Your onboarding process can greatly determine how much your business spends on hiring, recruitment, and training in the long run. In fact, the likelihood of an employee staying at least three years jumps by 69% if they experience a good onboarding process. Thanks to the rise of the virtual workplace, your digital onboarding process is more important than ever before.
Why Electronic Onboarding Matters for Small Businesses in 2025
Like in-person onboarding, digital onboarding helps employees meet their coworkers, grow accustomed to the company culture, and learn about the tools they’ll need to succeed. Because of this, it plays an integral role in preparing the employee for their future job and helping them acclimate to the new organizational culture.
During your electronic onboarding, you’ll typically need to create the following onboarding forms and procedures.
- New hire paperwork, like I-9s and W-4s
- Introductions
- Company policies and the employee handbook
- Training materials
- Mission, vision, and culture information
- Organizational charts
- One-on-one meetings
Depending on your company’s needs, you may want to create a mentorship program as well. New hires are more likely to stay when they’re partnered with a mentor or develop a close friend at work. Forming relationships can be more challenging in a remote environment, making these types of programs especially useful.
By incorporating the best procedures, policies, and training methods into your electronic onboarding, you can enjoy a few important benefits.
Ensure Consistency
When it comes to your HR processes, consistency is your friend. It helps you avoid discrimination issues and ensures all of your team members are fully trained for their new roles. Over time, a consistent training process will also reduce labor costs and prevent mistakes. When employees know about vacation policies or the correct method of shutting down the assembly line, you don’t have to spend time answering questions or retraining them on your company’s procedures.
Prevent Errors
If a new hire doesn’t know what your company’s policies are, they will have a difficult time following them. Through better onboarding processes, you can ensure your workers are ready for their future roles. As a part of your onboarding process, you should train employees on where to go for help with different problems. Then, they can be proactive about solving and avoiding mistakes.
Easily Integrate Remote Workers
A digital onboarding process can be used with remote and non-remote workers to ensure a consistent, convenient experience. For remote workers, a standardized online onboarding process will make it easier to assimilate into your team.
Improve Employee Experience
Most people feel nervous on the first day of their new job. A standardized training program helps to allay first-day jitters by helping employees learn what to expect. For example, reviewing the employee’s job description and discussing the employee handbook can help employees know their future performance goals and what they need to do to get a raise.
Reduce Labor Costs
A good onboarding program can greatly decrease your labor costs. Each time you have to answer an employee’s questions about the length of breaks, attendance policies, or performance reviews, you are using extra time. Through a good onboarding process, the employee is familiarized with your handbook and policies. As a result, they know exactly where to go to look up the information they need.
Achieve a More Effective Onboarding Process
When you’re creating a training program off the top of your head, it’s easy to forget important details. By creating a standardized online onboarding process, you can ensure that every important topic ends up getting covered. Additionally, you can be more strategic about how you introduce information and build on previous knowledge.
Increase Employee Longevity
In the first 45 days, the turnover rate among new hires can be up to 20%. Up to a third of employees will leave their new jobs within the first three months.
Whether you’re hiring remote or in-person workers, a good onboarding process can boost your employee longevity. It helps to lower the uncertainty and fears workers have about their employment at your company. More importantly, it gives them the clear, consistent training and feedback they need to be successful.
Lower the Cost of Onboarding
While creating an electronic onboarding process costs money upfront, it saves you money in the long run. Once you’ve made the materials and videos that make up the onboarding program, you can reuse them as often as you want for free. Besides minor updates to your policies each year, your onboarding program will require very few updates over time.
Better Job Satisfaction
When employees feel supported and know what is expected of them, it improves their job satisfaction. They don’t have to worry that they’re forgetting an important task, and they feel more supported. Plus, discussing performance management reviews and evaluations during onboarding can guide employees so that they know what goals they need to work toward.
How To Improve Your Company’s Digital Onboarding Experience
To make the best online onboarding experience possible, try adopting a few of the following tips.
Be Consistent
Consistency in HR practices ensures a more productive company. It boosts your compliance, instills a sense of fairness, and prevents discrimination in the workplace. By creating an electronic onboarding process, you can quickly standardize your HR practices and make sure all of your employees are starting out on the same page.
Ensure Compliance
As you design your digital onboarding materials, it’s a good idea to consult with an HR expert. From I-9 forms to workplace safety training, there are a range of compliance-related topics you should include. Besides avoiding legal fines and ensuring your operations are above board, compliance is also important because it sets the stage for ethical conduct. When your employees know you prioritize ethical behavior, they are more likely to follow suit.
Schedule Face-to-Face Web Chats
With remote onboarding, it can be challenging to make your new hires feel like they are a part of the team. Initially, it’s a good idea to schedule a face-to-face chat so that they have someone they can talk to directly. You may also want to set up a video chat with other members of the team or introduce them over Slack, so the new hire feels like they belong.
After the initial onboarding, it’s a good idea to schedule follow-up chats as well. For many people, it’s easier to ask an actual person for help than it is to ask anything over email. Plus, video conferences help to personify your company so that new hires feel like they are genuinely part of a larger team.
Provide Self-Study Items for Workers’ Downtime
Sometimes, there will be moments of downtime while the employee is going through the onboarding process. To make the most of the employee’s labor hours, prepare self-study items in advance. For example, you may want to provide information about a competitor, product details, or essential articles for your employees to check out. Then, the employee can review these materials when they have free time.
Set Up a Quick Cheat Sheet
Onboarding can be overwhelming for new hires. During this time, they are often provided with a wide array of information and training materials. To make this process less intimidating, create a one-page cheat sheet with all of the resources they will need later. In the future, they can easily review the documents or contact information when they need assistance.
Create a Document Trail
A good digital onboarding process will also create a document trail of all of your training programs and policies. For example, you may have the employee sign their job description to show that they’ve read it and are familiar with the job duties. You can also use your digital onboarding to document how you train workers on discrimination, safety precautions, and harassment. If you ever need to prove your company’s compliance in a lawsuit or Department of Labor (DOL) audit, you’ll have all of the documentation you need.
Introduce Their Mentor
Mentoring is an essential part of your onboarding process. It provides the worker with a familiar face to ask for help and get advice about common problems. In a remote environment, mentoring can also create a sense of belonging and help increase employee engagement.
To make the most of your company’s mentoring program, require virtual check-ins between team members and their mentors. You should also train mentors on how to be effective, such as regular check-ins, training support, and consistent communication.
Update Your Company’s Online Onboarding Process
Whether you have a completely remote workforce or a handful of remote workers, an electronic onboarding process can simplify your onboarding process, boost your legal compliance, and ensure a consistent onboarding experience. In turn, these benefits can increase your employee engagement and retention rates.
At Asure, we can make the electronic onboarding process as straightforward as possible. Through our team, you can get help with your I-9s, direct deposition information, W-4s, and more.
To learn more about designing a digital onboarding process for your company, reach out to our team of small business payroll and HR experts today.