Alegent Health, the largest not-for-profit, faith-based healthcare system in Nebraska and southwestern Iowa, has leveraged technology that automates the three key components of onboarding: task management, forms management and socialization.
The Challenge
"With nine hospitals in two states, and 9,000 employees, we hire 1,500 new employees annually. We were processing new employees from five hiring locations – and conducting one-to-two hour, face-to-face orientations that consisted mostly of completing forms," said Laurie Sokolik, Director of HR Services for Alegent Health. "Finding qualified workers in the healthcare industry is very competitive. In addition to automating the tedious administrative process, we also wanted our new hires to have a more positive experience on their first day – reinforcing their decision to work for an industry leader and innovator."
The Solution
By deploying a web-based onboarding portal where new employees can pre-board – getting all of their administrative tasks completed – they are more productive on day one. In addition, the onboarding solution is integrated with a personalized, searchable HR knowledgebase, so new employees see only the policies, benefits and forms that are relevant to them – important due to Alegent Health’s many different state regulations and bargaining units.
The Results
The initial results have been beyond expectations. Alegent Health has been able to consolidate five hiring locations into one – re-deploying staff to more strategic HR projects. Paperwork and administrative tasks have been greatly reduced. And most important, the reaction of new employees has been very positive – surveys show that new hires find the system easy to use, like the convenience of pre-boarding and appreciate that their first day at work is more productive.
- Projected savings in 3 years: over $1,000,000
- Reduced turnover from 18.91percent to 11percent
- Eliminated manual processing