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Building a remarkable onboarding experience for new employees, using Office 365 tools
Nov 6, 2023
It's a familiar scenario: You just started a new job in a company, and you can't find your way around. You need to find information, documents, people, buildings, maps, etc.
Office 365 offers us the ideal conditions to build our own onboarding process according to our company's needs. And here, one of the biggest challenges is to figure out what does the onboarding process looks like? What information and tasks does a new employee actually need? And what tools do you have to implement the process?
This presentation gives an overview and recommendations on building an onboarding process with out-of-the-box Office 365 tools. SharePoint, PowerAutomate, or Forms are just a few applications that can fulfill the onboarding process requirements.
After this presentation, you will:
— have an idea of how to build your own onboarding process in Office 365
— know how easy you can automate simple processes
— know what benefits you can have by using Microsoft's collaboration tools
— understand why good onboarding is so important.
About Speaker:
Corinna Lins is working as a modern workplace consultant at msg services ag in Germany. She has many years of experience in the Microsoft collaboration area, especially in UI/UX topics. She also has expertise in document management, search capabilities, and different possibilities of development. In her everyday life, she is also active as a speaker and trainer.
Conference Website: https://www.2020twenty.net/power-platform-virtual-conference/
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0:00
So, perfect
0:05
Then let's start with the session, building a remarkable onboarding experience for new
0:11
employees using Office 365 tools. Before I start with the contents of the session, let me first introduce myself
0:22
So, I'm Corina. You can find me on the different social media platforms if you still have any questions
0:28
after the session. I'm working as an IT consultant with focus on modern workplace design. And now
0:36
it's already more than eight years that I'm working in the consultancy area. And yeah
0:43
I've started with SharePoint, SharePoint on-premises in the past and moved to more
0:49
interesting and cool topics in the cloud. So everything that's around modern workplace
0:57
collaboration and in the last months and years also with focus on power platform power automate
1:05
um i'm working at msg services in germany it's a consulting company and um when i'm not working
1:14
i'm also organizing a couple of community events some of them i'm organizing alone some of them
1:19
together with other people from the community. So yeah, I like to do this to bring people together
1:27
And most of the community events are in German, but some of them are also in English
1:34
Yeah, so I have also started a blog last year, so you can find it on my website if you're
1:42
interested in. Okay, so now let's switch to the today's topics. So George Clooney, probably
1:49
everyone already knows him, he joins a new company. It's called WeMe. And our goal, my goal
1:58
is to onboard and integrate him in a company as fast as possible, give him orientation
2:04
and assign him different tasks. So in the first part of the session, I will talk a little bit
2:12
about the onboarding process and the importance in a company of this process
2:18
And in the second part of the session, I will show a demo with Microsoft 365
2:25
out of the box tools with a possible implementation of the onboarding process
2:32
So, yeah, there are many implementations and every company has a different onboarding process
2:39
So, of course, you always have to adapt this process to the needs in your company
2:47
Okay, so a short definition of the onboarding. So the most important thing you have to remember is that onboarding is the systematic introduction of a new colleague to his area of work in a company
3:02
and now before we talk about onboarding let's let's first see why is the onboarding process
3:12
in a company so important so first of all when we start a new so when people start joining a company
3:22
there are repeating tasks so the tasks will be repeated for every new employee everyone needs to
3:30
have needs to get some hardware needs to get an introduction, some training. So the tasks are
3:38
repeating every time. Then another challenge is also that new employees are joining a new
3:46
environment. So everything is new for them, the people, the location, the tools, so everything
3:53
and sometimes it's underestimated because you say okay he will find his way in the company
4:00
and yeah also in time of COVID sometimes it's not so easy to introduce new employees good in a
4:11
company then you also have various processes in a company every company has different processes
4:18
different ways of implementing processes, and it's important to give them an overview
4:25
And you also have new tools. So, yeah, most of us are working with Microsoft 365 and the whole product palette in M365
4:37
but not every company is working with its tools. There are also tools from IBM, from Google, or older versions of SharePoint or Skype
4:49
It doesn't matter. But there will be always new tools for the new employees
4:57
Okay. So now let's take a look. Why is onboarding so important
5:02
