The Best Onboarding Software for Small Businesses

Did you know you can improve retention by 82% and productivity by 70% with a strong onboarding program? If you’re a growing company hoping to train and retain high-end talent, we’ve got you covered with the best onboarding software for small businesses. 

If you’re still a little skeptical about making the investment, it’s important to understand how an employee’s first week can influence your company’s growth. This is especially true for small businesses, and the onboarding software you use will play a large role. 

To help you give new hires the best employee experience from day one, let’s talk about the best onboarding software for small businesses.

Video creation: Wistia

Onboarding videos are an effective way to share information with new hires — and they’re a lot more engaging than reading through lengthy process documentation. Videos can also give new team members a glimpse into your company culture, which is crucial to employee retention.

Wistia lets you easily record videos and share them with teammates anytime. It works out of the box, and you don’t need professional editing skills to create informative videos that your team can enjoy.

One of Wistia’s unique features is Heatmaps, visual representations of viewers’ interactions with your videos. In the video timeline, you’ll see where a user watched your video, the device they used to watch, and sections they skipped or watched multiple times.

Features

• Screen and webcam recording
• Easy-to-use trimming and editing tools
• Live webinars and audience engagement tools
• Collaboration features: comments, sharing, and permissions
• File hosting and organization
• Heatmaps

Pricing

• Free: 15-minute video limit, basic editing, one user, and 200 GB of storage.
• Plus ($24/month): Removes the Wistia branding in videos, 30-minute video limit, three channels, three users, and 1 TB of storage.
• Pro ($99/month): Password protection, five channels, heatmaps, A/B testing, five users, and 1 TB of storage.
• Advanced ($399/month): 60-minute video limit, unlimited channels, two-hour live streaming limit, 20 users, and 1 TB of storage.
• Enterprise (custom pricing): Four-hour live streaming limit, unlimited users, and over 2 TB of storage.

Alternatives

• Loom: Video recording, editing, hosting, webinars, and collaboration. Loom has a free plan and two paid plans starting at $15 per creator monthly.
• Vimeo: Video recording, editing, hosting, interactions, and analytics. Vimeo has a free plan and four paid plans starting at $20 per seat monthly.

Employee surveys: Officevibe

There’s a stark difference between checking in on employees and checking in on their work. The former contributes to their development in the company, while the latter is just an attempt at micromanagement concealed behind a standard process.

If you want new hires to feel safe in your company, do check-ins right. Officevibe makes this possible with timely surveys that are nondisruptive to your team members’ work. It also helps ensure employees are motivated with features for engagement, anonymous feedback, and performance management.

Officevibe also has a built-in onboarding survey that helps you ease new employees into your company and use their feedback to improve your onboarding process for future iterations.

Features

• Automated and custom employee surveys
• 1-on-1 templates, goals, and development notes
• Advanced engagement metrics
• Onboarding survey
• Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) surveys

Pricing

• Free: Basic survey features and core reports.
• Essential ($5 per user monthly): Unlimited data history, advanced history, engagement insights, and manager templates.
• Pro ($8 per user monthly): Onboarding survey, DEIB surveys, data exporting, pulse survey micro-customization, and organization templates.

Alternatives

• Culture Amp: Pulse surveys, performance reviews, 1-on-1s, and goal tracking. Culture Amp has three plans, but you’ll need to contact their sales team for pricing information.
• Quantum Workplace: Pulse surveys, lifecycle surveys, feedback and recognition, and talent reviews. Contact Quantum Workplace’s sales team for pricing information.

File sharing: Google Drive

Introducing newly hired employees to your shared file system is vital. Having the right tools will allow them to navigate through files and folders effortlessly, paving the way for effective collaboration.

Google Drive is one of the best tools for this simple yet crucial process. It works like your computer’s local file manager, except it’s synchronized across the entire organization. This also means you don’t have to worry about outdated document versions or installing office software on every new hire’s computer.

Features

• Built-in document, spreadsheet, and presentation tools
• Secure file sharing and collaboration
• File hosting for all file types
• File revision history
• Document scanning
• Integrations with several third-party apps

Pricing

• Business Starter ($6 per user monthly): 30 GB of pooled storage per user.
• Business Standard ($12 per user monthly): 2 TB of pooled storage per user.
• Business Plus ($18 per user monthly): 5 TB of pooled storage per user.
• Enterprise (custom pricing): 5 TB or more pooled storage per user.

Alternatives

• Dropbox: File sharing, individual file access passwords, e-signatures, and document tracking. Dropbox has three team plans starting at $18 per user monthly and 5 TB of total storage (minimum of three users required).
• Microsoft OneDrive: Microsoft Office tools, file sharing, security features, and document personalization tools. Microsoft OneDrive has four business plans starting at $6 per user monthly and 1 TB of storage per user.

