Guide To Pre-Boarding New Hires

Pre-boarding is about preparing your new employees for the first day of their job and making them feel a part of the company’s culture right from day one.

The pre-boarding phase begins once an individual accepts the offer-letter and ends on their first day at a job. Their pre-boarding participation encourages them to perform efficiently and productively even before the commencement of their jobs.

It is also about getting your employees to speed up the knowledge transfer process and shorten the time to productivity.

Pre-boarding and Onboarding processes can take many shapes and forms.

Every organization based on its need and setup should create a dedicated flow of pre-boarding, which suits its employee’s needs and requirements effectively.

Through a well-designed pre-boarding system, company’s policies, standards, laws, code of conduct, employee benefits, leaves, holidays can be clearly outlined and shared way before, reducing the onboarding cost and time.

Step 1 – A usual pre-boarding phase begins when a company sends the first welcome message to a new hire, either via email or a text message, and shares the employees’ excitement about being hired.

Step 2 – A great step would be to introduce the new hires to their team even before joining. A new job involves meeting a lot of new people. Shoot a welcome video where everybody in the team introduces themselves to the new hire. This will help make people comfortable with known faces on the first day at work.

Step 3 – A third point to consider is equipping your new hires with some practical information before the first day. Assigning them a buddy that could help them get around and get to know the new place, fill out the important paperwork, and inform them about your company operations.
Provide them a schedule so that they know when to meet and who will greet them.

Pre-boarding and Onboarding from an employee perspective:

The reason most employees can progress quickly and develop is when there is an efficient structure in place for them to grow.

An efficient pre-boarding plan is all about getting vital information for an employee right from the day they signed the joining contract. Which effectively results in them being job-ready right from day one. Pre-boarding allows them to join the company confidently.

Followed by an efficient Onboarding program for a couple of days or weeks works remarkably for the new hires—a perfect introduction to the company.

Blended learning, especially when incorporated with Pre-boarding & Onboarding, allows the new hires to understand and retain far more information than they would be able to have without pre-boarding.

Due to blended learning, new joiners are able to create a dialogue about every essential aspect that concerns them about the work-related capability that they feel like could be improved. A great pre-boarding platform gives employees a perfect place to communicate with their managers both in the office and outside.

Another aspect that helps the new hires is transparency. Through an engaging and exemplary pre-boarding system, new employees can be vocal about their goals and the direction they want to move in. And their manager/supervisor can guide them towards achieving those goals.

From a unique perspective, starting at a company that genuinely helped the new hires to perform successfully at their job tasks and understanding their job description from the beginning creates determination and loyalty in employees towards their company, and also helps them find their strengths. It puts them in the best position of moving forward in the right direction.

Importance and Benefits of Pre-boarding:

Every organization has employees coming in, with new experiences; they learn new things, meet new people at the workplace.

It is essential to identify whether the experiences they have or the things they learn are helping them to engage with the organization in a positive way.

Pre-boarding and Onboarding is a strategic system designed to decrease staff turnover by increasing staff engagement.

Retention could have a direct impact on a business’s ability to achieve its strategic objectives. If a company is always in the cycle of hire, lose, and hire, that means it is unnecessarily draining staff’s energy and the company’s monetary resources.

At times there are some legitimate reasons that some people leave, but when you have put so much time and effort into recruiting employees, you wish to retain them.

If a company wants to retain its brightest and compatible new hires for an extended period, then they put maximum effort into making employees understand their jobs in the early stages.

The motivation of having a job is not enough; most employees, especially the most compatible ones that you want to keep around, need to have some sort of purpose about the work that they are doing.

And to give them that purpose, you have to be around and talk to them and train them right after hiring them for the job.

When a new employee, lateral or entry-level, joins an organization, they tend to consume the most valuable resource of an organization. It’s time; staff-time, training time, productivity time.

On average, a new joiner takes about 6 months to reach a breakeven point in terms of resource consumption and starts directly contributing to an organization’s growth.

So, if an employee decides to move on from a job within the first six months of their joining, they ideally contribute to negative cash burn to an organization.

Hence, it becomes more than essential to address the confusion and dilemma of an employee way before they hamper productivity in the long run.

Pre-boarding Best Practices:

Structured pre-boarding and onboarding practices can increase employee motivation and lower staff turnover, and they can also increase supervisor/managers’ satisfaction with new hire’s performance.

A commendable pre-boarding and onboarding system improves employee’s job description clarity, and that ultimately leads to higher productivity from the initial stage of the job.

This initial effort is significant because a company spends their valuable time in recruiting and selecting staff after going through multiple crucial steps.

The two essential phases of the pre-boarding and Onboarding process are – First is how an employee feels about the company, and second is to make new hires productive fast in his/her performance.

Let’s look into some ideas that would help you in achieving your desired goal from pre-boarding practices.

• • Start the conversation with your employees right after you have rolled out the offer for the job. Send a welcome message and let them know when they are starting, their role at the company, a little about their job description, objectives, and expectations. Inquire about their likings, their hobbies, or random fun-fact to know them better.
  Managers may also share relevant information about themself and their team, type of professionalism they expect, the process and tools that they used.
  Take the conversation to the ice-breaking point where the new hire finds it easy to communicate necessary and meaningful input.
• Teammates or supervisors might also call new hires to welcome them. It could be just a short conversation of a few minutes, it could be a nice way to indulge a new employee into company values and culture, helping them be a part of the larger group. A small video from the CEO of the company can make a remarkable difference in the pre-boarding process.
• According to research, a considerable number of new hires want to have a buddy for their first week of the job. A “go-to person” for immediate help because in the initial days, to answer those reluctant questions and issues.
• Invite your new hire over tea or lunch to make their pre-boarding memorable. It is a good way to introduce the new joiner and the team with each other. Invite them over a restaurant or cafeteria, bring in the dessert, and have that meaningful conversation.
• If the organization provides training in the first month of the job, then provide all the necessary information about training and its schedule to employees in the pre-boarding phase. Discuss the purpose and goal of the training and what outcome can be expected out of it. Share pieces of training curriculum, location, essential tools to be taken. Providing all the relevant information about training will keep them prepared to receive it.
• Keep the question portal always open and encourage the new hires to raise any pertaining question. Queries related to their new job, their team, the gadgets they will be using, computer networks, whom to report, how to communicate, how to dress, the company’s culture, ethics, etc. When you give your new hires this remarkable welcome, it makes them feel valued, and ultimately this appreciation will help you with your company’s branding. They will be putting more effort into outperforming your existing staff because happy and valued employees are more creative and loyal to the company.
  
• On their first day after completing the necessary paperwork, give them a small kit containing all essentials notebook, pen, USB, and maybe a welcome card signed by the manager and team members. This can also be done in the pre-boarding phase, where you can deliver this pack to their homes after they have submitted the required documents.

Remember presentation is the key, you might include other items in the package as well depending upon the budget you have set for pre-boarding and onboarding phase.

At the end of the pre-boarding and onboarding phase, take the new hires’ feedback, which will help to make the system more efficient. Coming back home, the new hire is assured that he has joined a great organization and is looking forward to a long journey ahead

Additional tips to prepare for your starters day:

• Immediately start after the candidate accepts the offer letter.
• Try to make a positive impression by a warm welcome
• Familiarize employees with the company and its departments.
• Reinforce corporate culture.
• Show them that you treat your entire staff with respect. Be it the junior staff or senior management.
• Keep dialogues for questions open.

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