So I don't want to focus in the session on the onboarding process from the theory
5:08
But before I show you a demo, I want to convince you that onboarding is very important for a company
5:17
So let's see why. First of all, it's the productivity. As faster an employee is trained and integrated in a company, as faster he will be able to work productive
5:30
So it's in your interest to make this process getting faster. Another thing is motivation. Because if you show your new employees that you provide them all the information and everything they need, they will feel that they are appreciated by the company
5:54
And another thing is also you can learn from mistakes of others
6:01
So if you make some mistakes in the onboarding process at some point
6:07
you can learn from them and make them in the future better. So if you have a dedicated onboarding process
6:14
probably mistakes from the past will not happen anymore. Another thing is also you have a specialist bottleneck
6:24
because everyone knows that it's difficult to get new and good people
6:30
So it costs also time and money, a lot of interviews. So if you get new good people, you want them to stay at the company
6:41
Then you have the fluctuation. So you don't want your employees to leave the company
6:48
because you need to replace them with other employees. probably sometimes a certain kind of fluctuation is okay because you have some fresh wind in the
6:59
company if you some people go and others come but it should not be so high so that's why
7:06
it's in your interest to um to contribute to the employer branding and onboarding contributes to it
7:15
because imagine you're starting to work at a new company for example the we me company
7:21
our company from in this session and this company has a very very good onboarding process so if you stay after that with your friends and drink beer and talk about your company and about onboarding
7:36
you will talk about it and say, okay, that's a good process
7:40
And in this way, yeah, it's just employer branding. And probably you will also convince other people to apply for a job
7:50
in the company you're working for. So that's why the onboarding process is so important
7:58
Maybe at some point it's not measurable, the result of the good onboarding
8:03
It's not so good measurable in numbers, but it's very important. Okay, now let's see what means the onboarding for a company
8:18
We have different integration aspects. for new employees. First of all, we have the technical aspects
8:26
So we need to provide the new employees technical equipment. It's a prerequisite
8:34
It doesn't matter what type of employee you have. Also, if you have a field engineer
8:40
he probably needs a mobile device or something like this. Then you have also the social inclusion
8:49
which is also very important. And you can say that a new employee is not new anymore
8:57
So a new employee is integrated in a company when his colleagues don't call him the new one
9:04
I think that's the easiest way to remember how you can define social inclusion
9:09
Then you have the professional integration. So it's very important to give your new employees the opportunity to build up their competence, to learn new things at the beginning about the company, about their area of work
9:25
and at the end you also have the cultural aspect because every company has values
9:32
and it's important also to give them to let them live out the values
9:42
so as sooner as you give them information about your company about the way you are
9:48
and you're working as sooner they will understand your company culture And yeah, so before we start with the demo, I just want to talk a little bit about onboarding
10:03
phases because it's also important for the process when you implement the onboarding process. So
10:10
you generally you have four phases. The first phase in the onboarding phase is before the first
10:17
working day, then you have the first working day, the first weeks, depending on the company
10:25
they can, there can be two weeks or 10 weeks, depending on the size of the company. And then
10:30
you have the integration phase that takes a little bit longer. And in the first working day, before
10:36
the first working day, you have tasks like sending different information documents, sending the
10:42
address of the company, information about a welcome day. You already define from the
10:49
organizational part an introduction plan, you order hardware and stuff like this
10:56
Then on the first working day, you will hand over your new employees a welcome package. Maybe you
11:05
also have a welcome day. You will go out for lunch with them if it's possible. Today it's not so easy
11:13
to do this. Yeah, you can just present a new colleague to his team and stuff like this typical
11:23
for the first day. Then you have the first weeks where the new employee gets different introduction
11:31
He will also get information about the legal topics, different trainings regarding his area of work and stuff like this
11:40
And so in the first weeks, you need to provide him the most important information he needs to know
11:45
And then in the integration phase, you have enough time to give him further introductory events
11:53
to invite him also to attend team building activities. different networking types, professional networking and yeah communities and stuff like this
12:09
