Find the Best Automated Onboarding Software

Ever wonder what automated onboarding actually does? It manages the sequence of onboarding. The onboarding workflow requires completing tasks in order—the candidate accepts the offer letter, then completes tax forms, then attends orientation, and so on. 

Manually managing this is tedious. Someone has to constantly track what's been completed and remember to trigger the next step for each new hire. That causes delays. Therefore, it is recommended to use automated onboarding software, which removes these bottlenecks. The moment a candidate accepts an offer, the system automatically triggers document distribution, account creation, and notifies the new hire about orientation scheduling. 

This guide helps you find the right automated onboarding system. We cover what the software should offer to deliver real value to your organization, and we've highlighted 2025 market trends that will impact your selection. Here's what we found: 

Automated onboarding software is a specialized platform designed to manage the sequence of tasks that new employees must complete when joining an organization. If you are an HR manager processing multiple new hires simultaneously, or a department head ensuring new employees complete orientation on schedule, automated onboarding software centralizes these activities and makes the process more systematic.

It's important to understand what automated onboarding software actually offers because onboarding incorporates time-bound activities, multiple approval chains, and coordination of efforts across departments. If you do not know what automated onboarding software includes, you might purchase a system that, although very useful, does not align with the complexity of your organization.

Here is what we think are the essentials:

Organizations that implement the right automated onboarding software have a competitive advantage in hiring efficiency and employee experience. Based on our findings, here are the key benefits you will experience: 

Create Consistent Experiences For Every New Hire 

Automated onboarding software ensures every new hire will receive a consistent onboarding experience across departments and teams. The software standardizes tasks, communications, and timelines for everyone, regardless of which department they join. HR teams will never miss a step because someone was busy or distracted. 

Support Remote Hiring From Any Location 

It allows fully remote onboarding where everything employees need to accomplish is online, equipment can be shipped to their home, and orientation is virtual. This is important because when you can onboard candidates regardless of location, you are sourcing talent from anywhere and not only candidates located in proximity to your office. 

Improve New Hire Experience From Day One 

It has engaging pre-boarding content and informed messaging that gives the candidate clear expectations prior to their start date – so new hires arrive excited and prepared, rather than being nervous about what to expect. 

Demonstrate ROI With Clear Metrics 

One of the best things about automated onboarding software is that it captures comprehensive tracking metrics, including total time to productivity, onboarding costs per hire, rate of completion, and satisfaction levels of new hires. This data provides evidence that your onboarding investment produces results and supports the desired business outcomes, ultimately demonstrating the strategic value of HR. 

When selecting your automated onboarding software, there are some things that should be non-negotiable because they define whether you have true automation or simply another form of digital document storage. Certainly, price and ease of use are important factors, but they do not guarantee that workflows will run without manual inputs and that tasks will trigger in the right sequence. 

Here is what you should evaluate: 

Map Every System That Needs Integration 

Integration is not just a standard add-on; it actually has a direct impact on your efficiency. The fact is, onboarding data must flow to your ATS (where candidates become employees), HRIS (employee records), payroll, benefits administration, time tracking, learning management, performance management, IT systems (Active Directory, email, collaboration tools), badging/physical access, expense management, and any department-specific applications.  

Next, verify that prospective onboarding software integrates with your specific systems—not generic claims about integration, but actual confirmed compatibility with your vendors and software versions. When integration is not reliable, it usually means you will be manually transferring data between systems.  

Evaluate Actual Automation Depth 

One mistake that many organizations make is believing vendor claims about the levels of automation without conducting actual testing. You need to follow a specific scenario from start to finish: ‘A candidate accepted, now walk me through what happens automatically and what happens manually.’  

Our experience shows that some vendors provide digital document storage, but manual coordination between steps. Since software requiring frequent manual intervention is not really considered automated, we would suggest counting the number of manual steps left in a system during assessment. 

Test Mobile Experience As A New Hire Would 

When it comes to their mobile experience, use it yourself. Conduct the onboarding process on your mobile device end-to-end: reading documents, uploading images, completing forms, and watching an onboarding video. Do this in realistic conditions—on your commute, with a typical screen size. We recommend testing the mobile experience thoroughly, because if it frustrates you during evaluation, it will definitely frustrate actual new hires. 

Test User Experience For All User Types 

Another concern we wanted to highlight here is that onboarding software has multiple types of users. New hires, HR administrators, managers, IT people, and executives are all users. So, you should consider whether the new hire portal is easy to use, whether managers can easily find what they are responsible for, and whether IT people can provide access reliably. If any group has an unreliable user experience, they will resist adoption. 

Verify Multi-Location Support If Applicable 

If you're a multi-location or entity organization, you need multi-location onboarding support. We've seen organizations operate in multiple states or countries, and they need software that accounts for this complexity. So, make sure you can manage distinct workflows and compliance needs by location and have unified visibility.  

We encourage you to verify if the software has been engineered for multi-location, particularly if you operate across states or countries, because adapting single-location software for multi-sites can create compliance gaps. 

The automated onboarding software market hit $2 billion in 2024, growing 13.3% in a year. ServiceNow leads the market at 13.5%, with Workday HCM, SAP (WalkMe), and UKG close behind. These top vendors control over half the market. If you're evaluating options, start with these enterprise platforms—they've proven they can handle complex automation at scale. That said, if you're a small to mid-sized company, you should evaluate beyond these vendors—you can get the same level of automation at a more competitive price. 

When it comes to AI's impact on onboarding, the retention numbers alone justify the investment. Paychex research indicates satisfactory outcomes: employees onboarded with AI are 30% less likely to quit in their first year. The same research indicated that companies that utilized AI in onboarding saved more than $18,000 each year. This shows that introducing AI in onboarding has many benefits for recruiters. 

However, automation needs balance. Christina Kucek, Executive Director of Intelligence Automation at CAI, emphasizes that AI should be "an accelerator to help HR professionals enhance employee experience—augmenting, not replacing, the human intelligence that fuels processes." She warns that "the experience just wouldn't meet our expectations without the human brain involved."  

What we want to convey is that too much automation causes onboarding to feel impersonal. The best platforms use AI to manage tedious processes such as sequencing and reminders, while still allowing managers and HR the opportunity to personally connect with employees. 

This guide gives you a thorough understanding of what the right automated onboarding software is, along with the factors that define true automation versus digital document storage. Only knowing which software offers automation isn't valuable unless you identify which manual bottlenecks in your current onboarding process actually need automation. 

At the end, we highly recommend that you always choose intelligent workflow orchestration and system integrations—these capabilities will be a defining factor in whether your onboarding is fully automated or still requires manual intervention for each hire. But use the platform that knows the balance of automation—because software can never replace the personal interaction that makes new hires feel welcome and valued.