Dive Brief:
- Brooks Brothers, America's oldest fashion retailer with a global presence of 500 locations in 23 countries, has successfully brought its onboarding process to the cloud, according to Forbes.
- The company teamed up with SAP's SuccessFactors software suite to streamline its employee training practices at both retail stores and manufacturing plants. The company claims this has reduced hours of paperwork to smaller amounts that can be completed before an employee's start date, requiring only a 3-minute verification check on their first day to complete the process.
- “We have a small window of time to acclimate new-hires to our culture, history and policies," said Julian Watras, Brooks Brothers' Director of Talent Management. "We’re now able to do that through the onboarding process itself and the associate portal, quickly exposing people to important information like our associate handbook, our history, unique vocabulary and major events."
Dive Insight:
The push to the cloud has allowed numerous HR processes to garner speed and accessibility, particularly at the beginning of the employer/employee relationship. The onboarding period is a key time for employee retention, as more than half of employees who left jobs last year did so in the first 12 months on the job.
Accessibility and ease of use particularly propel Brooks Brothers' program to success. New employees, particularly younger ones, expect company technology to be well-designed and easy to use — just like their experiences with consumer-oriented technologies.
More generally, this program shows the kind of change taking place in learning overall. User-friendly programs that free up HR leaders for more intensive jobs and give employees a lauded first experience help ensure an organization's place as a learning leader.
