Automated onboarding process brings speed and transparency
Transforming onboarding from complexity to clarity
Our customer needed to optimise their onboarding process and technology in order to meet evolving background check requirements.
Their process was entirely manual, time-consuming to manage and increasingly frustrating for end-users.
Using the PontoonON platform, we fully automated the onboarding experience.
The results?
A significantly faster processing time and an enhanced experience for our customer, their end-clients, and candidates alike.
Reinventing onboarding for speed and better user experience
Our client’s onboarding process was entirely manual—and with up to 100 new hires each week, the internal team struggled to keep up with the demand.
Despite adding more resources, the scale of the challenge remained: over 330 hours of manual processing were required weekly, equating to the workload of more than 10 full-time employees dedicated solely to onboarding.
Meanwhile, end-clients were increasingly dissatisfied. Simple tasks were taking too long due to onboarding delays, turnaround times were suffering, and providing feedback was cumbersome.
Our customer needed an automated solution that could resolve these issues while preserving the human touch their stakeholders valued—and ensuring full compliance throughout the process.
Seamlessly integrating the onboarding tool
To begin, our Tech Team built a test version of the onboarding process in a sandbox environment and conducted time studies. Following a successful trial, our client approved the full implementation of the PontoonON platform.
To accelerate deployment, we partnered with the client’s Vendor Management System (VMS) to configure a suite of automated reports. These reports triggered the onboarding process for new candidates every two hours within PontoonON.
Within just two minutes of receiving a VMS report, PontoonON sent personalised email notifications to the candidate, supplier, and hiring manager, informing them that onboarding had commenced. As candidates progressed through each step of the process, the system issued real-time status updates to the supplier, which were immediately shared with the hiring manager for full visibility.
Each email was dynamically configured to ensure consistency and personalisation. Also, strategic stopping points were built into the process—critical opportunities for the team to engage directly with candidates, preserving the human touch that stakeholders valued.
To further enhance the candidate experience, a dedicated outreach process was put in place. Every new hire received a personalised congratulatory email and a welcome pack—the kind of warm introduction the client’s team had always aspired to deliver, but previously lacked the capacity to provide.
Significant efficiencies and time savings
With PontoonON, onboarding turnaround times improved dramatically for our client.
Previously, it had taken 24–48 hours to send background check details to the supplier, followed by an additional 72–96 hours to receive confirmation that the check had been initiated.
With our solution, the average time to collect candidate documentation dropped from over five days to under 24 hours.The supplier received candidate details within two hours of offer acceptance, and confirmed background check initiation in just 19 hours—a significant improvement in both speed and efficiency.