Employee Onboarding (Full)

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 a full onboarding process including

• Upfront preparations for when the offer is accepted including the department they will be working for and site access requirements.
• Ongoing preparations to be ready for when they start including conversations with the new employee via the ticket.
• HR Preparations including background checks and references including the ability to abort the onboarding process if background checks or reference checks fail
• Critical systems and facilities provisioning needed prior to the new employee starting
• Non critical systems and facilities needed soon after the new employee starting
• Ability to cope with new employee deciding not to join part way through the onboarding process
• Start day tasks to ensure the new employee is welcomed, has the necessary systems access and knows how their onboarding will proceed.
• Probationary period review schedule and recording of comments associated with each monthly review
• Final pass or fail decision for the probationary period

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.

This full implementation of the onboarding process can cope with the onboarding process being aborted either due to HR check failures or because the new employee changes their mind.  The process is designed so that parent ticket will communicate with the parallel tickets in such cases so that, for example, the IT department do not order and set up new computer equipment for someone who will no longer be joining.

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

1. Prepare for New Employee
2. Manage Preparations
3. Start Day
4. Await Abort Completion
5. Onboarding Reviews

Additionally, when moving from Prepare for New Employee to Manage Preparation, 3 parallel tickets are created which will be responsible for 

1. HR Management
2. Critical Systems and Facilities Provisioning
3. Non Critical 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 Preparations as well as HR Management and Critical Systems and Facilities Provisioning need to be completed before moving on to Start Day.  The first join diamond shape shows how the parallel activities (purple) and the parent activity (green) need to be complete before moving to Start Day.

If Manager Preparation results in the onboarding being aborted, then the process will transition to Awaiting Abort Completion to wait for the Non Critical Systems and Facilities Provisioning parallel ticket to complete before finally finishing the workflow.  This second join diamond shape shows this dependency.

If Manager Preparations finishes normally and moves on to Start Day, then the Non Critical Systems and Facilities Provisioning needs to be completed before the process can move on to Onboarding Reviews.  This second join diamond shape shows this dependency.

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

Employee Name	Used to make guidance notes and ticket comments more personal to the new employee
Start Date	Allows expected start date to be communicated where necessary
Department	Used to select an initial set of Applications which are likely to be needed by someone from this department
Applications	Used to communicate to the Systems Teams which applications are needed to be installed on new computer equipment
Site Access Type	Used to decide whether tasks which are applicable to On Site workers should be performed.
Onboarding Status	Used to record whether the onboarding is progress normally or if we are aborting.  This information will be passed between the parent and parallel tickets
Company Email Address	Records the company email address allocated to the new employee.  This happens in one of the parallel tickets.  This field is used to communicate it back to the parent ticket.
Abort Reason	When the onboarding is aborted, the field captures the reason for the abort and is used to communicate details to parallel tickets
Review Stage	Records the stage in the final review activity.  This allows the process to keep track of where in the review process we are
Month 1 Review Date	Keeps a record of the scheduled review date for the end of Month 1
Month 2 Review Date	Keeps a record of the scheduled review date for the end of Month 2
Month 3 Review Date	Keeps a record of the scheduled review date for the end of Month 3

 

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.  The tasks define the fields whose values need to be supplied.  The condition shapes are 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 Capture task defines fields to capture the Joiners Name, Check that we have a signed employment contract, the proposed start date and that consent has been given to perform background checks.  The condition shape following Capture ensures that all 4 of these fields have been filled out.. Once this condition is satisfied, then the fields defined in the Department task will be shown.

The Department task defines fields to capture the new employees intended department and the type of site access that is required for their role. The condition that follows Department ensures that a Department has been supplied (Site Access is optional) and then will show fields from either Commercial, Development or Other depending on the Department that was selected.

The Commercial, Development and Other tasks, define an Applications field which identifies the applications which need to be installed on the new Employees computer to support them in their role.  The initial set of Applications have been tailored for Commercial and Development and a default set is defined for Other.

Manage Preparations

This activity is performed by the manager of the new employee and involves identifying an agenda for the start day as well as preparation of onboarding goals and briefing the team of the impending new team member.  The ticket is used to send instructions to the new Employee about their first day.

The ticket can be used for ongoing communication with the new employee prior to them joining.  The activity will also handle the case where the new employee changes their mind about joining and the onboarding process should be aborted.

