How Total Education Solutions shaved weeks off its document collection process

Onboarding is a critical process for any business. From an organisational perspective, the faster and smoother you can onboard new starters, the better. And in a world where people expect seamless digital experiences, onboarding is a window into the way your organisation operates. In short, first impressions matter. 

One of the most important steps in the onboarding process is gathering the documents and information you need to get the new starter up and running. You can’t move forward with the onboarding journey until you’ve completed this step. Yet many businesses struggle to get this process right, wasting countless hours chasing clients for missing documents. 

As always, the key to smoother, more seamless processes is to leverage the right technology. Read on to learn how Total Education Solutions transformed its onboarding flow using Content Snare. 

Bogged down by back-and-forths

Based in California, USA, Total Education Solutions (TES) provides customised educational and therapeutic services designed to empower people of all abilities. As part of their talent acquisition process, they source, hire, and onboard healthcare providers. 

As you can imagine, this requires the collection of all sorts of critical documents — everything from identification documents to qualifications and certificates. But the process that TES had in place for this was causing all sorts of issues.

The team were using email to request and gather documents, but this often resulted in confusion over what was needed. To chase new hires for missing info, they were using a combination of email and phone calls. The endless back and forth was a huge drain on time and resources. 

“The problem we had was how long it took to gather all the documents, as well as people not being clear on what documents. So there was a lot of back and forth between the recruiter and the new hire. Recruiters were having to chase down documents and try to get people on the phone to explain to them what was needed.”

The TES team was also aware that this process wasn’t ideal from the new hire’s perspective. Onboarding is a new hire’s first experience of how an organisation functions. It was clear that they needed a new approach that better reflected their identity as a modern, forward-thinking organisation.

Delivering a superior onboarding flow with Content Snare

The need to overhaul their approach to document collection led them to search for tools that streamline and automate the entire process. Having assessed this particular corner of the software world, they settled upon Content Snare — and they haven’t looked back. 

The first thing the TES team noticed was that Content Snare was enabling them to onboard new hires faster than ever before, pretty much halving the time it took to complete document requests.

“Our process was initially taking about three to four weeks with a lot of back and forth, and it wasn’t as clear as to what was needed. Once we implemented Content Snare, we were able to get our process down to slightly under two weeks.”

Thanks to Content Snare’s intuitive questionnaires and web forms that outline exactly what the new hire needs to upload, the TES team is now able to get the information they need without the back-and-forth. 

“With Content Snare, we have been able to explain and create a process so that they (new hires) can just follow along, checklist-style, to upload the documents that we need.”

And with the ability to specify the exact file format, or even limit file-related parameters, it’s virtually impossible for new hires to send the wrong type of document. Again, this eliminates the need for time-consuming back-and-forth emails. 

“Because we can target certain file types, we can get the information in the format we need it, versus having to go back to somebody and say, ‘Oh, we actually can’t accept that, we need it in this format.’”

The TES team also appreciates how easy Content Snare is to use. Despite being packed with powerful features, the learning curve is relatively shallow, allowing them to get up and running fast. Candace Coker, talent acquisition manager at TES, spent around 30 minutes setting up her first template and rewriting the welcome letter. But once that’s done, the document-gathering process pretty much runs itself. 

Last but not least, Content Snare has enabled TES to create a superior onboarding experience for new hires. This has brought the business’s processes in line with its organisational culture and ethos. 

“Since we started using Content Snare, it’s more in line with the candidate experience we try to create. We want things to be modern, and we want it to be easy and user-friendly for our new hires, because that sets the president for the onboarding process.”

Is it time you rethought your onboarding process?

Whatever industry you operate in, it’s so important to get onboarding right. If you are relying on outdated tools or cobbled-together processes to gather information from new hires, not only are you wasting countless hours, but you’re also making a bad first impression. 

With a dedicated document-gathering platform like Content Snare, you can streamline, enhance, and automate this critical part of the onboarding journey. You can get the information you need faster, all but eliminating the need for back-and-forth emails or phone calls. 

The result? A smoother process, happier new hires, and a more successful business. So, what are you waiting for?