Communication: Slack

How your team communicates is important in training a new employee. Emails will keep everyone in the loop about projects, but it’s the small interactions with each other that truly benefit your employees and your company.

Slack is a reliable communication platform whether you’re announcing project updates, onboarding new hires, or casually speaking with teammates. New employees can introduce themselves, share photos, start discussions, and join hobby-specific channels to establish connections with colleagues.

Features

• Basic file sharing
• Huddles (audio and video calls)
• Built-in reminders
• Integrations with third-party apps
• Workflow builder

Pricing

• Free: 90 days of message and file history, 1:1 huddles, and ten integrations.
• Pro ($8.75 per user monthly): Full message and file history, group huddles, unlimited integrations, and the Workflow Builder.
• Business+ ($15 per user monthly): Single sign-on, data exports for messages, and data residency.
• Enterprise Grid (custom pricing): Audit logs, HIPAA compliance, unlimited workspaces, and custom terms of service.

Alternatives

• Flock: Instant messaging, channel management, video conferencing, file sharing, reminders, and integrations. Flock has a free plan for up to 20 team members and two paid plans that start at $6 per user monthly.
• Discord: Instant messaging, channel management, custom roles, HD audio and video calls, and support for hundreds of bots (integrations). Discord has a server-based pricing model — you can access premium features by boosting a server starting at $4.99 per month.

Collaboration: Hubstaff Tasks

Before a new team member can execute their first project, you first need to give them a definitive starting point. This will serve as their main hub from which they’ll complete to-dos, push tasks forward, and collaborate with other teams and departments.

Hubstaff Tasks enables you to build an organized, efficient task management system so teams can get things done anytime. You’ll also be able to see tasks as they progress through the Kanban view. Team members can then quickly access the tasks assigned to them via Sprints.

You can also automate projects with custom workflows. This feature lets you assign tasks to specific people and move tasks to different project stages with one click, eliminating the possibility of assigning tasks to the wrong people and missing deadlines.

Features

• Checklists, deadlines, tags, and estimates
• Kanban boards
• Subtasks and dependencies
• File attachments and task comments
• Sprints, Epics, and Roadmaps
• Custom workflows
• Daily Stand-ups

Pricing

• Free: Five users, ten projects, and 100 MB of storage per user.
• Premium ($5 per user monthly): Unlimited users and projects, 5 GB of storage per user, Timeline, Roadmap, and Teams.

Alternatives

• Trello: Kanban boards, task management tools, multiple project views, and automations. Trello has a free plan and three paid plans starting at $5 per user monthly.
• monday.com: Task management tools, resource management, goals, and portfolios. monday.com has a free plan and four paid plans starting at $10 per user monthly.

Payroll and workforce management: Hubstaff

Both new hires and established employees can agree that getting paid is one of the most exciting parts of any job. 

That said, it becomes less exciting when each employee has to painstakingly fill out time cards and manually submit them to managers so they can get paid. In this scenario, the more team members you have, the more time is wasted.

Hubstaff fully automates this process — and that means your employees only have to worry about getting real work done.

Hubstaff tracks time in the background as they work, automatically creating accurate timesheets in the process. Team members can then review and submit their timesheets with one click at the end of every pay period.

Once you approve the timesheets, Hubstaff will process the payments via your employees’ selected payment platforms. The app also integrates with popular payroll solutions like PayPal, Wise, Payoneer, Bitwage, and Gusto.

Features

• Automated payroll
• Online timesheet approval
• Project cost and expense tracking
• Online invoicing
• Time tracking
• Attendance and scheduling
• Employee productivity tools
• Advanced workforce metrics

Pricing

• Starter ($7 per user monthly): Time tracking, timesheets, limited reports, and limited payments.
• Grow ($9 per user monthly): Reports, project budgets, work breaks, and expenses.
• Team ($12 per user monthly): Teams, payroll, unlimited integrations, overtime, timesheet approvals, and limits.
• Enterprise (custom pricing): HIPAA compliance, SOC-2 Type II compliance, enterprise deployment, and account provisioning.

Alternatives

• Paychex Flex: Payroll, taxes, employee handbook builder, and pre-employment screening. Paychex Flex offers three plans starting with a base fee of $39 plus $5 per employee monthly.
• Paylocity: Payroll, expenses, time and attendance, scheduling, and benefits administration. Contact Paylocity’s sales team for pricing information.

Final thoughts

One employee can make a bigger impact at a small business than a large corporation. Whether the impact will be positive or negative will depend on the quality of your onboarding program. The tools we mentioned will help you provide an onboarding experience that will prepare your new hires for productive work and help you improve retention. 

Listening to your new employees starting on their first day is the most important thing. Ask them for their opinions and observe how they interact with your onboarding program so you can continuously improve it.