The Manage Preparations activity is decomposed into a set of 3 sub activities.  Click the + in the top left of the shape to display this activity decomposition.  See Activity Sub Processes for details about decomposing activities.

In this image we can see that the Manage Preparations activity has been decomposed into 3 further sub activities

1. Onboarding Preparations
2. Change Start Date
3. Abort Onboarding

Onboarding Preparations

This activity is performed by the manager of the new employee and involves identifying an agenda for the start day as well as preparation of onboarding goals and briefing the team of the impending new team member.  The ticket is then used to send instructions to the new Employee about their first day.

Additionally, the manager can request to change the start date or even abort the onboarding process should this be needed.

The task flow for Onboarding Preparations is more complex than some other we have seen.  It can be summarized as follows

1. Is the onboarding process being aborted
   If the onboarding status is set to aborted, then this onboarding process has already been aborted.  The task Abort shows guidance details about what the agent needs to do, which will typically be to transition on to the Abort Onboarding Activity.  This transition will inform the parallel tickets that they should abort as well.
2. Do we want to change the onboarding start date
   The Start Date OK? task asks the manager to check a box if the new employee start date need to be changed.  When selected the manager will transition to the Change Start Date activity to make the change.
3. Do we want to abort the onboarding process
   The Abort Required? task ask the manager to check a box if the onboarding process needs to be aborted (if for example the new employee changes their mind about joining).  When checked, the Perform Abort task prompts the manager to provide the reason for aborting the onboarding process and changes the Onboarding Status to aborted.  The Abort Reason and Onboarding Status are configured so that they will be copied to the parallel tickets to inform them to abort themselves.  The manager will then transition to the Abort Onboarding activity.
4. Capture details about the preparations that have been made and send a first day invite to the new employee via this ticket.
   Under normal circumstances, the manager will need to perform certain tasks in preparation for the employee joining.  The Preparation task provides a checklist to remind the manager to prepare a first day agenda, prepare onboarding goals and to brief team of the new employee.  The manager is also instructed to use this ticket to communicate with the new employee by making them the requester of the ticket.  When the requester has been changed, the subsequent condition will satisfy.  The Send Invite task will make available a comment template which can be added to the ticket, and when the ticket is submitted, this comment will be sent to the new employee.  The comment should be augmented with any specifics for the new employees first day.  Having performed all necessary preparations, the Onboarding Preparations Complete transition should be chosen.  This changes the Onboarding Status to invite sent and transition back to the Onboarding Preparation activity.
5. Handle ongoing communication with new employee prior to start date.
   After the Invite has been sent in 4 above, the Ongoing Communication task gives the manager guidance on how to continue using the ticket as a means of communication with the new employee prior to them starting.

Change Start Date

The Change Start Date activity is quite simple and prompts the manager to provide a new start date for the new employee.

In this simple task flow, we simply capture a new value for the Start Date field.  This field is marked so that it will be copied to all currently active parallel ticket so that they can see the new start date.  A change of start date is likely to be important to know about.  When finished, we transition back to Onboarding Preparation to continue.

Abort Onboarding

The Abort Onboarding activity is used when the onboarding process has been aborted and we are waiting for the parallel tickets to complete before moving on.

The task here simply display a guidance message indicating that the onboarding process has been aborted and we are waiting for the parallel tickets to complete before moving on to Await Abort Completion.

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 HR Management activity is broken down into 2 sub activities.    See Activity Sub Processes for details about decomposing activities.

In this image we can see that the HR Management activity has been decomposed into 2 further sub activities

1. HR Preparation
2. HR Check Failure

HR Preparation

This activity provides a checklist of HR tasks to complete from the HR perspective of onboarding a new employee.

The task flow for HR Preparations is more complex than some other we have seen.  It can be summarized as follows

1. Is the onboarding process being aborted
   If the Onboarding Status has been set to aborted, then the Handle Abort task will show guidance information about what might need to be done now.  For example, cancel background checks or references.  Once complete, this parallel ticket process can be completed.
2. HR tasks to be completed
   The HR Tasks task provides a checklist to remind the HR Team to double check the signed contract, obtain payroll details, Background check OK and Reference OK.  Once all of these have been checked, then the HR Preparations can be completed.  This task also offers the ability to bypass background and reference check.  If bypassed, the Why Bypass Checks task asks the agent to give a reason why these checks are being bypassed.  If the background or reference checks fail, then the onboarding process needs to be aborted.  This is detailed in 3 below.
3. Handling background check or reference check failures
   If background checks or reference checks fail, then the onboarding process will be aborted.  The Failure Detail task sets the Onboarding Status to checks failed and the agent is asked to supply a brief summary as to why the checks have failed.  The onboarding status and the reason are copied to the parent ticket where it will start it's own abort handling.  Finally, process should transition to the HR Check Failure activity as described below.

