It’s harder than ever for HR teams to hold onto talent. Employees left their jobs at a record pace in Q2 of 2021, and data suggests the upheaval will continue. In the face of high turnover, companies focus on providing an optimal employee experience to keep their people happy and engaged—and prevent them from looking for work elsewhere.
What Is Employee Experience and Why Is It Important?
Employee experience refers to how talent feels at work. Several factors come together to influence employee experience, including:
- Company culture
- Talent’s relationships to their superiors and peers
- The ease of everyday functions like receiving pay and accessing benefits
- How HR teams support talent
- Workloads and the nature of the work itself
- Clarity behind a company’s mission and values
- The technology used by a workforce
- The onboarding and offboarding process
Companies that focus on the employee experience not only make life better for their workforce. They also boost their bottom line.
According to an analysis of over 250 global organizations, companies with high employee experience benchmarks have four times higher profits and 40% lower turnover than those with lower benchmarks.
Turnover costs U.S. businesses one trillion dollars every year. Companies with an optimal employee experience increase their ability to hold onto their talent, helping them avoid the high costs of recruiting, onboarding, and training new team members.
How an Employer of Record Improves Your Employee Experience
First, let’s define Employer of Record (EoR). An EoR is the full legal employer of a business’s payrolled workers. When you partner with an EoR, your business finds the talent and an EoR takes care of all of the legal duties, including but not limited to: onboarding, timekeeping, wage and bonus payments, offboarding, and more.
An EoR handles two of the most significant milestones in the employee experience lifecycle—onboarding and offboarding. An EoR also takes on many nuts-and-bolts aspects of the employee experience, such as administering payroll, managing benefits, and supporting employees with any related questions.
Keep reading to learn more about how an EoR helps improve onboarding, offboarding, and day-to-day of the employee experience.
Onboarding
Onboarding starts the second your talent accepts your offer—and it significantly impacts your talent’s tenure.
The adage “You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression” significantly applies to the employee experience. That’s why offering a smooth onboarding process should be the first step of optimizing your employee experience. When your new team members find it easy to sign required paperwork, choose benefits packages, and take care of other necessities to get up and running, they develop trust in you from the start.
On the other hand, a chaotic onboarding process leaves companies and their HR teams fighting an uphill battle from day one. When new talent faces challenges while going through basic onboarding procedures, they question the overall competency and organization of the entire company. "Onboarding is a magic moment when new employees decide to stay engaged or become disengaged," says Amy Hirsh Robinson of an HR consulting firm based in Los Angeles. "It offers an imprinting window when you can make an impression that stays with new employees for the duration of their careers."
Numbers back up Robinson’s assertion. According to a study by Click Boarding, which offers onboarding software to companies, 69% of employees are more likely to work for a company for three years when that company offers great onboarding.
Onboarding is one of the primary responsibilities of an EoR partner. That’s why turning your onboarding experience over to the right EoR ensures that your employee experience starts on the right foot. When you choose an EoR with a track record of success, you get a trusted partner that ensures a smooth and seamless start to your employment relationship with new talent.
Pay, Benefits, and Support
A proven EoR partner also delivers on-time and accurate pay, along with competitive benefits for your talent no matter what market in which they work. That's because a proven EoR partner knows how employee benefits impact your workforce.
When employees are not paid on time, they get frustrated—and lose trust in their employer. The same goes for being paid inaccurately. HR, finance, and other internal teams must align on bonuses, performance-based changes, and raises to ensure that employees receive accurate paychecks every pay period.
Team members also expect benefits packages that are right for their local markets. An EoR partner takes on all benefits-related responsibilities, giving employers peace of mind that their talent gets benefits that keep them protected and happy. The importance of offering the right benefits cannot be overstated—especially considering 30% of employees that changed jobs during COVID-19 said they wanted better benefits from their new job.
Working with an EoR does more than just cover pay and benefits your team members. It frees up HR and other internal teams to focus solely on their talent’s day-to-day life at work. Because internal teams no longer have to wade through the complexities of insurance, vacation days, parental leave, payroll, and other related tasks, they can fully be there to support their talent through the everyday challenges of work.
Offboarding
Let’s be honest: most employees don’t stay at the same company their entire life. But they will form a lasting impression of your company after they leave—and this impression informs how they will influence other talent that might come your way.
That’s why it’s critical to offer a strong offboarding experience. Just as onboarding provides a tone-setting first impression that impacts the entire employee experience, offboarding provides a lasting takeaway that your talent will remember going forward.
The way talent perceives your company is important—even after they’ve moved on. Professionals often leave reviews on websites like Glassdoor or simply pass on their experiences to other peers through word-of-mouth. Making a positive final impression increases the chances your former talent will pass along favorable reviews of your company to other prospective employees.
Conducting a well-structured offboarding experience is one of the most powerful tools you have to improve your company’s overall employee experience. As with onboarding, a trusted EoR partner handles all aspects of a smooth end-of-work transition, ensuring the last impression your employees have of your company is a good one.
Choose The World’s Most Trusted Employer of Record
As a leading Employer of Record for companies in all 50 U.S. states and over 185 countries worldwide, Velocity Global knows the importance of delivering a top-tier employee experience—and what it takes to do so.
Our experts have unmatched knowledge in benefits, payroll, onboarding, offboarding, and everything in between. Our unwavering commitment to providing best-in-class service means that we ensure the best possible employee experience, from start to finish. Reach out to Velocity Global today to find out how we can help you keep your team members happy so you maximize retention.
