with legal compliance as well. You don't necessarily want to open your doors to ICE for an E-Verify audit, for example. But aside from that,
00:06:36
Speaker
Onboarding is really seeing how that candidate fits into your world. It's also a good point to develop the relationships and rapport with your candidates so that they keep coming back to you when they need more work. So it gives you an opportunity as a staffing company to create stickiness.
00:06:53
Speaker
So if Gary comes into my branch, I'm not just offering him any position. I need to know more about him, his location, his skills and strengths, whether he's eligible to work in the US and any preferences he might have within that.
00:07:08
Speaker
And I need to make sure he passes a background check and a drug screening. I need to make sure he fills out any compliance-related forms, like an I-9 or W-4. And I need, again, to make sure that I'm being compliant, that I'm abiding by legal regulations to make sure that he's completing those state-specific forms, those federal forms, and that I'm not only collecting but also upkeeping his certifications.
00:07:37
Speaker
whether he is a forklift driver or a registered nurse. So, so I, I'm curious then really what you're saying is, yeah, it's the law, but you're also saying that the, the reputation of a, of a, of a staffing agency, the way they look to the talent is also going to, it's going to be very dependent on onboarding, but that also, that process could also help you to figure out where and how to place people. Is that right?
00:08:06
Speaker
Exactly.
Stress and Errors in Onboarding
00:08:07
Speaker
And your onboarding process, it does affect your reputation, not just with your clients, but with your candidate. So for example, Susie knows her best friend came to your company, and Susie's best friend was onboarded in a day and on assignment the next. So Susie wants your company because of that reputation, because of that speed, and because of the quality of assignment she knows her friend was put on. Now,
00:08:33
Speaker
On the other side of that, your client, ABC Warehouse, they know that you thoroughly vet your candidates in a compliant way so that if they go and run an audit against you, you have all your boxes checked. And you can supply candidates quickly. They trust your company based off of, among many things, your onboarding process.
00:08:58
Speaker
Yep. So, so we've talked about legal risk. Uh, we've talked about the fact that you could either attract or put, put off talent. You could develop a poor brand reputation or, or upset your customers, but why else is onboarding so critical to staff and companies? I mean, let, let, let, let me, let, let me needle you a little. Okay. The,
00:09:23
Speaker
How do frontline recruiters feel about onboarding? Is this one of their favorite activities? How do recruiters feel about onboarding? So onboarding is very much a necessary evil.
00:09:39
Speaker
it is competitive. So even within those four walls of one staffing company, you have recruiters competing against each other. And this is done at breakneck speeds. Recruiters constantly have to keep up with the expectations. They have to meet their KPIs. And with that increased speed,
00:09:59
Speaker
by nature that increases the risk of air. So it's demanding a lot of recruiters, which can be very stressful for them as part of their process. So while it's critical, it takes time as well, not just from the onset, but also from following up. It isn't necessarily a one and done process. A recruiter needs to potentially re-engage.
00:10:25
Speaker
or push for mind throughout the onboarding process. So. Yeah. And I, and frankly, sometimes I've heard people say, Oh, the recruiter, uh, becomes a babysitter. Um, very often, if especially if talent is, is unreliable, if they're confused, if the process is confusing, you know, they're expected to babysit the talent. And if you're the talent, you know, who are you going to go to other than the recruiter to get your questions answered?
00:10:55
Speaker
Exactly. And to that point, let's say I'm onboarding Gary. He comes into my office and I'm starting to onboard him. A potential sticking point in that onboarding process or a falloff point, if you will, would be the I-9. So he could fill out section one of his I-9 incorrectly. So then he was the recruiter, have to go correct or have him redo it.
00:11:22
Speaker
He could have forgotten his supporting document, like a birth certificate at home, so now you have to wait for him to go back and come back into the office the next day with that document, assuming he finds it.
00:11:34
Speaker
Or even in a situation where you're doing remote verification for the i9, let's say that Gary's remote verifier is his neighbor and his neighbor needs to focus on yard work for the next couple days and doesn't really care about checking Gary's driver's license, that could be another point of falloff there that could really put some of the burden on the recruiter to follow up.