So these are the four phases that are important for the implementation and now let's just take a
12:18
look what options you have when you want to build an onboarding process in Microsoft 365. So
12:28
In M365, you have many tools. So I've added here in the slide just a couple of tools that are important and relevant for the employee onboarding process
12:42
So, of course, you need Outlook to send out information, emails. You need Power Automate to automate as much as you can because you don't want to do manually stuff like sending out invitation to a training or just sending some welcome messages and notifications
13:05
You can automate all these things. Then you have Microsoft Teams. So everyone is working today in Microsoft Teams
13:14
And that's why you can also use Teams for your new employees
13:21
What I forgot here on the slide is also Yammer. So if you have Yammer communities in your company, of course, it's also important to integrate the Yammer communities
13:33
Then you also have SharePoint. You can build up an onboarding portal for the pre-onboarding, for the onboarding administrative part
13:44
So different things. You can store there your documents. You can have lists
13:50
You can use forms to create employee surveys or maybe also to make some tests
13:58
For example, a typical, I don't know, IT security questionnaire quits with a couple of questions
14:09
So you can automate all the things. And you can also use Power Apps to implement your own app for the onboarding process
14:18
Okay, so now let me just show you what I want to show you
14:24
So the process I want to show you is built up from two different perspectives
14:31
I see there's also a typo there. So the first perspective is the onboarding management
14:39
It's the part where the administrative work takes place. So before the employee starts, you need to provide hardware
14:48
You need to provide, I don't know, licenses. And the HR department needs to fill out some forms So there are different involved parties in the onboarding management So it only from the administrative part
15:07
And then we have the other side, the employee onboarding portal or the employee onboarding
15:14
You can build a portal or you can do this only in Teams. Depends on what is your purpose
15:20
The idea is that the employee onboarding is the entry point for the new employee
15:24
The new employee needs information before he starts at the company and he needs information in his first, on the first working day, the first weeks and in the integration phase
15:37
And you also need tasks too, because, yeah, also in the administrative part, you will have tasks and you also have tasks for the new employee
15:48
Okay, so I've talked about the onboarding phases before. Let me just wrap up the onboarding phases
15:58
So we have the four phases. And if you take a look on the arrows, so we have the onboarding management
16:06
which starts before the first working day and ends after the employee is integrated
16:13
And then you have the employee onboarding, which is normally split in two parts
16:20
The pre-onboarding, where you need to provide for the new employees information
16:26
like the address of the company or maybe also some welcome videos from the CIO for the new employees
16:36
Or also an area where they can upload a picture and a short presentation about themselves
16:43
And stuff like this. And after the pre-onboarding, you have the employee onboarding after the employee starts
16:51
Because at the moment when he starts in the company, he will have some tasks, he will need to do a lot of organizational stuff
17:00
So today, I don't want to focus on the pre-onboarding. Because the pre-onboarding, it's most of the time very special
17:07
And our focus today is the onboarding management from the administrative side
17:13
and the employee onboarding for the new employee. Okay, and before I go in M365
17:24
let me show you first my idea of the onboarding process. So the onboarding process starts on the management side
17:35
Before the employee starts, the new employee will start a new job in the company
17:42
and the first thing that happens is you need to create a user in Active Directory
17:47
We can do this with Power Automate. I will show you also that it's super easy to do it
17:53
Of course, not every company will do the user creation in Power Automate
18:00
because you can create users, but you don't have so many options in Power Automate
18:07
And it's also important to remember. Maybe the use case fits for smaller companies, but for bigger ones, you need to see if it fits
18:17
After the user is created, you have an account is created and then notifications will be sent to the responsible entities, HR, IT with task assignments
18:33
and maybe you also need some approvals after the employee starts. Someone needs to approve, maybe the manager needs to approve that a new employee starts
18:46
And after the onboarding management is ended, the employee onboarding process starts automatically because we have a new user
18:57
We know that the user was created. The employee starts at the 1st of April
19:04
And then we can start an employee onboarding process. We can send the account information for the user that was created to the new employee
19:16
And then we can do different actions like inviting the employee in different teams
19:21
