The Rippling effect, explained

Over the years, HR has largely been seen as a support function rather than a strategic function. Today, however, that’s changing.

According to Rippling’s State of the people leader report, HR leaders listed their top 3 priorities as:

• Training managers - 52%
• Effective onboarding - 50%
• Upskilling employees - 50%

But problems such as lack of visibility across the organization, mountains of redundant data entry, and dozens of disparate data silos all handcuff HR leaders from being able to focus on these strategic priorities.

But, what if we could remove those handcuffs? HR leaders across organizations big and small are doing just that. We call this “The Rippling effect.” Here’s how it works.

The Rippling effect is when HR goes from paper pusher to impact maker, finance goes from expense reviewer to policy creator, and IT goes from ticket taker to security maven. Let’s take a look at three examples. 

The Rippling effect on onboarding

As HR leaders prioritize building effective onboarding experiences, many are turning to tech to help, with 33.9% saying automation of key HR processes is a top impact area for HR tech.

And, when it comes to onboarding, there are a lot of processes that can benefit from automation. A typical onboarding process is made up of 7 key activities:

1. Generating the offer letter
2. Adding the new hire to payroll
3. Adding them to the org chart
4. Enrolling them in benefits
5. Assigning them training courses
6. Providing access to tech and apps
7. Sending out post-onboarding surveys

With so many steps, it’s no wonder that having a bottleneck in your onboarding process can cause huge headaches as you scale.

Luckily, Rippling can automate these steps. Using automations, HR leaders can clean up this web of inefficient tasks, clearing the way for a streamlined process that kicks off as soon as you’ve extended an offer. The result? A best-in-class onboarding experience your employees will rave about.

Let’s take a look at an example of the Rippling effect on onboarding. Rippling…

• Generates an offer letter to make sure you land Jane faster than anyone else.
• Adds her to payroll so there’s no delay with her first paycheck.
• Adds her to the org chart so all the relevant stakeholders know who she is and how to work with her.
• Gives her access to enroll in benefits to make sure she doesn’t miss a day of coverage.
• Assigns Jane training courses to get her up to speed on all company and compliance policies.
• Provides app access (Zoom, Slack, Figma, Adobe, and more!) so Jane can start learning and contributing from day one.
• Automatically sends a post-onboarding survey so you know how you did and where your company can improve.
• Triggers performance reviews after 30, 60, and 90 days to ensure you’re checking in every step of the way.

The effects of good or bad onboarding are far reaching. In fact, organizations with a strong onboarding processes improved new hire retention by 82%.

But the benefits don’t just stop there. Hiring managers with good onboarding processes reported that 49% of new hires were more engaged at work and 21% said outstanding onboarding helped their organization meet revenue goals.

So, if you want to uplevel employee performance, the first step is to get better at greeting your employees.

The Rippling effect on performance management

With 52% of HR leaders noting training managers and 50% noting upskilling employees as top priorities, it’s clear performance management is top of mind. But similarly to onboarding, technology doesn’t always make these complex processes easier. 

Much like onboarding, performance management can be divided into several tasks, including:

1. Setting company goals
2. Assigning individual goals
3. Creating 360 reviews
4. Assigning training courses
5. Re-aligning compensation bands
6. Awarding promotions
7. Updating payroll

With 53% of HR teams reporting they use seven or more tools per month, it’s no wonder that performance management can seem like an uphill battle. With Rippling, however, these tools are all in one place, with employee data at the forefront. 

Here is the Rippling effect on performance management. With Rippling,

• Set up automatic Milestone Reviews for Alan's manager to check in 30, 60, and 90 days after Alan is put on a PIP
• Assign quota goals that ramp up over time in Rippling Goals so Alan knows exactly what quota he needs to hit. 
• Assign training courses in Rippling LMS to help Alan fill in the gaps in his current skill set.
• Track Alan’s progress throughout the year at predetermined Milestone Reviews.
• Use 360 reviews to get inputs from Alan’s manager and cross-functional partners to set up ongoing evaluations of his performance and progress.
• Award a promotion at the end of the year to encourage even more improvement now that Alan is exceeding quota.
• Automatically update payroll to reflect Alan’s new success.

Today, data is power. Tiffany Cole, People Ops Director at Four Hands, explained the Rippling effect on her organization: “I gave my team the means to step into every conversation to show the rest of the business that there’s data behind every single person.”

The Rippling effect on churn risks

Another key aspect of performance management is spotting and removing problems before they balloon.

Most people have experienced a situation where one toxic coworker brings down the morale of an entire team. While the problem is evident for those involved, it can often be difficult for HR leaders to make a case to take action.

With Rippling, this becomes much easier to solve. Let’s look at an example with a toxic manager:

• Run 360 reviews to gather upward, downward, and peer feedback across the team.
• Create a report that automatically identifies managers who are ranked highly by their supervisors but poorly by their direct reports.
• Pull the salaries of the direct reports who are being negatively impacted by this “brilliant jerk.”
• Calculate the churn that you’ve seen so far to get a sense of what you can expect for that team if you ignore the abuse.
• Rippling automatically triggers 1:1 meetings with their supervisors so you can walk through your findings and decide on a course of action using Rippling Workflows.

Rippling can have profound effects on solving problems before they have a chance to send shockwaves throughout the organization.

As Kimberly Williams, VP of People at Walker Advertising, explains, “In systems like Rippling, this can all be set up to run automatically. You can drill down even further to look at absenteeism for the identified employees, shifts in performance, climate surveys, and other engagement markers. All of this can take intangible assumptions and help make them measurable to a degree.”

Make an outsized impact

It’s clear that the role of the HR leader is evolving toward becoming a more strategic function.

In order to make this happen, HR leaders must rethink how they operationalize processes from top to bottom. When HR (or IT or finance) creates an outsized impact on their business. That’s the Rippling effect.

Disclaimer: Rippling and its affiliates do not provide tax, accounting, or legal advice. This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide or be relied on for tax, accounting, or legal advice. You should consult your own tax, accounting, and legal advisors before engaging in any related activities or transactions.