00:11:59
Speaker
even just down to the basic level of Gary may not like filling out the I-9 itself and gives up. He may need that human push to keep him going through some more complex forms. So I have to ask, and I'm sort of curious, what are some of the biggest horror stories you've ever heard about recruiters and the onboarding process? Any interesting stories come to mind?
00:12:28
Speaker
Oh, my goodness. So a couple different things here. And this kind of ties into technology and actually what technology can help do. So one thing that comes up a surprising amount of times in talking to recruiters is the frequency of somebody attaching the wrong document. Now, that may seem pretty harmless just from a high level.
00:12:55
Speaker
But ultimately, if you are, for example, a recruiter, you're wanting to open up an image of Gary's CDL, and instead you see that he accidentally attached a picture of his swimsuit zone. That actually really does happen a little bit more than you'd think.
00:13:15
Speaker
There is also a human level that can be a little difficult for recruiters and can cause some more stories, which is when you're working with candidates who are living week by week, they may not have the money for gas, they may not have the money for childcare. So halfway through an interview in your office, you find out that their child, that they left their child in the car so that they could
00:13:44
Speaker
try to get a job without needing to hire a babysitter during their interview. So there can be some surprises that walk through your door. And even, oh my goodness, even there was one story I heard recently where there was somebody who went on site
00:14:09
Speaker
They were terminated, and then they came back in to the office. The next week, they applied with a different name, got through, got put an assignment, and it took a couple of weeks for the client to reach out and figure that out.
00:14:26
Speaker
Again, kind of going through those verification processes is just so critical to recruiters. And there are horror stories of, I run a drug test for Gary, or I assign a drug test to Gary. He needs to go do a 10 panel. And he is so confident. He is so confident that he is going to pass it. Everything looks good. He walks out that door, and then I get the 10 panel back. And it turns out he's a meth user.
00:14:55
Speaker
And I've wasted my entire time onboarding somebody when I don't work with any clients that hire meth users. So recruiting is a wild ride for sure.
00:15:08
Speaker
Yeah, no, it sounds like it. And it also sounds like, well, you know, if football players and congresspersons can accidentally send the wrong picture on their phone, there's no telling what happens on a daily basis in a recruiter's office with
00:15:25
Speaker
with people's personal credentials.
Recommendations for Efficient Onboarding
00:15:28
Speaker
So, you know, if you were providing, you know, consulting to a staffing agency and you were going to work with them and review and update their onboarding procedures, how would you proceed and how would you advise them? You know, when you're looking at an onboarding procedure, how do you know what's efficient and effective? What do you look for?
00:15:48
Speaker
Gotcha. So a couple of different things there. We want to make sure that everything is centralized as much as possible. So reducing the swivel chair effect, reducing the amount of systems and tabs that a person needs to have open at one time. We're also looking for uniformity. So is there uniformity in your onboarding procedure as much as possible to make it easier for your recruiting team to support
00:16:17
Speaker
and train in each other and maintain that sense of unity. But beyond reducing the swivel chair, beyond that uniformity, there is also kind of another level to onboarding, which is making sure, again, that you're compliant. So do you have any technology checks in place to enforce that a verify has been completed, for example?
00:16:39
Speaker
Do you have review cycles set for your onboarding process ranging from documents to background checks? Are your documents up to date? Did any branding change? Did any state specific forms update? It's really good to have a regular review cadence, which is definitely one of the big things that I recommend.
00:17:01
Speaker
Interesting. Yeah. So it sounds like that would explain how sometimes when you see an onboarding procedure, you can come across a document that's been Xeroxed 50 times over the last 10 years and really should have been taken out of circulation a while ago. So if you had a friend who was starting their own staffing agency and they were starting it from scratch, how would you counsel them to set up their onboarding procedure?
00:17:28
Speaker
And what would you do if you were doing it from scratch? Yeah. So as they're building their client base, as they're starting from scratch, something to kind of balance is your process, your efficiency, your uniformity versus a client's needs for their background checks, their paperwork and things like that.
