The best employee onboarding software for small, mid-size, and large businesses

New hire onboarding is heavy on administrative duties—signing compliant paperwork, setting up software logins, and updating org charts. But it’s also an interpersonal undertaking—ensuring hires feel supported in their new role, introducing them to team members, and showcasing company culture. 

Both aspects of onboarding are important; falling behind on either endangers the employee experience from the get-go and makes it tricky to retain the talent you just hired. A good way to account for every item on your new hire checklist? Employee onboarding software. Read this guide for a primer on what it is, how it helps, and the best resources that set employees up for day-one success. 

What is employee onboarding software?

Employee onboarding software refers to the digital tools companies use to compliantly transition new hires into their workforce. These solutions streamline the journey from candidate to employee that, when handled manually, often entails long, back-and-forth email chains. 

Software can come with handy automations that ensure hires sign the right paperwork, enroll in benefits, and learn workplace need-to-knows to hit the ground running. 

Standout onboarding software can help businesses:

• Send locally compliant offer letters for e-signature
• Automatically distribute legally required forms like I-9s
• Administer background checks on prospective employees
• Add new employees to payroll and enroll them in benefits
• Send work devices provisioned with the right apps
• Administer workplace trainings and employee handbooks 

Onboarding solutions can enhance the employee experience by helping new team members quickly acclimate to their role—all while relieving administrative burdens for HR teams and department managers, who don’t have to spend time or energy chasing documents or filling knowledge gaps. 

Keep in mind that onboarding software is typically part of an HRIS or other packaged suite of HR solutions, rather than being a standalone product. 

The 10 best employee onboarding software solutions for your business

The HR platforms below offer onboarding workflows that save time on paperwork and set new employees up for on-the-job success. Read more about each solution’s standout features below. 

1. Rippling

Rippling is an all-in-one platform that unifies HR, payroll, IT, and spend data in a single system, paving the way for time-saving automations that help businesses manage their workforce. Among its many offerings: automated, paperless onboarding that takes as little as 90 seconds. 

With Rippling, as soon as a candidate accepts an offer, you can trigger an onboarding workflow that sends offer letters and tax forms out for e-signature. Even if your new employee lives outside of your headquarters’ jurisdiction, Rippling helps to ensure  that your documents comply with relevant employment and tax laws. 

Rippling can also automatically register employees for state taxes, add them to payroll, walk them through benefits enrollment, and distribute employee handbooks. You can even automatically send welcome emails to the employee’s new teammates to break the ice on day one. 

As the top-rated HCM, Rippling offers a full suite of HR solutions—including (but not limited to) an HRIS, time and attendance, benefits administration, and performance management. And since every Rippling product is built with a single source of truth for employee data, the all-in-one platform can connect all your workforce management processes, ridding the need for cumbersome and error-prone data entry.

For example, Rippling can use offer letter data to automatically send a laptop configured with all necessary apps to new employees as soon as they finish onboarding. The all-in-one platform can even automatically issue new employees corporate cards—with pre-set spending limits and vendor controls based on an employee’s role, location, seniority level, and more—as part of the onboarding workflow. 

Available onboarding features: 

• Automated, locally compliant offer letter distribution
• Integrations with background check providers for employment verification
• Device distribution and app provisioning
• Register employees for federal, state, and local taxes
• Assign employees to required workplace trainings
• Benefits enrollment
• Add new employees to payroll
• Issue corporate cards to newly onboarded employees

2. Paycor

Paycor is an HCM and payroll provider that helps businesses save time on administrative tasks while staying compliant with employment and tax laws. The provider primarily works with small and mid-sized businesses and offers a slate of packages across different pricing tiers. Paycor offers onboarding features that help new hires quickly view and sign forms, access company literature and track tasks. 

Available onboarding features: 

• Paperless document distribution, signing, and storage
• Set custom welcome messages
• Customizable new hire checklists
• Automated invites to meetings and orientations
• Assess eligibility for hiring tax credits

3. BambooHR

Companies use BambooHR for payroll and HR functions including time tracking, benefits, hiring and onboarding, and reporting. The multi-use platform helps businesses manage employee data, find and onboard talent, review performance, and more. BambooHR’s onboarding tools help HR teams finish paperwork more efficiently and assign customizable new hire tasks—with checklists of what to sign, read, and do—to prospective employees.

