Sapling - How to Set Up a Buddy Program

Introduction

A buddy program that encourages workplace friendships helps to achieve onboarding goals sooner by creating fewer pitfalls in the office flow and raising levels of employee engagement for new and existing employees alike.

Thanks to Sapling, you can set up a consistent, repeatable, and streamlined buddy program by:

1. Managing your buddy program via workflows and tasks
2. Setting up buddy program assignment notification email templates
3. Assigning a buddy during the new hire onboarding process

This article covers the following topics:

• Before Getting Started
• How to add a buddy into workflows and tasks
• Setting up the buddy program assignment notification email
• Assign a buddy during the onboarding process
• Update the assigned Buddy

 

Before Getting Started

An important thing to note: before getting started, make sure the buddy field has been enabled under the Profile Setup in the Administrative Tools section.

How to add a buddy into workflows and tasks

The first step is to create the buddy workflow in the Onboarding tab of the Workflows section. Here, click on New Workflow and fill out the tasks a buddy will be required to perform for the new hire.

Sample buddy program workflow and tasks:

To learn more on how to create workflows, please visit Everything You Need To Know About Tasks And Workflows.

Setting up the buddy program assignment notification email

The second step is to toggle on the buddy assignment notification that alerts them of the new buddy that's joining. In Sapling, navigate to Administration Tools, go to Outbox, then the Notifications tab, ensuring the toggle is turned on for "New buddy assigned". Click the edit button to edit the description of the notification (optional) 

Note: With Sapling, you can use tokens in email templates. Tokens are quick and easy shortcuts that add custom touches (for ex: inserting someone’s name using the ‘first name’ token) within emails, tasks, and workflows. To learn more about tokens, please visit Everything You Need To Know About Tasks And Workflows.

For more details on email notifications, please visit New Activities Notification (for Existing Team Members).

Assign a buddy during the onboarding process

The third step consists of assigning the buddy to the new hire during the onboarding process. In the second Profile info section of onboarding, insert the name of the buddy in the Buddy field.

Important thing to note: If the buddy is not assigned during the onboarding process by the Admin but assigned later by the Manager (e.g. through the Manager Form), the buddy email notification will not be sent automatically. The Admin or Super Admin will have to manually trigger the email notification at a later stage.

Next, in the Assign Activities section of the new hire onboarding, select the Buddy Program workflow that was created during Step 1.

Once the onboarding is initiated, the buddy will be notified of the new hire.

Update the assigned Buddy

When you change the buddy assigned to a team member, and tasks are already assigned to the buddy, you would have to re-assign those specific tasks to the new buddy manually.