Exclusive Q&A with Cathy Reilly, Founder of Onboardia, Inc.

I was running a couple of business service centers. One of the most anxious moments for me is on how to get new hires onboard and meet my performance standard faster. This is crucial as training new hires takes time, and quite often, “time” is scarce.

Customers want the services to be performed quickly; not only that, my existing team members also need to guide the new hires – often by hand – reducing their effectiveness. A total HR management nightmare.

now hiring
photo credit: AKZOphoto

If the above sound too familiar to you, you might want to take a close look at this Q&A, because I am going to have a little chat with Cathy Reilly, Founder of Onboardia, Inc. – a company specializing in getting your organization’s new employees onboard and outperforming faster.

Without further adieu, here is the Q&A:

Ivan Widjaya, Noobpreneur.com (Q): First of all, congratulations on getting named on the 2013 Top HR Products List for 2013! I’m sure our readers want to know the reason for Onboardia to get chosen: What is Onboardia and how it can help businesses?

Cathy Reilly, Onboardia.com (A): Onboardia is an online training platform designed to deliver day one training for new hires, and contingency employees (temps, interns, contract employees). It gets them up to speed quickly, effectively, and ensures compliancy. What is unique is that we provide a complete Master Training Program template based on 20+ years of HR experience in onboarding and training new hires. The template can be fully customized with videos, images, documents, web links and company logo. Beyond new hire training, you can also create your own training programs for internal training or for customer tutorials.

Q: We know that training requires proper planning and it’s often a lengthy and resource-consuming process. Onboardia seems to be able to fit in well, filling the gap in HR training. Can you share with our readers a bit in details on how Onboardia solves those problems?

A: Every new hire or contingency employee is going to have a knowledge gap about even the very basics of their new company as they get started. These basics include topics such as corporate culture, teamwork, policies, performance and behavior expectations, getting things done, socially connecting inside the company and key people.

By automating delivery of these and other important areas with our platform, a company or HR saves a great deal of time and labor. They also gain consistency in training, produce employees who are better positioned as they start their jobs and increase productivity. Because Onboardia is web based, a new hire’s day one training can actually begin from home before day one.

Q: Exploring the Onboardia website, I get the impression that your online training platform caters any kind of businesses. If you should choose one, which type of businesses will benefit from Onboardia the most?

A: Yes, we are not industry specific. A business that has an ongoing need to train new hires, that uses contingency employees or has seasonal spikes in hiring or turnovers on a regular basis will benefit from our technology.

Q: If you don’t mind, can you share your pricing model so our readers can take that into consideration?

A: We are a subscription based model with pricing according to number of employees at a company. We start at $500/year for a company size of up to 50 employees. The next level is $800 for up to 100 employees, $1,500 for up to 250 employees and so on. There is a one-time set up fee of $795. Each subscription offers a 5 training library capacity; additional libraries can be purchased if needed. There is unlimited access into each training library.

Q: Any tips to share with small business owners who are overwhelmed by their HR training efforts?

A: Consider the manual or redundant tasks you perform related to your training since there is so much technology out there today that can streamline your efforts and reduce being overwhelmed. Training is not a luxury item. It is an investment in your employees that pays you back by building retention, excellence, and innovation inside your company. This starts with your new hires on day one. Make a positive and supportive first impression and lead by example through that initial training experience.

Many thanks for your time, Cathy!

Takeaway

When you are running or going to start a business which requires you to work with new employees/interns/temps on regular basis, you can’t afford to wasting your time onboarding them; you need a solution which can automate things for you using the best onboarding practices. Onboardia is one of the solutions which can offer you just that.

Be sure to browse around and ask for testimonials from existing customers to learn whether services like Onboardia can solve your problems.