00:17:50
Speaker
So making sure that you have a process to vet your clients through, see if they need any unique onboarding documents or background check packages, for example, and kind of keeping those tracked, trying to make those as scalable as possible. Compliance is huge. So obviously making sure that you have a system to upkeep those forms.
Role of Technology in Onboarding
00:18:15
Speaker
maybe you are using an onboarding tool that automatically updates your federal and state forms when a new version's out, for example. So finding the right technology fit is pretty key there too. Yeah, so let's talk about technology capabilities. I mean, there are individualized programs out there for doing onboarding process.
00:18:41
Speaker
Sometimes you see a company will purchase an ATS and then they will purchase separate services from an onboarding vendor. They may try to integrate them or operate them separately. But ultimately, what are the most important capabilities for supporting onboarding from a technology perspective?
00:19:04
Speaker
Well, from a technology perspective, what we really like to see is a CYA. Again, with staffing, there's a lot of open doors where someone can come at you for your compliance, and technology can enforce that compliance.
00:19:21
Speaker
I think I brought it up before, making sure everyone's e-verified so you don't get hit with a six-figure bill when ICE comes walking through your door, making sure that your state-specific tax forms are completed and those withholdings go into your payroll, and having that be done automatically, so reducing the data entry for that recruiter. Technology is also going to allow you to upkeep your candidate records. So, Gary's CDL is expiring in three months.
00:19:51
Speaker
let the technology remind the recruiter, let the technology reach out to Gary and get that updated license. Got it, got it. So there are a lot of opportunities for standardizing the process and also making sure that you don't get variances there. I was actually struck a little bit by your comment about E-Verify. I had noticed that there had actually been an article in the New York Times on labor practices
00:20:18
Speaker
and an unauthorized labor and i don't understand that for example the use of the verify would be a way of ensuring that your company. Never runs a file of us employment law at least regarding people who are authorized or not authorized to work in the united states.
00:20:37
Speaker
Yeah, at the very least that will cover you in an ICE audit if someone went through, they provided you the information, you put that information through eVerify and they passed. But to be perfectly honest, these days, there are instances where things can get through eVerify, the fake documentation and things like that that people can get.
00:21:01
Speaker
can actually kind of slip through eVerify in some instances. But conceptually, yes, that is the way that Americans verify the ability to work in the U.S. Yep. So what are some of the considerations for high-volume staffing and executive recruiting?
00:21:22
Speaker
So high volume staffing, it goes down to speed. You may have a more pared down onboarding process because potentially you aren't doing high volume for a high level of skills. It's more about finding the people with the right availability that are willing to go and sit in that seat.
00:21:45
Speaker
Redeployment can be pretty big in that too, because as people are coming through, they're completing their contracts, they're going to come back, they know that you quickly put them to work, and they're going to come back for their next mass redeployment. Yeah, yeah. So, and that actually, you know, that sort of segues into our next topic.
00:22:09
Speaker
So let's talk about this aspect of onboarding and especially as it relates to the so-called digital talent marketplace. I mean, historically, onboarding was a monolithic one-step process, but today, talent agencies are really breaking the onboarding process down into stages.
00:22:31
Speaker
As an example, I've heard of staff and companies that might have a high-speed redeployment onboarding process versus a standard where they might have a pre-qualification stage. So why are staff and companies doing that? And what are the benefits of modular onboarding where you break onboarding down into different stages?
00:22:54
Speaker
Breaking things down into different onboarding stages does allow you to control the speed of onboarding and put different steps in place. For instance, somebody can come through, they do a basic interview, they fall off, and maybe you don't continue with them through your current pipeline, but you have that base to know if I need to go and mine my existing talent,
00:23:22
Speaker
I, at the very least, have this basic questionnaire, this basic screening, so I have an idea of who this person is before I go and I try to re-engage them and pull them back into my candidate pool. It really is also building that loyalty, so as you're going through, maybe you come through that initial screening, you bring them through the onboarding, the initial onboarding, that compliance piece, again, with the i9W4, all of that.
