The impact of a great onboarding experience for your company and your employees
Onboarding – a definition
Onboarding refers to the processes in which new hires are introduced into an organisation. It includes activities that allow new employees to complete an initial new-hire orientation process, as well as learn about the company and its structure, culture, vision, mission, and values.
A 2017 study by CareerBuilder found that:
- Over one-third of companies do not have a structured onboarding process.
- The focus of onboarding is often orientation, instead of the long-term productivity and success of the employee.
- Poor onboarding is a major cause of employee turnover, which can cost a company 100-300% of the employee’s salary in total.
From an employee perspective, 69% of employees who have a positive onboarding experience are more likely to remain with the employer for three years. Companies that focus on onboarding retain 50% more new employees than companies that don’t. Standardised onboarding also results in a 50% increase in productivity.
Device onboarding
Device onboarding is the process where new devices access the company network for the first time. It forms part of a new hire onboarding process but can impact any employee any time a new device needs to be introduced to the company network.
The device onboarding process should be seamless and take as little time as possible to complete, reducing the user’s efforts and time to set up the device. A simple onboarding process is also helpful for users who struggle with technology.
Every small step which reduces user efforts to onboard any device will win their satisfaction. Successful device onboarding processes also help the company to lower support and maintenance costs.
Challenges
If the device to be onboarded to the network is owned by the user, while it’s on the network, it must be managed by the company or organisation. Often these devices are brought back and forth to work and home. They are used outside of the company, but the company’s data is still present on the device. Sharing network data with users obviously introduces questions about the privacy, security, and ownership of that data.
To protect itself and its data, the company should write and implement a clear acceptable use policy that clarifies ownership of the device, ownership of data, use of data, and the legal ramifications of breaching this agreement. Once a user reads and agrees to abide by that policy, the actual device onboarding process may pose a further challenge.
There are so many different devices available to consumers and different versions, or generations, of those devices as well. They have different operating systems. Accommodating this huge variety of devices is a colossal headache for IT.
Unfortunately, IT teams are often under the pump and though onboarding new devices for current or new staff members is important, urgent priorities can get in the way. At the same time, if they are not handling the process with top security standards in mind, they could potentially place users, devices, enterprise data and the network itself at risk.
Employee device management impacts
The changing threat landscape coupled with advances in technology has completely turned employee device management around. It now has the potential to enable business in a way that before now has not been possible.
Stronger employee device security, increased productivity, better use of resources, higher levels of employee satisfaction and ongoing compliance are just the tip of the iceberg. Advances in cloud innovation and automation have changed the game for employee device management.
Before this technology was available, IT would spend hours or even days manually patching devices or responding to tickets for device support. Employees would wait days or even weeks for their devices to be provisioned or made compliant, resulting in gaps due to manual handling, loss of productivity and lower employee satisfaction.
Making device onboarding seamless can be achieved through outsourcing.
Outsourcing device management
In today’s world, companies need the ability to protect end users the same way they need to protect their data and networks, especially when those users have constant access to the data and networks.
Outsourcing employee device management provides an opportunity to secure people and data through one platform to enable all employees to work safely and productively with a high level of confidence.
By outsourcing employee device management and the managed operating environment (MOE) companies can redeploy skilled IT resources to focus on bigger and better projects.
Outsourced device management and security is a huge business enabler with the power to transform serious business concerns into competitive advantage. While the tech is impressive, it’s more interesting to talk about how the solution aligns with the business to achieve strategic goals from the top down.
Benefits
By automating the entire device onboarding process, enterprises can achieve the following benefits:
- Reduce costs typically associated with manual work including configuration and support activities.
- Increase end-user satisfaction – instead of hassling end-users with onboarding procedures, the whole process can be seamless.
- Enhance productivity – get team members, contractors and guests connected so they can start work faster.
- Decrease risks – unmanaged, unpatched, high-risk devices can be blocked or connected from the beginning to a separate segment of the network from where the key corporate assets are stored.
Every enterprise today must support a rapidly proliferating world of devices and platforms. From an operational point of view, this shouldn’t pose an obstruction of workflows and productivity. Ideally, your outsourced device management team will automate and secure network onboarding and authentication. Additionally, an effective plan for secure network onboarding will improve end-user experience for BYOD, IoT, users and guests and improve IT security as part of a layered protection strategy.
Looking to set IT security policies and outsource your device onboarding? Talk to us today