Available onboarding features: 

• Distribute forms for e-signature
• Send customizable templates for new hire packets with checklists
• Get to know you email blasts introducing new hires to teammates
• Workflows to send start date information to new employees
• Assign tasks to specific team members and set automated reminders of deadlines

4. ADP Workforce Now

ADP is a legacy software company that provides HR and payroll solutions to more than one million businesses. It allows businesses to save time running payroll by calculating and deducting tax withholdings while monitoring compliance with federal, state, and local tax laws. Its HCM solution, ADP Workforce Now, can come with an onboarding solution that lets companies provide new hires with workplace information, compliant documentation, and support ahead of start dates. 

Available onboarding features: 

• Digital data sharing
• Assign onboarding buddies to help employees transition into new roles
• Assign new hire checklists with due dates to managers
• Quickly share information about workplace culture, values, and core messaging 
• Distribute I-9 forms, tax withholdings, and company policies

5. TriNet

TriNet (formerly Zenefits), offers HR and payroll solutions to small and mid-sized businesses. Companies can use TriNet to run payroll, benefits, and other HR functions in-house or offload administrative duties to a PEO. The platform allows businesses to consult with HR experts, outsource tedious and error-prone payroll calculations and filings, and protect against compliance risks. TriNet offers paperless onboarding software that allows employees to quickly fill out information that sync with payroll and benefits.  

Available onboarding features: 

• Automatically send offer letters to new hires for e-signature
• Request background checks
• Self-service features for new employees to add and update information
• Account provisioning with business apps like G Suite, Office 365, Salesforce, and Slack
• Digitally created W-4 and I-9 tax forms

6. Workday

Workday provides HR, payroll, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) services to businesses across industries. The platform offers local and global payroll capabilities that include continuous payment processing, dynamic general ledger mapping, and reporting tools. Workday also has an HCM that uses AI to streamline HR tasks and help employers both attract and retain talent. Companies can use the platform to create onboarding workflows for new hires.

Available onboarding features: 

• Dashboards to set customizable new hire checklists
• Self-service portals to add and update employee information
• Download, review, and sign offer letters and tax documents
• Assign training materials 

7. Workable

Workable offers recruiting and HR software that helps companies find, hire, and manage talent. In addition to time-saving workflows that guide candidates through the recruiting pipeline—from AI-powered sourcing to feedback collaboration tools— the platform offers onboarding features that let employees fill out their profile, sign documents, and review videos. 

Available onboarding features: 

• New hire access to a branded onboarding portal with assignments and deadlines
• Admin dashboards with a consolidated view of new hires’ onboarding statuses
• Configure onboarding workflows to begin at a pre-set date
• Easy-to-access documents and templates to share with new employees
• Automatic org chart updates 

8. Paycom

Paycom builds payroll software designed to reduce compensation errors and help teams cut down on manual work. The company also offers HR tools like benefits administration, talent management, and a global HCM. Paycom has onboarding tools that let employees quickly sign required documents and enter and update their HR information whenever needed. 

Available onboarding features: 

• Assign, organize, and store employment verifications and tax documents 
• Employee training workflows
• Assign onboarding checklists and get notified when they’re completed
• Employee self-service for tax and direct deposit enrollment

9. UKG Pro

UKG Pro is an HCM that offers payroll solutions and a suite of HR functions including talent management, compliance, time and attendance, and scheduling. The platform has onboarding tools designed to streamline paperwork and help employees build relationships with team members ahead of day one. 

Available onboarding features: 

• Assign goals and mentors to new employees
• Create and schedule custom notifications to ensure task completion
• Automated email alerts when new hires complete tasks
• Self-service checklists for employees to view policies and sign documents

10. Paylocity

Paylocity helps businesses of all sizes simplify payroll and handle multiple HR functions—from benefits to time-tracking and performance management—in the same place. The platform’s onboarding tools help with document collection, welcome messages, training materials, and surveys that track engagement within a new hire’s first three months on the job. 

Available onboarding features: 

• Document collection wizard for emergency contact details, direct deposit information, and more.
• Automatically assign new hire training and necessary compliance courses
• Send video messages that introduce leadership and highlight company culture
• Trigger 30, 60, and 90-day check-in surveys to monitor new hire engagement
• A social collaboration hub that allows new hires to meet team members

3 key features of employee onboarding software

With no shortage of HR and recruiting solutions offering onboarding tools, how should businesses go about choosing a provider best suited for their needs? Below are the three biggest considerations.