HR Check Failure

The HR Check Failure activity is used when the HR Preparation activity finds problems with background checks or reference checks. 

The task HR Check Failures displays guidance information to the agent informing them of anything needed to be done before finishing the HR Management parallel ticket

 

Critical 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 prior to the starting day of 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.  There are two separate  routes out of this activity for the normal cases and the case when the onboarding is aborted. Click the arrow to show the task flow for this activity.

The task flow for Facilities Provisioning is more complex than some other we have seen.  It can be summarized as follows

1. Is the onboarding process being aborted
   If the Onboarding Status has been set to aborted, then the Handle Abort task will show guidance information about what might need to be done now.  For example, cancel any ordered equipment.  Once complete, this parallel ticket process can be completed.
2. Order and configuring IT equipment
   The IT Systems Ordered task ensures new equipment has been ordered or existing equipment identified that can be used.  If the new employee will not be based on site then the equipment may need to be delivered to them.  This is handled by 3 below.  If they are site based then the Secure Access task ensure that arrangements have been made to give the new employee access to the company site.  Once the new equipment has arrived, any necessary applications need to be installed ready for use.
3. Arrange delivery of the equipment if necessary
   If the new employee will not be based on site, then the Equipment Shipping task will ascertain whether the new equipment will need to be shipped to them.  If so, then the Arrange Delivery task ensures this delivery has been arranged/actioned.

Start Day

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

A series of tasks provide check lists to ensure the new employee is welcomed to their new company.  The Welcome task ensures the new employee has been introduced to the team, have received a company handbook and their ongoing onboarding/training has been identified.  If the new employee is based on site then a Site Tour may be required otherwise we move on the check they have access to all the systems they need.

Finally there is a Day 1 - Wrap-up in which any feedback from the new employee is captured and if any issues with their first day onboarding are identified and classified, these are captured (in Capture Issues).

The conditions use data already captured in the process to decide whether some tasks are needed or can be bypassed.  For example, you don't need a site tour if you are a home worker.

Await Abort Completion

When the onboarding process has been aborted, this activity is used to guide the agent whilst waiting for the Non Critical Systems and Facilities Provisioning parallel ticket to finish.

The task flow for this activity is very simple.  The Waiting task simply displays a guidance message to let the agent know that they will be able to finish the workflow when the Non Critical Systems and Facilities Provisioning parallel ticket finishes.

Non Critical Systems and Facilities Provisioning

This parallel activity (on a separate ticket) would be assigned to the Systems Team and is responsible for non essential IT setup and arranging on site facilities where necessary.  Click the + in the top left of the shape to show the process that will be run on this parallel ticket.

In this image we can see that the Non Critical Systems and Facilities Provisioning activity has been decomposed into 2 further sub activities

1. Allocate Email
2. Arrange Facilities

Both of these sub activities are configured to cope when told to abort by the parent ticket.

Allocate Email

The Allocate Email activity is responsible to ensure the new employee is given a company email address.

The task flow for Allocate Email splits near the start into 2 parts handling

1. Is the onboarding process being aborted
   If the Onboarding Status has been set to aborted, then the Handle Abort task will show guidance information about what might need to be done now.  For example, remove any allocated email address from the system.  Once complete, this parallel ticket process can be completed.
2. Allocating a company email address for the new employee
   The agent should confirm that a company email address has been allocated to the new employee and record this email address.  Details of this email address will be copied to the parent ticket for information.  Once completed, the activity can transition to Arrange Facilities.

Arrange Facilities

The Arrange Facilities activity ensures that on site facilities are allocated to the new employee, if they are an on site worker.

The task flow for Arrange Facilities splits near the start into 2 parts handling

1. Is the onboarding process being aborted
   If the Onboarding Status has been set to aborted, then the Handle Abort task will show guidance information about what might need to be done now.  For example, return any allocated facilities.  Once complete, this parallel ticket process can be completed.
2. Allocation of onsite facilities
   If the new employee was identified as an on site worker, the agent will be reminded to allocate a desk and optionally a phone.

