So, you’ve hired someone—congrats! But are you going to sit back in your employer/HR chair, idly waiting for them to synchronize with your team on Day One as if magically?
If you wait until their first day in the workplace, you’re already too late with employee onboarding. It should start at “You’re hired,” not at “Here’s your desk” (or “Here’s our Slack channel,” if you onboard workers remotely). At this very moment, you should preboard your new employees.
Let’s figure out why bother, anyway, and see how it works with the best practices and tools.
Once a new employee says “Yes” to your job offer and you seal the deal, as they say, the preboarding countdown begins. It is onboarding prior to the first day at work.
In essence, employee preboarding is a phase between signing the employment contracts and the first welcome days at work. Yet, importantly, it doesn’t stop on Day One. It rather naturally glides into onboarding, merging with it seamlessly, and helps HR managers and employers do the following.
We all know that timeworn truth: You never get a second chance to make a first impression. And you won’t. Actually, 60% of new hires agree that the first impression about the employer is hardly changeable once made.
You can’t simply hit replay on your first “Welcome!” to your new hires. What you can (and should!) do is “wow” them and strengthen your employer brand. (We’ll show you how.)
The first workday is as exciting as it is terrifying for new employees. (Who’s my manager? Where’s the coffee machine? What should I bring to the office on the first day?) You should clearly understand new hire psychology with apprehensions like these:
Fear of the unknown
Imposter syndrome
Anxiety about socializing with the team
Information overload (It is a huge challenge for 81% of new employees.)
Fear of failure
And more.
That’s why, at the preboarding stage, it’s crucial to give all the needed answers and materials and professionally reassure them that they can handle this.
Without employee preboarding, the first weeks can seem like traveling through a fogged forest with neither a map nor a compass.
But when you preboard new employees, they get a clearly drawn map, a flashlight, and often a buddy (or a mentor) to walk with. When you create a smooth onboarding experience before Day One, you make it more pleasant and comfortable for your new team members to enter the workplace, go through a pleasant and worry-free onboarding journey, and settle in.
Why wait until the welcome day to engage new hires? Preboarding translates as, “We already consider you our team member—so let’s connect!” It also presupposes employee engagement strategies to:
Communicate
Socialize
Grow the feeling of kinship to the corporate culture
Foster a sense of inclusion and belonging
This all sets your new workers up for success, making them feel connected, involved, and, dare we say, even a little hyped about joining your team.
In fact, Gallup found only one in ten employees (12%) is satisfied with the onboarding process at their organization. And when they have a perfect onboarding experience (“exceptional” in the research), they are 2.6 times more likely to feel happy in the workplace and more inclined to stay.
As a result, you can boost employee retention by creating a sense of trust and commitment from Day One and showing appreciation. Make your new hires feel valued and reap one of the greatest benefits of onboarding in general and preboarding, in particular,→ eternal employee loyalty.
Just like you run a scalable onboarding program (surely, you do, don’t you?), it would be useful to unfold a phase-by-phase preboarding project on a company-wide level. For that, you need to form a dedicated “Preboard Crew” and involve members from different departments:
Talent Acquisition Specialist or Recruiter
HR Manager
IT Specialist
Team Lead or Supervisor
Mentor/Buddy
L&D Manager
Senior Leadership (optional)
For example: Let’s explore the retail niche. The preboarding project at Lidl, a food retailer, is a brilliant case of well-thought employee onboarding prior to Workday #1 in the store. They collaborate with Recruiting and Employer Branding, Development and Training, and other teams to develop “the process, structure, and content of preboarding at Lidl.”
1. Welcome Call
Again, Lidl leads the example of welcoming new employees on board.
The “Before You Join” page on their Career website clearly states: “Your Line Manager will be giving you a Welcome Call before you join Lidl.”
This call is necessary to ask questions and clarify all the essential details for smooth onboarding.
