Employee onboarding workflows

 

Overview

Create and edit workflows to design the exact new hire experience you want. Gather new employee information before their first day, ensuring proper and smooth onboarding for your new hires. 

A default onboarding workflow will be ready for use in your account, but you can add more workflows as needed. To view and edit onboarding workflows:

1. Click your user icon in the upper right of Workable, and then click Settings.
2. Navigate to Onboarding under the employee management settings.

 

Setting up onboarding workflows

Before onboarding workflow configuration, you will need to:

• Configure your default or custom profile templates under the Profile templates settings.❗To ensure that employees can complete specific profile fields during onboarding, adjust their Field settings to be 'Editable by' the employee.
• Create the document templates you will use under the Document Templates settings. 

A default onboarding workflow will pre-exist in your account, which requests all the employee editable fields. Make edits or create a new workflow. To do so, click Add a new workflow on the upper right and complete the two Workflow steps that will appear.

Step 1️⃣: Workflow details

Add the setup details for your onboarding workflow. 

• Add a name for your workflow (mandatory) 
• Add a short description for the workflow
• Select the department or entity to which this workflow will apply. If you leave this unfilled the workflow will be available for all departments.
• Choose when this workflow should begin. You can update this setting when you start an individual employee onboarding.
  • Immediately
  • Select days before the start date; in the below example, employees assigned to this workflow will be onboarded 3 days before they actually start working.
• Choose if you wish to:
  • Publish employee profile - We will try to automatically publish the employee profile at midnight of the employee’s start date. If the publication fails, an informative inbox item will be sent to the HR Admins to manually fix the missing information and then publish the employee profile manually.
  • Invite employee as Workable account member - We will send an invitation to the employee’s work email at midnight of the employee’s start date so that the employee can join your Workable account.

 

Click Next to move to the next step.

Step 2️⃣: Onboarding website

Here, HR Admins can configure the welcome message on the onboarding website and add a Youtube or Vimeo video to improve the first contact of the employee with your company.

You will also see a preview widget of the onboarding website so you can better understand what your configuration looks like.

 

Step 3️⃣: Workflow tasks

Here, HR Admins can assign specific onboarding tasks for team members to complete during new employee onboarding. The tasks list will include the below default tasks, which will be empty, and you will need to set them up based on your needs. 

Click Add task to add an additional task in the onboarding workflow. The available tasks are the below:

• Send welcome email - Mandatory task that cannot be removed.
• Provide profile information
• Send email - This can be added more than once.
• Sign a document - This can be added more than once, with a different document template each time.
• Custom tasks already created in the task library.

Provide profile information

Request the employee to fill in selected profile fields in their profile. HR Admins can configure:

• Heading (mandatory)
• Description
• Field selection: Select all fields that the employee needs to complete. Available for selection will be only fields set as 'Editable by' the employee under the Field settings.

Send email

An onboarding workflow can include multiple email tasks as well as the welcome email task, which can be scheduled to be dispatched based on the start date of the employee and can be sent to:

• The employee being onboarded - with a distinction between personal and work emails.
• The line manager of the employee.
• The HR Administrators of the account.
• Any specific employee created in Workable.

There must be at least one recipient in the “To” section, while you can also choose to add more employees in the “Cc” section. 

 

Sign a document

Add one or more documents for employees to sign / complete, e.g., contract, waiver, disclaimer, or view a document (security & privacy policy). Ensure you have created the relevant document template under the Document Templates settings. HR Admins can configure:

• The deadline, based on the employee's start date (before, on or after the start date)
• If this e-signature task will be available in the onboarding website or not, based on the 'Allow signing before employee start date' toggle. If the toggle is enabled, the document will be available for signature on the onboarding website.
• Heading (mandatory)
• Description
• Document template (mandatory); if the workflow is assigned to a department, available for selection will be templates compatible with the department of the onboarding workflow

To add an additional document, click again + Add task > Sign a document and follow the same procedure for every document you wish to add. 

Custom task

HR Admins can add one or more custom onboarding tasks in an onboarding workflow. When you select one of these custom tasks, you will be asked to review the assignees and set a deadline for this task. In the example below, we have added a task for a manager's 30-day check-in with the Line manager as the assignee and a deadline 30 days after the start date. 

 

Once you're done with all the onboarding tasks, click Save to complete the process. 

 

Managing onboarding workflows

HR Admins have full control over onboarding workflows, and they can edit, duplicate, disable/enable, or delete them as needed (under the three dots menu ).

Action	Explanation
Edit	The changes will only apply to onboardings scheduled or started immediately from that time onwards, with the existing "ongoing" ones not being affected.
Duplicate	A new copy of the selected workflow will be created with a [copy] mention added to the name. Edit the workflow to change the name or any other information if needed.
Disable	Disabling an onboarding workflow that has already been used at least once will make it unavailable for onboarding new employees. Any employees who have already been assigned to this onboarding workflow will keep it. Disabled workflows will appear at the bottom of the page.
Enable	Enabling a disabled onboarding workflow will make it available for assignments to employees.
Delete	Deleting an onboarding workflow that has not been used will remove it from the account.

 

What the employees see

Onboarding new employees will be guided by an exciting, friendly modal. The onboarding app is mobile-friendly so users will have the same experiences across their devices. 

When they receive the welcome email and click to start, they will be redirected to an onboarding dashboard where they can see:

• The Welcome message that HR Admins has set up in the workflow settings (step 2) and the onboarding video.
• A list of the tasks that are configured to be available in the onboarding website. Available tasks are:
  • Profile information task ('Complete information' button).
  • E-signature tasks that are set to be available in the onboarding website ('Review and sign' button).

Click Preview onboarding website to preview any of your onboarding workflows and see exactly what the employees will see.

🔎 Want to view the full employee experience? Click here.

New employees will have access to the onboarding portal even after their start date. However, their profile must not be published in order for them to complete any onboarding tasks after their start date.

 

FAQs

How can I add additional documents for signature?

To add multiple documents for signature during onboarding, simply add them as separate tasks and use the "Sign a document" task for each document that you want to include in the onboarding workflow.

Why aren't certain fields appearing when I try to add them in onboarding? 

All profile fields that the employee will be required to complete during onboarding should be set as 'Editable by' the Employee under the Field settings; otherwise, they won't appear in the onboarding flow. 

Why can't I delete an onboarding workflow?

If an onboarding workflow has been used at least once it cannot be deleted but only disabled. 

What happens if I edit a document template while the onboarding process is underway?

If you edit a document template (included as a "Sign a document" task in an onboarding workflow) and the onboarding process is underway, then the updated document won't be reflected automatically for the onboardee. In this case, you will need to:

1. Stop the onboarding for the employee(s).
2. Start onboarding again for the employee(s) to receive the updated document.

Both actions can be taken from the onboarding dashboard.