inviting them to a Yammer community, sending them welcome emails or sending them private chat messages
19:29
and also creating tasks for having the relevant tasks for the new employees
19:40
Okay. So now let's take a look on the demo. So I will start with the onboarding management
19:50
so the administrative part of the employee onboarding. And what I've done here is I've just created a SharePoint portal
20:02
And this SharePoint portal contains some quick links and contains a planner that is integrated here in the SharePoint page
20:14
If you say, okay, I don't need a SharePoint portal, to manage my onboarding, of course, you don't need to use it
20:26
You can trigger the onboarding tasks and all the onboarding actions with a workflow also if you just use a list
20:37
So I have opened here also Microsoft Teams and I have here my team onboarding management
20:44
So the SharePoint side onboarding management is associated to this team. So here in this team, there are automatically posts that are sent out when a new employee
20:57
joins the company. And there is also here the portal I have integrated here the portal. So you
21:04
don't need to move from teams if you want to just do all the administrative stuff in teams
21:12
Okay, so here is my portal. And I have also added the planner here in Teams
21:20
And the idea now is, okay, George Clooney now joins the company
21:25
So what do we need to do? We need to add a new employee. Okay, so now it opens in a new tab because I don't have the Teams client
21:37
But normally it should open my new form for the new employee
21:42
should open directly here in Teams. And of course, it also opens if I go here. Okay, I didn't
21:53
I haven't integrated it. But normally, I could also do it here directly in Teams from the list
21:59
Let's do it now here in tab. Let's say Clooney, George. So this is just a simple
22:09
Microsoft list or SharePoint list where I will add the information. So now I need to provide here
22:20
a private email address from George Clooney. I will add here now my email address to see also what happens in the process Okay the start date let say the start date is today
22:35
That sounds good. I need to add a manager because this user will also be added
22:41
in the active directory as a manager of the new employee when the account is created
22:48
And also a mentor, let's say, we will add Marijn. I can also add a department, which is also added to the active directory
23:01
And a lot of further information. So let's just save. That's enough for now
23:07
And now I can see here the list of the new employees
23:13
So now after I have created the new employee, what happens? Let's go in Power Automate to take a look
23:22
So I have here in Power Automate two workflows. The first workflow is create admin task
23:28
That's the onboarding management, the workflow for the onboarding management. And that one is the second one
23:35
Now let's see what happens here. So as you can see, the workflow should have started
23:44
Probably it starts soon. Let's just take a look in the workflow
23:50
What happens here? So when a new employee is added, what we've just done, then we set a variable
23:59
And at this point, I'm creating a user in the Active Directory
24:02
This is the action I've talked before. So you can create user in Active Directory
24:07
Of course, you need to have the admin permission to also create users if you want to do this
24:14
And yeah, then you can add here the information about the new user
24:23
Then I'm also waiting here for the account to be sure that the account is created
24:30
And after the account was created, I'm adding this account to a Microsoft 365 group
24:36
And in this moment, I can also assign licenses to the user
24:41
It also depends on you if you really want to do it in Power Automate
24:48
You can also do this, of course, in Logic Apps. But I just wanted to show you that it's possible
24:54
And I'm also running some workflows. To be honest, I'm doing it on some smaller tenants
25:06
and tenants that are not crucial, let's say. But of course, you can also just trigger some Azure functions from Power Automate and write in the Azure function the creation of the user account
25:26
Okay. Now let's see what else I'm doing. Get all available administrative tasks
25:33
Let me show you what I mean. So I have here a task master list, and it's just a simple list in SharePoint
25:42
And in this list, I'm managing all the tasks, create user account, provide hardware
25:50
These tasks are the same for every new employee. So these are repeating tasks
25:57
And in this way, I have here a master task. And in my workflow, I'm just iterating this list, iterate all tasks
26:07
And then after I iterate them, I will create them in Planner
26:13
So I will create a new Planner task for the new employee with the master list I've just shown you
26:22
Okay, here I'm also creating a new employee entry for the employee onboarding process
26:28
This is the second process for the employee. And I'm just creating this entry to trigger my second workflow
26:38
And after that, I'm doing some funny stuff like posting information in Teams about the new tasks for the new employee and sending some email notification to the new employee
26:53
Let's take a look here. So as you can see here, there is a new post
27:00
Okay, George Clooney joined the company. And I've also opened here my Outlook
27:11