00:23:53
Speaker
During that phase, you're also developing the relationship and they know that, hey, they're gonna be next steps when I go on assignment to a particular client. My recruiters already let me know there's just gonna be a little bit more for me to complete. Beyond that, there may also be, like you mentioned, redeployment steps where if I am using technology, if I have a good relationship with my candidates or can easily identify the ones that need to be
00:24:22
Speaker
need to complete redeployment paperwork, they're going to be completing less paperwork during that redeployment quite likely. So that is kind of, suppose, another module, if you will, of onboarding, if that answers your question.
00:24:36
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, no. And what it sounds like is if redeployment is important to your business, just like a repeat customer is important to a store, a repeat talent is important to a profitable staffing firm.
Onboarding in Digital Marketplaces
00:24:53
Speaker
as I understand it, staff and companies are using onboarding now to really build up a pool of candidates who are ready to deploy quickly and where they can push jobs. So there might be pre-qualification, there might be the legal step of onboarding itself, but the idea of fast redeployment means that your talent is more likely to come back to you because they know they're gonna have
00:25:22
Speaker
hassle-free experience in getting work. So interestingly, while we think of onboarding as a process in and of itself, in the long run, it would seem that onboarding is really going to be one of the core pieces of a digital talent marketplace or the digital transformation of a staffing company. So do you have any interesting
00:25:50
Speaker
cases or stories that you can share about what are some of the most innovative staff and companies doing today with their onboarding process? What have you seen? Well, they're putting it more and more into the hands of the candidates so that they can control the timing themselves.
00:26:10
Speaker
you know, cutting edge that front line looks like Susie, who is a single mother working a job at McDonald's and she's having the worst day of her life. So she goes into the bathroom, you know, cries a little bit, pulls out her phone and starts engaging with the staffing agency. And she has a new job that she's onboarded for by the time her shift there is done. And you're seeing that today. Staffing companies are able to,
00:26:38
Speaker
essentially on board somebody during a bathroom break. Yeah, that really is where
00:26:45
Speaker
Staff and companies can leverage technology to have their jobs open and available, to have some automated onboarding processes for applicants. And if there is a human element, having the technology notify the recruiters that, hey, there's somebody new in the system, let's engage right away. Maybe we're sending Susie a text just to get a little bit more information.
00:27:09
Speaker
But really, technology and the human element can go hand in hand there to be top of the line, truly. Yeah. So, Katie, is there anything else you'd like to share with our audience today regarding onboarding?
Balancing Perspectives in Onboarding
00:27:23
Speaker
Yeah, ultimately, it comes down to the perspective. You want to keep everyone's perspective in mind as you're setting up your onboarding process for the first time or reviewing your existing onboarding process. So keeping in mind the perspective of the talent who needs things to be done easily, quickly,
00:27:45
Speaker
with a friendly face to your recruiter who needs to meet their KPIs and have good metrics while also having a good experience working within your branch and to have the tools to be efficient. And then the perspective of your clients. Are you giving them the good quality candidates? Is your vetting process
00:28:10
Speaker
supporting your reputation to your clients. So really technology versus human element, ultimately it really boils down to the perspective of those three.
00:28:23
Speaker
Got it. Thank you, Katie, for joining us and sharing your professional experiences around onboarding and technology. And we really look forward to having you back with us for some future episodes. I'd also like to thank our audience for joining us and having you back as well. For our next episode, we're going to talk about digital transformation of staffing with Chris Johnson. And in particular, we're going to discuss the progress of migrating your staffing agency from traditional staffing to digital staffing.
00:28:53
Speaker
And while many of you might be wondering what that means, I'd say it this way. Many staffing agencies use technology extensively today, but the focus has always been around automating the current manual processes that you have, rather than thinking through new ways to use technology to be even more efficient, as well as more attractive to talent.
00:29:13
Speaker
So that's something that Chris Johnson will take us through. Chris has been a major thought leader within the staffing community over the last two decades. And this is an interview you probably won't want to miss. So we encourage you to subscribe to our podcast series. And if you'd like to learn more about Aviante, please visit our website at aviante.com. Until next time, this is Chris Ryan. Thank you for joining Aviante Digital Edge.