Onboarding Reviews

When the Start Day activity and the Non Critical Systems and Facilities Provisioning have completed then the process moves to the Onboarding Reviews activity.  This activity is responsible for scheduling and recording details from 3 monthly reviews that occur after the new employee joins.  Ultimately a decision is made whether the new employee has passed or failed their probationary period.

The task flow for this activity consists of 5 main parts

1. Routing based on the Review Stage
   This first decision uses the Review Stage route the task flow to either schedule the first meeting or handle the processing of meetings for Month 1 to 3. 
2. Scheduling the first month meeting
   The Schedule Month 1 Review task asks for a date to be supplied for the first review meeting and then sets the Review Status to be Month 1.  At this point the workflow should be transitioned back to the Onboarding Reviews activity, but set up to process the Month 1 review.
3. Perform the Month 1 review and schedule the Month 2 meeting
   The Month 1 Review task captures the date that the review actually happened and a date for the second review meeting to be scheduled for.  The Review Comment task provides a comment that should be added to the ticket.  This gives details of when the review happened and provides the manager the ability to capture any details of the review.  The Review Status is then set to Month 2 and transitions back to the Onboarding Reviews activity, but set up to process the Month 2 review.
4. Perform the Month 2 review and schedule the Month 3 meeting
   The Month 2 Review task captures the date that the review actually happened and a date for the third review meeting to be scheduled for.  The Review Comment task provides a comment that should be added to the ticket.  This gives details of when the review happened and provides the manager the ability to capture any details of the review.  The Review Status is then set to Month 3 and transitions back to the Onboarding Reviews activity, but set up to process the Month 3 review.
5. Perform the Month 3 review and decide if the probation period has been passed.
   The Month 3 Review task captures the date that the review actually happened and records whether the employee has passed or failed the probation period.  The Review Comment task provides a comment that should be added to the ticket.  This gives details of when the review happened, the pass/fail decision and provides the manager the ability to capture any details of the review. The workflow on the ticket will then complete with either a pass or fail decision.

Customization

The template provides a specific implementation of a rich 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 full onboarding template.  Flowset includes other simpler templates for employee onboarding.  It may be that your onboarding process is better matched by one of the other templates.

Onboarding Templates

Name	Description	Features
Employee Onboarding (Basic) Uses: Parallel Tickets, Task Flows, Process Persisted Data	A simple onboarding process with task checklists many of which are optional	✘ Employee Communication ✔︎ HR Processing ✔︎ Systems Processing ✘ Mandatory tasks ✘ Bypass reasons ✘ On site/off site working ✘ Monthly Reviews Schedule ✘ Monthly Reviews Captured ✘ Critical/Non Critical systems separated ✘ Can abort onboarding ✘ Change Start Date
Employee Onboarding (Richer) Uses: Parallel Tickets, Multiple Join Points, Task Flows, Process Persisted Data, Data Driven Flows	A more complex process including communication with the new employee prior to joining.  Critical and non critical systems handled separately.  Many checklists are mandatory or specifically bypassed with a reason for bypassing.  Parts of the process are tailored to whether the new employee will be based on or off site.  Includes scheduling of monthly review meetings after the employee joins.	✔︎ Employee Communication ✔︎ HR Processing ✔︎ Systems Processing ✔︎ Mandatory tasks ✔︎ Bypass reasons ✔︎ On site/off site working ✔︎ Monthly Reviews Schedule ✘ Monthly Reviews Captured ✔︎ Critical/Non Critical systems separated ✘ Can abort onboarding ✘ Change Start Date
Employee Onboarding (Full) Uses: Parallel Tickets, Multiple Join Points, Task Flows, Process Persisted Data, Data Driven Flows, Recursive Transitions, Passing Data between Tickets, Decomposition, Outcome Driven Transitions	The full onboarding template builds on the richer one but includes the ability to abort the onboarding process if the new employee changes their mind or if the HR checks fail for any reason.  The post joining review process is extended to include the capture of outputs from the monthly reviews and a final pass or fail of the 3 month probationary period.	✔︎ Employee Communication ✔︎ HR Processing ✔︎ Systems Processing ✔︎ Mandatory tasks ✔︎ Bypass reasons ✔︎ On site/off site working ✔︎ Monthly Reviews Schedule ✔︎ Monthly Reviews Captured ✔︎ Critical/Non Critical systems separated ✔︎ Can abort onboarding ✔︎ Change Start Date