Insight Alert #4: Winning on Employee Experience With New Hire IT Onboarding

Natalie Robb

November 5, 2020

4 minute read

StateOfSaaSOps WinningonEndUserExperience DayOneOnboardingTrends

TABLE OF CONTENTS

In prior Insight Alerts, we discussed trends in SaaS usage, visibility in the SaaS environment, and how CASB users differ from SaaSOps users. In this last Insight Alert based on our 2020 State of SaaSOps report survey data, we explore IT onboarding trends and how SaaS management and SaaSOps platforms make a difference.

How IT helps organizations win on employee experience

SaaS is great for companies and employees alike. Companies can pick and choose the best possible software for every job, making it easier than ever to get more work done. When the experience of work is delivered through apps, tools, and business systems in the cloud, the tech stack that drives employee productivity also drives the employee experience.

Users have now come to expect the ability to choose and use best-of-breed apps. And thanks to pandemic-plagued 2020, millions more employees now know all the benefits of SaaS and a SaaS-driven workplace. Furthermore, they’ve used them at previous jobs at other companies, and they’re demanding collaborative, flexible environments wherever they go.

As a result, IT teams now support this new way of working. For the first time, providing the best user experience empowers a top-performing, highly-skilled workforce with SaaS. And IT must enable this new decentralized innovation through all levels of the business to help it grow.

If you don’t (or can’t) enable your employees with the latest technology, at best you’ll have an unproductive, unengaged workforce, while at worst you’ll have a talent shortage.

IT no longer has a choice. They must find a way to enable productivity and strategic goals while also keeping up with its own operational demands. Using platforms purpose-built for secure SaaS management, called SaaSOps platforms fill this void.

A SaaSOps platform helps IT manage a robust digital workplace to provide a positive employee experience – which starts with new employee IT onboarding.

New hire IT onboarding on day 1

Before the pandemic, many companies and certainly BetterCloud customers considered new employee onboarding to be a competitive weapon in keeping great talent. According to BambooHR research, a highly effective onboarding process makes new employees 18x more likely to feel highly committed to their organization.

This means that providing a superior employee experience starts the moment a new hire starts. And that includes IT, as well. Arming your new employee when they arrive with the tools they need to do their jobs is a key part of the process.

So how does your organization measure up compared to these new employee IT onboarding trends? And if you use a SaaS management or SaaSOps platform, where do you stand?

IT resources for new hires and how SaaSOps platforms help

According to our recent State of SaaSOps study, nearly all organizations grant new hires their computers on day one. As you can see, most organizations do pretty well with assigning group memberships, calendars, and their SaaS apps to start work to be instantly productive. However, there’s no doubt that a SaaSOps platform helps make sure new hires get off to the right start. Across every SaaS-related resource type, SaaSOps platform users consistently equip more new users.

Bar chart illustrating new employee IT onboarding metrics categorized by resource type: devices, calendars, group membership, SaaS apps, and SaaS app training. Each category features two bars representing different platform usage rates. The chart highlights comparative data across these resources to show how frequently each is utilized during the onboarding process.

Source: BetterCloud 2020 State of SaaSOps survey data

When considering company size, the impact of a SaaSOps platform on larger companies is unmistakable. Check out the chart below: A SaaSOps platform improves by a company’s ability to deliver day one access to SaaS apps during new hire IT onboarding.

Bar chart illustrating new hire day one access to SaaS apps in 2020, segmented by company size and usage of SaaSOps platforms. The x-axis represents different company sizes: small, medium, and large. The y-axis indicates the percentage of new hires with app access on their first day. Each category (small, medium, large) includes two bars: one for companies using a SaaSOps platform and one for those not using it. Across all segments, companies utilizing a SaaSOps platform consistently show higher percentages of new hire access compared to those not employing such platforms. Visually depicts significant advantage in onboarding efficiency through the use of dedicated SaaSOps solutions across varying company scales.

Source: BetterCloud 2020 State of SaaSOps survey data

Furthermore, a SaaSOps platform dramatically helps IT provide that access to SaaS apps on day one quickly – even for organizations with many SaaS apps. The chart below shows that companies that use a SaaSOps platform help new hire IT onboarding give access to 45% more SaaS apps than non-SaaSOps users before a new employee’s first day. The SaaSOps group that provisions SaaS apps within 4 hours of a new employee’s start time provisions on average, more than 120 apps, which is 55% more than non-SaaSOps users.

Bar chart illustrating the average number of SaaS apps provisioned on Day 1, comparing users with and without SaaSOps platforms. Three time frames are depicted: "before," "within 4 hours," and "by end." Users with SaaSOps platforms show significantly higher provisioning numbers across all time frames, highlighting the efficiency advantage provided by these platforms.

Source: BetterCloud 2020 State of SaaSOps survey data

The obvious conclusion is that a SaaSOps platform like BetterCloud is critical to winning on employee experience. When a new employee joins and is welcomed with a complete set of tools to do their jobs, the battle for talent retention gets off to the best possible start.

For more information on SaaSOps, including webinars, books, and success stories from SaaSOps practitioners, check out https://www.bettercloud.com/saasops/.

To learn more about how BetterCloud can help you on your SaaSOps journey, request a demo.

Want to dive further into the data? Download the 2020 State of SaaSOps report here.