Employee Onboarding (Basic)

Summary

Flowset templates can be used as a starting point for a workflow implementation.  Simply find the template that best matches your process requirements and then clone it.  See Workflow Templates for details of using Flowset Templates.

An efficient onboarding process is key to ensuring new employees are welcomed to the new company, understand how they will be brought up to speed with their role and quickly feel they belong.  This template implements the basic aspects of an onboarding process including

• Upfront preparations when the offer is accepted
• Ongoing preparations to be ready for when they start
• HR preparations
• Systems and facilities preparations
• Starting work

Template Design

The employee onboarding template consists of a number of activities.  These activities represent a set of tasks that need to be performed before moving on to the next activity.  At some points in the process, parallel activities occur.  These represent multiple tasks that can occur at the same time, but which will typically be the responsibility of different teams within the organization to perform and are handled by a separate Zendesk ticket.  The onboarding process will be finished when all activities have been completed. See Parallel Process Pattern for a description of using parallel activities.

The image above shows the employee onboarding workflow template.  The activities (in green) show the main steps in the process.  These are 

1. Prepare for New Employee
2. Manager Preparation
3. Team Introductions

Additionally, when moving from Prepare for New Employee to Manage Preparation, 2 parallel tickets are created which will be responsible for 

1. HR Management
2. Systems and Facilities Provisioning

The left hand split diamond shape shows that parallel activities (purple) will be created at this point.

The tasks involved in Manager Preparation as well as HR Management and Systems and Facilities Provisioning need to be completed before moving on from Manager Preparation to Team Introductions.  The right hand join diamond shape shows how the parallel activities (purple) and the parent activity (green) need to be complete before moving to Team Introductions.

Process Persisted Fields

Activities will normally gather information to allow their tasks to be completed.  This information is typically local information known only to the activity being performed.  Once you transition on to the next activity, it will gather it's own information to allow it to compete.  There are times, however, where some information gathered in an activity may be needed in subsequent activities.  For example, you don't need to organize a desk for an employee who will be working from home.

Process Persisted Fields can be accessed from any activity and prevent the need to keep asking the same questions in different activities.  The process persisted fields defined in this workflow template are

Detailed Design

The sections below describe details of the tasks involved in each of these top level activities.  See Activity Task Modelling for details of how to define task flows for an activity.

Prepare for New Employee

This activity is where we will capture brief details about the new employee and the proposed date that they will start their new role.  Click the arrow in the top left of the activity shape.  This will display the task flow for this activity.

The task flow for this activity gathers details about the new employee.  Click the Task Fields edit button to show the defined task fields.  The condition shape is used to ensure that task information has been filled in sufficiently to progress.  For example, you can specify if a task field must be provided or if it is optional.

The template as defined will capture

1. The new Employee Name
2. Confirm that the new Employee has signed a contract
3. Confirm the proposed employment start date
4. Identified the department they will be part of

1-3 must be supplied and 4 is optional.

Manager Preparation

This activity is performed by the manager of the new employee and involves identifying the an agenda for the start day as well as preparation of onboarding goals and briefing the team of the impending new team member.

The task flow for this activity provides a checklist of tasks that should be completed prior to the new employee joining the company. The condition shape is used to ensure that task information has been filled in sufficiently to progress.  For example, you can specify if a task field must be provided or if it is optional.

The template provides a checklist 

1. First day agenda prepared
2. Onboarding goals prepared
3. Team has been briefed about the new employee

When the necessary tasks have been completed, the activity can be marked as completed.  In this activity, all of the check list items are for guidance only.

HR Management

This parallel activity (on a separate ticket) would be assigned to the HR Team and is responsible for capturing details from an HR perspective as well as ensuring background checks and references are followed.  Click the + in the top left of the shape to show the process that will be run on this parallel ticket.

The process for the parallel ticket has a single HR Preparation activity.  Click the arrow to show the task flow for this activity.

The task flow for this activity provides a checklist of tasks that should be completed prior to the new employee joining the company. The condition shape is used to ensure that task information has been filled in sufficiently to progress.  For example, you can specify if a task field must be provided or if it is optional.

The template provides a checklist

1. Double check signed employment contract
2. Capture payroll details
3. Ensure background checks are completed
4. Ensure references have been checked

When the necessary tasks have been completed, the activity can be marked as completed.  In this activity, all of the check list items are for guidance only.

Systems and Facilities Provisioning

This parallel activity (on a separate ticket) would be assigned to the Systems Team and is responsible for ordering or identifying computer equipment and software that will be needed by the new employee.  Click the + in the top left of the shape to show the process that will be run on this parallel ticket.

The process for the parallel ticket has a single Facilities Preparation activity.  Click the arrow to show the task flow for this activity.

The task flow for this activity consists of 3 tasks IT Systems, Facilities and Completion.  These tasks have checklists to

1. Ensure computer equipment has been ordered or identified
2. Software has been installed
3. A desk has been allocated
4. Security badge created
5. Phone and/or voice mail provisioned

When the necessary tasks have been completed, the activity can be marked as completed.  In this activity, all of the check list items are for guidance only.

Team Introductions

Finally, when the employee joins the company, the activity identifies tasks that should be performed on their first day and preparations for getting them up to speed in their new job.

The task flow for this activity provides a checklist of tasks that should be completed on the new employees first day. The condition shape is used to ensure that task information has been filled in sufficiently to progress.  For example, you can specify if a task field must be provided or if it is optional.

The template provides a checklist

1. Introduction to the team
2. Company overview and organization structure
3. Tour of the site/facilities
4. Schedule of mandatory training identified

When the necessary tasks have been completed, the activity can be marked as completed.  In this activity, all of the check list items are for guidance only.  The exact tasks that will need completing will likely differ with each employee.  For example, a home worker will not need a tour of the site.

Customization

The template provides a specific implementation of a simple onboarding process.  Having created a workflow from this template, you are then free to customize it to better suit your needs.  Customization might consist of

1. Adding new activities to cover parts of your onboarding process not covered by the template
2. Delete activities that are not needed in your onboarding process
3. Modify the existing activities to gather more information or change the conditions to identify which task fields are mandatory to complete the task.
4. Add task fields that are based on Zendesk Ticket fields.  This will enable selected task data to be recorded on the Zendesk Ticket and could be used for reporting purposes.
5. Define Groups to assign the parallel tickets to

This is a simple onboarding template.  Flowset includes other more complex templates for employee onboarding.  It may be that your onboarding process is better matched by one of the more complex templates.

Onboarding Templates