Increasing Onboarding Efficiency 90%

1. Executive Summary

Kan-Arm Contracting faced a significant operational bottleneck in its IT onboarding process, which was manual, time-consuming, and inconsistent. The procedure required 4-6 hours of skilled IT work per new employee, leading to productivity delays and high operational costs. By re-architecting the company's SharePoint infrastructure and leveraging the automation capabilities of Zoho ManageEngine, the onboarding process was completely transformed. The project successfully reduced IT onboarding time to under 30 minutes per hire (a reduction of over 90%) and delivered substantial annual cost savings while improving the new hire experience.

2. The Challenge: A Manual and Inefficient System

A thorough analysis of the existing IT onboarding process revealed critical inefficiencies:

• Excessive Time Consumption: The process was entirely manual. An IT administrator had to individually create user accounts and assign permissions across a disorganized SharePoint environment. This required, on average, 5 hours of hands-on work for every new employee.

• Inconsistent Setups: The lack of a standardized process often led to errors in permission assignments. New hires frequently faced delays on their first day, unable to access the necessary files and systems to begin their work.

• High Opportunity Cost: With IT resources spending significant time on repetitive onboarding tasks, focus was diverted from higher-value strategic projects.

3. The Solution: A Framework of Automation and Standardization

The goal was to build a scalable, secure, and rapid onboarding system. This was achieved by overhauling foundational systems and automating the workflow.

Phase 1: Rebuilding the Foundation in SharePoint

Before automation could be effective, the underlying document management system needed a complete revitalization. The project involved:

• SharePoint Architecture Overhaul: The entire SharePoint environment was restructured for logical document management and intuitive navigation.

• Role-Based Permission Groups: A system of permission grouping was developed within SharePoint and Active Directory. Instead of assigning access to individual files and folders one by one, users were assigned to a role (e.g., "Project Manager," "Field Crew"). This single assignment automatically granted them all the necessary permissions for their position, ensuring consistency and security.

Phase 2: Automating Provisioning with Zoho ManageEngine

With a clean and structured foundation, the manual onboarding tasks were automated using Zoho ManageEngine's built-in automation workflows, which were configured for specific user and device groups. The new process works as follows:

1. Initiation: A new hire's information and role are entered into the system.

2. Role-Based Automation: Zoho's automation engine identifies the new hire's assigned role.

3. Automated Provisioning: Based on the role, the system automatically creates the user account and assigns it to the correct pre-defined permission group established in Phase 1.

4. System & Software Deployment: Based on pre-configured device groups, Zoho ManageEngine automatically deploys the standard package of software and system configurations required for that role to the user's device.

This automated workflow eliminated redundant manual data entry and the risk of human error in assigning permissions.

4. Impactful Results: Time, Cost, and Efficiency

The implementation of this new system delivered immediate and significant results:

• Onboarding Time Reduced by over 90%: The time required for IT to onboard a new employee was reduced from 4-6 hours down to 20-30 minutes.

• Significant Annual Cost Savings: The previous process required an average of 5 hours of work per hire at a contracted IT rate of $125/hour, costing $625 per employee. The new 25-minute process costs just $52 per employee, saving $573 per hire. This also does not factor in additional troubleshooting and miscommunication.

• Increased IT Capacity: By automating this key responsibility, IT resources were freed up to focus on strategic initiatives, including revitalizing other internal applications and managing a full office IT infrastructure move.

5. Conclusion

By strategically overhauling the foundational SharePoint system and implementing targeted automation with Zoho ManageEngine, the IT onboarding process at Kan-Arm was transformed from a costly bottleneck into a model of efficiency. This project underscores the profound impact that process engineering and automation can have on operational costs, employee productivity, and the strategic capacity of an IT department.