Task templates are one of the most powerful frameworks in Keka that could be used to streamline your Preboarding & Onboarding flows. Just by configuring tasks right, you can semi-automate your entire Preboarding & Onboarding flows. But what are these “task templates”?
During the Preboarding / Onboarding processes, there would be a lot of activities that have to be done by multiple stakeholders. For example, during Preboarding, one organization might want their candidates to submit their Identity documents before rolling out an offer letter. Or an organization might want their Facilities admin to book accommodation for their new joiners. Or some other organization might want their HR admin to present a welcome gift to the new employees on their day of joining. These may vary from organization to organization, or even within the same organization in some cases. So, how do you accomplish this in Keka so that manual intervention is almost eliminated? Tasks are the way to go!
Task templates in Keka provide a way to create and assign tasks in an automated way so that you create a template once and provide the required criteria, and each time someone matching the criteria joins the organization, these tasks get triggered to the respective owners automatically.
Previously (prior to April 2024) tasks were only available for Onboarding flows, but with the new Preboarding enhancements (from April 2024), tasks are extended to Preboarding as well. These tasks can be tailored to fit various roles and departments, ensuring that every task owner has a clear understanding of the tasks they need to complete.
Here's how it benefits HR professionals:
- Consistency: Task templates ensure that every new employee has a consistent onboarding experience.
- Efficiency: Automating task assignment reduces manual work for HR teams.
- Clarity: Clearly defined tasks and expectations help new hires hit the ground running
Understanding the components of a task
A task refers to an action that the assignee needs to perform in order to move ahead in the process. For example, a candidate has to share their identity documents which is a task. Similarly, there can be tasks such as salary approval which maybe assigned to the payroll admin or the HR admin. Tasks such as this can be created and added to standard templates. This templates can then be selected when you begin preboarding a candidate.
A task should contain the following
- Name
- Description
- Attachements to explain the task
- Task type
- Task trigger - When does this trigger
- Due date
- Assignee
- Approvers
- Applies to - to specify which cohort of new employees does this task apply to
Using task triggers
Triggers essentially replaces the onboarding stages we used to have in the past. Now, you can trigger tasks based on these 6 events
- Pre-offer
- Offer release
- Post offer acceptance
- Pre-joining
- On joining day
- Post joining day
You can also further customize this to say that a task needs to be triggered 5 days after offer release or 30 days after the joining day. This ensures that you can craft the onboarding experience as per your needs, and can be applied to all roles.
Creating Task Templates
Within the task templates, HR managers (and privileged users) can create different types of tasks that are aligned with their onboarding objectives. For instance, you could set up tasks such as document submission, company policy reviews, and training sessions.
Creating a task template in Keka HR's onboarding process involves several elements, each designed to provide clarity and structure for the new hires. Let's break down each element:
Task Name: This is the title of the task. It should be concise yet descriptive enough for the new hire to understand the nature of the task at a glance.
Description: Here, you provide a detailed explanation of the task. The description should include what the task entails, why it’s important, and any specific details the new hire needs to know to complete the task successfully.
Attachments: If the task requires the new hire to refer to a document, or review any material, you can attach those files here. This ensures all necessary resources are readily available.
Task Type: The task type you select determines the options and requirements that become available for that particular task. Currently we have three task types you can select from:
- General: General tasks like booking accommodation for new joiners, provisioning ID card, etc.
- Identity documents collection: Tasks for the candidates or new employees to submit their identity documents.
- Academics/Experience: Tasks for the candidates or new employees to submit their academics or past experience documents.
Task Trigger: This setting determines when the task will be triggered. Options include the following stages:
- Before offer release
- After offer release
- After offer acceptance
- Before joining
- On joining day
- After joining
Task Trigger day: In relation to the trigger stage, HR managers can specify exactly how many days before or after the selected stage, the current task must be triggered. For instance, if the task trigger time is 'After offer acceptance' and the days is set to '5 days after offer acceptance’, this task will be triggered to the corresponding task owner 5 days after the offer has been accepted.
Due Date: The deadline for completing the task. This can be set as a specific number of days after the trigger event.
Task Owner: The person responsible for completing the task. It can be assigned to a specific role or employee within the company, or the candidate or the new employees themselves.
Approvers: If the task requires approval upon completion, you can designate approvers. These are typically individuals in roles that supervise or manage the new hire.
Task Applies To: This is the configuration that allows automation of task assignment based on the criteria you configure here. Let us take an example to understand this configuration option better:
- Consider the following scenarios:
- Let us say, you might want your “IT admin” to “provide a Macbook Pro” to a new employee joining “Design department”.
- Similarly, you might want your “IT admin” to “provide a Dell Laptop and a mobile phone with office SIM card” to a new employee who is joining “Sales Department” as a “Full time employee”.
- On the other hand, you might want your “IT admin” to “provide a Dell Laptop” to a new employee who is joining “Sales Department” as an “Intern”.
In the above-mentioned scenarios, you might have observed that whenever a new employee is joining, based on some of the job attributes of the new employee, the tasks that the “IT admin” must perform have changed.
“Task Applies To” is useful to achieve this automatically, with respect to tasks. This component provides you a set of job-related attributes using which you can define a criterion. Task will be triggered to the respective owner if a new employee is added to Keka matching the configured criteria.
Note that “Task Applies to” is different from “Task owner”. “Task Applies to” is the criteria when a task must be triggered, i.e., when a new employee or candidate is added, tasks matching the criteria will be triggered to the respective owners. In the above examples, Task owner was “IT admin” while criteria were around departments and worker types. So whenever someone satisfying those criteria (say Sales department + Intern), the task configured will be triggered to the IT admin
Checklist: A set of smaller, actionable items that need to be checked off within the main task. It helps break down complex tasks into smaller, manageable steps. This is only an informative section that helps guide the task owner to simplify and perform tasks and it is not mandatory to follow the checklist nor the task owner is required to check them to mark the task as completed.
Task Requires Mandatory Attachment Upload: This option, if selected, mandates the new hire to upload documents as part of the task completion process.
Send Reminder Emails to Assignee: With this feature, you can set up automated reminder emails to be sent to the task owner. You can define when the reminder should be sent, such as a certain number of days before the due date.