Self-service features for new employees

On a new hire’s first day, do you want your employee slogging through a mountain of paperwork or getting to know team members and learning about company culture? Standout onboarding solutions let you quickly assign new hire checklists to employees well ahead of their first day which they can easily complete on their own time to get the admin work out the way once work starts in earnest. 

Look out for solutions that provide employees with easy-to-understand onboarding instructions, let them electronically sign required documents via the web or a mobile app, and help them quickly add employee information that auto populates across different documents to reduce double data entry. 

Robust automations

New hires and HR administrators can lose time manually assembling and signing documents, adding employees into business apps, and introducing them to team members. Look for solutions that put a premium on handling the most time-consuming aspects of onboarding workflows without anyone lifting a finger. 

For example, some solutions can automatically generate and distribute locally compliant offer letters for standout candidates, so teams don’t have to spend time drafting employee agreements. You can also automatically add employees to payroll, assign devices, provision apps, issue credit cards, and send welcome emails to the new employee’s team members. Look for onboarding software features that handle administrative work on your HR team’s behalf, so you can quickly and compliantly get new team members up and running. 

Customizable onboarding checklists

Different onboarding processes will suit different business types. And onboarding tasks may vary depending on an employee’s role. To maximize the employee experience, look for solutions that ensure new employees across departments, locations, and seniority levels not only sign compliant documentation and can access employee handbooks, but feel welcome in their new place of work ahead of their first day. 

Onboarding software can help with this when it comes with templates, checklists, and other capabilities that let HR teams and managers assign different kinds of tasks to new team members—for instance, enduring you’re sending the right welcome emails to the right departments. You should also keep an eye out for solutions equipped to onboard new employees quickly if you plan to scale. 

Rippling: Breezy onboarding for your business

If you want your new employees to have every professional resource at their fingertips ahead of day one, you want Rippling. Whether you use a PEO, ASO, or HRIS, the platform offers a slew of onboarding automations that save employees, HR administrators, and managers hours of time and empowers new hires to make an immediate impact in their role. 

The unified platform is built on top of a single source of truth for employee data. That means your workforce information isn’t tied to one specific app—it syncs across onboarding, device management, corporate cards, time and attendance, payroll, and any other apps you use within our all in one system. 

What does that mean for you and your team? Onboarding workflows automatically trigger actions like setting new hires up on payroll (including registering for applicable state taxes), administering secure laptops with pre-configured apps, and issuing corporate cards. Employees have the tools they need, HR teams don’t need to wade through endless busywork, and everyone can focus on driving their business forward.  

FAQs on employee onboarding software

What are the four C’s of employee onboarding

The four C’s of onboarding typically refer to:

• Compliance: Coaching new hires up on company policies and administering required paperwork
• Clarification: Elucidating core responsibilities and expectations
• Culture: Showcasing the company’s values
• Connection: Introducing the new employee to team members

Some companies like to instill a fifth C for check-ins. You can formalize this feedback loop by conducting meetings or issuing surveys one month, two months, and three months after an employee’s start date. Managers should also make themselves available to new employees for as-needed support. 

How do I create an onboarding package?

An onboarding package typically includes a combination of documents a new hire needs to sign—including tax forms, offer letters, and employer verifications, internal company resources like employee handbooks, team details, and job expectations, org charts and information about team members, managers, and mentors, and instructions for how to get up and running on different software systems the business uses. 

Many HR software solutions include checklists, templates, and other workflows that help teams design onboarding packages for different employees. But keep in mind there’s not a one-size-fits-all template; employees in different locations and industries may be subject to different compliance considerations.   

What is an onboarding toolkit?

Often known as a welcome package, an onboarding toolkit is a collection of documents and resources employers give new hires to make them feel ready for their new job. It can include employee handbooks, information about team members, small gifts, words of support, information about company culture, and more.

This blog is based on information available to Rippling as of August 13, 2024. 

Disclaimer: Rippling and its affiliates do not provide tax, accounting, or legal advice. This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide or be relied on for tax, accounting, or legal advice. You should consult your own tax, accounting, and legal advisors before engaging in any related activities or transactions.