2. Welcome Email
Additionally, you can also send the “We can’t wait to have you on board!” email to your new hire once their preboarding mission launches. Put a tick if you have these in your welcome emails to new workers:
Personalized greeting
“What to expect” cheat sheet
Onboarding documents and forms to fill out (I-9 Form, NDA, etc.)
Tools and accounts to set up
Contact info for questions
(Add other elements if needed.)
For example: Amid preboarding at Netflix, new workers receive personalized welcome emails. These messages outline the onboarding process and set expectations for the first days at the company.
3. Welcome Kit
And finally, make a small but inviting gesture with a pre-day-one care package, aka a welcome kit. Welcome kits typically consist of:
Greeting card (or a handwritten note)
Tech gear (commonplace in the technology industry): laptop, headphones, etc.
Office supplies and stationery items: pens, notebooks, post-it notes, etc.
Gift card (optional but awesome!)
Branded merchandise: hoodie, tote bag, coffee mug, etc.
For example: Motive, an IT company, traditionally includes laptops, stationeries, custom T-shirts, water bottles, caps, and socks in new-hire welcome kits.
That’s practically the what-to-expect cheat sheet you might have on your welcome email checklist when you preboard your new hires. The 30-60-90 onboarding plan is one of the most popular variants to visualize the new employee’s path and navigate them toward the phase’s wrap-up.
For example: You may use a 30-60-90 day plan template from Asana and schedule onboarding tasks in blocks.
Note: This is also where the employer can prepare the new employee for their weekly/monthly targets and KPIs (or OKRs). Setting challenging but realistic performance goals for a fresh starter is a tough task for every employer, regardless of the industry. Yet, it’s a must-do because your new workers should know what productivity levels you expect from them on Day One and during the first weeks/months.
In the opinion of Molly Ancel, Managing Partner at Peerpoint Property Solutions, there’s nothing more frustrating for a new hire than facing a completely unfamiliar tool or system on Day One. “The preboarding stage is just the proper time to grant access to internal communication and collaboration tools as well as industry-specific systems to bring your new employees on the same page with other team members. Literally. Besides, it will help you reduce the snowballing amount of how-it-works questions at the next onboarding stage.”
For example: In real estate, these are MLS (Multiple Listing Services), camera drones for aerial photography, etc. If you work in the healthcare sector, it can be an EHR (Electronic Health Record) system, medical CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platform, doctor booking software, etc.
In fact, the onboarding experience is 83% more positive if employers invest more in communication already at the preboarding stage. Do it both in-person and remotely.
How about inviting your new employee to an informal, get-to-know-you meeting with the whole team, inside or outside the office?
This will be their first team-bonding experience to meet with colleagues and establish friendly connections in the workplace. Staff it with getting-to-know-you activities and icebreakers like “Would You Rather?” questions or Two Truths and a Lie.
Now, let’s move to virtual interactions with new hires during preboarding. You may preboard and engage remote employees via digital channels like these:
Video-conferencing tool
Social media
Learning management system (LMS)
SMS or text messaging via Telegram or WhatsApp
Company’s intranet
For example: You can use HR Cloud’s Workmates, an intuitive social intranet for teams to socialize better at the preboarding, onboarding, or any other stage of the employee journey.
For example: Livermore Pets streamlined new hire communication with Workmates by HR Cloud. As a result, they saw a “60% reduction in procedural queries” from the fresh starters and engaged them better virtually.
With HR Cloud, you can welcome new team members and bring them on board successfully without a hitch. It offers everything you need for fast and efficient onboarding before Day One, from new hire checklists with fill-out forms to employee satisfaction surveys to collect feedback afterward.
HR Cloud’s Onboard Solution + Workmates = Onboarding Success.
Grab this formula and create unforgettable preboarding experiences for your new hires before they even step through your company’s door, physically or virtually.
Author:
This article is written by KrishnaSurendra in close association with HR Cloud. HR Cloud is a leading provider of proven HR solutions, including recruiting, onboarding, employee communications & engagement, and rewards & recognition. Our user-friendly software increases employee productivity, delivers time and cost savings, and minimizes compliance risk.