And as you can see here, that's the email. Dear George Clooney, welcome
27:15
You can now access Microsoft Teams with account information. As you can see here, I've just added a password password
27:26
Don't do this. You should create a random password if you do it in a Power Automate workflow
27:32
It's super easy. You just need to create a random number and then attach the random number to a password
27:44
And then it's random. And of course, the user also needs to change the password at the first sign in
27:51
So now I can just log in as George Clooney. Let's see what happens
28:01
Let me just browse as a guest here. And let's see here, George Clooney
28:13
Let's add the user here. and the very creative password. And now, as you can see, I need to change my password
28:33
Change it to a new one. Okay. Yeah, it was not really creative, my password
28:45
Let's try it again. Okay. Now it should work. Okay. It's very standard. Okay. I will take another one
29:03
Let's try it again. Probably now I just had a typo. Let me just create one
29:15
and now here we go okay it seems seems that it's not working i do i will just try it one more time um
29:32
and then if it's not working i will do it um just with my account
29:39
Okay, now it's working. And so now George Clooney logged in to Microsoft Teams
29:55
So that's his first login. And he was already in. added to the new team employee onboarding
30:06
Okay, that takes a little bit. So now you can see here, okay, he's in Microsoft Teams
30:12
He was added to this team employee onboarding. The licenses were also already assigned, as you can see
30:21
There is also an automatical post here in the channel. Say hello to George Clooney
30:27
and if I take a look here in the chat, George Clooney also received a message. Welcome on board
30:36
dear George Clooney, take a look on your tasks. So it seems that some tasks were assigned to George
30:42
Clooney and there is also an onboarding portal for the new employees. So let's take a look here
30:52
That's the onboarding portal. It's similar to the administrative portal. And believe me, it's very important to have an onboarding portal
31:01
Because you have some information. So the new employees get really, they will get a lot of information
31:10
A lot. Because, yeah, there is a lot of information. And if you provide them a site, a page, a portal
31:17
where they can find the most important things they need to know
31:22
in the first weeks is really very important. So stuff like time tracking, FAQs, or IT service desk
31:32
So these are the most important things new employees need. And of course, after that, they will need more and more and more
31:41
And here you can see also a list with onboarding tasks. So in the administrative portal, if you remember
31:49
I've used a planner to manage tasks. Here I'm using a simple Microsoft 365 list to manage tasks
31:59
So it depends on how you want to manage your tasks. Both options are valid. So if you work
32:10
here with the employee onboarding tasks with planner, if you have one planner for every new
32:17
employee, maybe there will be too many planners for if a manager has, for example, 10 new employees
32:26
And you could also do it, for example, with to-do, you can automatically create to-do tasks
32:33
but there are currently, there are not connectors in Power Automate to create to-do tasks for other
32:43
people. You only can create a new task for your own. Okay, so these are the tasks and of course
32:55
there is also a tab just with the tasks. And it's also important to provide further information here
33:05
training, how they can get information about available trainings. Maybe you already have a
33:11
a training portal and you already need to you already have a registration site So provide them information to the registration site
33:24
Okay, so that's the most important thing from the employee side. Let me just also switch to the workflow to show you
33:34
It's similar to the admin tasks. Here we can also see that the first workflow, the admin tasks run
33:41
and also created some actions. And let's just switch to this workflow
33:48
and let's see what happens here. So it's like I've said, it's similar to the administrative onboarding
33:55
When the account was created, I will get all available tasks also from a task list or task master list
34:05
that is relevant for the new employees. So you have typical tasks for new employees, provide a signature in Outlook, order some business cards or visit some special training
34:23
So these are typical tasks for the new employees. And then what I'm also doing here in the workflow, I'm initializing a due date depending on the phase
34:34
So that's why the phases are important. So if a task needs to happen in the third phase, so the first two weeks, then the due date is the starting day plus two weeks
34:49
And so you can also initialize a due date depending on when the user needs to do his tasks
35:01
Okay, then here I'm also initializing responsible because sometimes there are tasks for new employees that are relevant for the manager
35:12
Some tasks are relevant for the new employee. So here you can also automate the task assignment
35:20
Okay, and here there are also different teams actions. These are the actions with sending an email to the new employee, adding him to the onboarding team, sending him welcome messages
35:34
So you have a lot of Teams actions you can use for moderating it
35:41
And yes, here also welcome me. So now maybe you ask why Teams
35:48
Of course, you can also do it in other ways. If you have Yammer in your company, you can also create a Yammer community for the new employees
35:59
In my opinion, for the administrative part, a team in Microsoft team is definitely the right way to do it
36:07
Because in the administrative part of the onboarding, you have the IT involved, the HR, and they need to
36:14
So it's a closed group and they need to communicate to each other. And for the employees, like you've seen, we also have a team here
36:24
A team where also the new employees can ask questions. And of course you could do this in teams if you have teams But you could also build a community in Yammer and have the channel of the employee onboarding communication in Jammer
36:44
So it depends on what you're using. And, of course, you also don't need to use Teams
36:50
You can just use SharePoint portal, but you just be aware that employees don't have the chance to ask questions
36:59
and here they can ask questions and get answers. Okay. So that's the most important thing about the teams
37:12
What else I want to show you is, yeah, in Active Directory
37:17
So as you can see here, this was, I've opened the user overview
37:22
before we have added George Clooney. And now when we refresh, we can see now here that an account was created for George Clooney
37:37
So you can see it here. Yeah, so that was the account
37:43
Okay, so let's go back to the slides because I still have a couple of slides
37:50
This was a short overview about an idea of the onboarding process
37:58
Of course, you can extend this process depending on the way the process is in your company
38:09
So you need to adapt it, of course. And you can extend the process by using Azure Automation
38:16
You can configure and automate tasks across Azure and also on-premises environments
38:23
If you have your Active Directory still on-premises, you can do this with Azure Automation and then trigger it, just trigger the tasks from Power Automate
38:36
You can use the SharePoint framework for developing solutions and developing web parts
38:43
You can integrate them in SharePoint and in Teams, for example, dashboards for the new employees or stuff like this
38:52
You can use Power Apps if you have complex list forms, but not only
38:59
Of course, you can create an app for the whole onboarding process
39:03
And if you go in Power Apps and you create, if you go in the Power Apps portal, there is also an onboarding template
39:10
You can take a look on it and also see if you get some ideas, maybe also if it fits for you
39:18
And of course, you can decide if you want to implement your own power app for the onboarding process
39:26
And of course, you can also connect the data from external platforms
39:30
For example, you have personal data in SAP about the new employee
39:36
and when the new employee signed the contract, you just change the status in SAP
39:43
and then you could trigger the workflow and send information from SAP to the workflow to just trigger the workflow automatically Okay so this is all about extending the process
39:59
And yeah, Microsoft announced a couple of weeks ago, Microsoft Viva, and it opened us a lot of opportunities
40:08
to support the onboarding process. So there is not a specific onboarding element
40:18
in Viva, but it will support you a lot in the onboarding of new employees
40:26
Because with Viva Connections, you will have an aggregation of the most important information that is sometimes missing
40:35
And so it's based on KI. So it will show the important information for the new employees
40:42
Then you have the Viva Insights, which will also support a kind of mentoring in M365
40:50
You have Viva Learning that is very important because you can provide the videos
40:56
and the whole learning tools in the Viva Learning platform. And you have the Viva Topics for Knowledge Management
41:06
where you can, of course, have all your knowledge base and just provide the information for your new employees
41:15
where they can find this information. Okay, so just one more slide with a short recap
41:27
And then I think we're already done for today. So first of all, please don't underestimate the onboarding process
41:36
because it's a very important process. And as soon as you have it, you will see how important and helpful it is for your company
41:51
The onboarding process is just one use case of many use cases of process automation in a company
42:00
And so it's just an example, in my opinion, a good example because it's easy
42:06
But you need to think about how you want to build up your own process
42:14
Because designing good process is much more complex than just setting them up in Power Automate
42:22
It's more important to take your time and think about how your process will look like
42:28
Okay, so that's all for now. I also have some resources, relevant resources in the list of my resources
42:39
And by the way, in the SharePoint lookbook, you can also find a SharePoint site template for the onboarding
42:47
So for the pre-onboarding, you can take a look on it. Maybe it helps you and gives you inspiration
42:52
Yeah, thank you for attending the session. And if you have any questions, you can contact me on the different social media
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