What is employment, and what’s the significance of employee preboarding? Initial perceptions of your business lay the groundwork for your workers’ work interactions and experiences. From the first screening to the first week at the workplace, you must be influencing your first impressions.
Most likely, you consider employee engagement from the start. You focus on strengthening your corporate image by providing a fantastic recruiting process when you assess potential workers.
And after you’ve hired them, you concentrate on delivering excellent onboarding so they’ll feel welcome and gain the knowledge they require to get going. But frequently, companies forget to take an essential intermediate step called employee preboarding.
You have an excellent opportunity to foster enthusiasm and assist employees in making a successful start during this phase, which occurs between job offers and formalized onboarding. However, improper employee preboarding can negatively impact your business. How?
Untreated anxiety affects 80% of workers as they wait to begin a new job; this worry persists after the commencement date and lowers motivation, output, and longevity. Worse still, having second thoughts may cause you to back out of a commitment; as per a survey, 28% of workers have done this.
In what ways does employee preboarding vary from onboarding, then? In this post, we’ll review the importance of employee preboarding and offer advice on creating a smooth process to help your new workers succeed.
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What Is Employee Preboarding?
Let’s consider the example of a standard hiring procedure. Imagine a corporation that makes software and has just discovered the ideal applicant for a technical post. Interviews were completed, references were examined, and you sent the offer. The applicant agrees to participate, and the commencement date is within four weeks.
Usually, the onboarding procedure starts on the employee’s first day of employment. But have you thought of those interim four weeks? The role of employee preboarding in the process is the time between registering and reporting.
There is frequently a transitional phase between the hire date and the joining date, and a great deal might occur during those weeks. Businesses can use employee preboarding to familiarize workers with the organization and handle necessary paperwork instead of abandoning a recruit to fume and imagine what happens next.
Employee Preboarding and Onboarding: What’s the Difference?
It might not seem like a distinction between employee preboarding and onboarding. Admittedly, they both revolve around assisting your new employees in transitioning from strong prospects to strong workers. However, the two phases have distinct functions. Thus you should not incorporate them into the same sentence.
Whenever a new worker arrives for their job’s first day, onboarding begins, intending to assist them in adjusting to their new position.
New hires may not be productive to their full potential for several months after beginning work. The goal of induction is to acquaint new hires with the organization, its ethos, and their particular role and duties so they may start contributing to the team as soon as feasible.
If you do orientation remotely, this may become more difficult. Hence, it’s vital to capture the attention of your recruits right away.
Employee preboarding, however, bridges the time between employment and reporting for duty. Everything comes down to making employees feel enthusiastic, engaged, and welcomed in their positions. Additionally, it’s an excellent opportunity to finish some crucial administrative tasks so they can get ready for work once they begin.
Why Is Employee Preboarding Important?
Filling the time between the date of hire and the starting date keeps candidates enthusiastic about their work, which is excellent for their entire experience and your firm’s financial health.
Employee churn costs money. According to data, new hires with an enjoyable outlook are 69 percent more inclined to remain with their employer over the following three years.
A person’s energy can dwindle if they are cut off from communication after being recruited but before being paid. In reality, 65% of companies report having hired somebody who later failed to come to the office after accepting a job offer.
Employee preboarding provides an opportunity to make new employees feel at home and encourage them to get involved immediately in the new company. This is particularly crucial for distant or blended professionals who may experience occupational isolation even after they begin.
How to Create Productive Employee Preboarding?
A smooth employee preboarding procedure eases new hires into the position. Once they’ve agreed to enter your company, you shouldn’t abandon them in the dark, just like you would not keep them uninformed during orientation in their first days in the office.
Building involvement should be the top priority during employee preboarding. It ought to be a warm reception for the new hire and aid in their early integration into your business. The stages of your employee preboarding procedure are listed here, including some best practices for each phase.
1. Send goodies for preboarding (or a personalized welcome)
Honestly, receiving gifts is a breeze. They make your new employees feel welcome and let them know you’re determined to create something unique with them.
Sure, a job offers a wage, the potential for career advancement, and perhaps health benefits, but small acts of kindness can be equally significant. Salespeople know that holiday cards, which are written by hand, and gift hampers help maintain and enhance client connections.
This approach also applies to your new hires during employee preboarding. Your gift will shout, “Yes, you did it!” as they wait in suspense to determine whether they were wise to accept the job.
Tech behemoths like Dropbox, Salesforce, and Google send extensive welcome kits with customized pens, journals, glasses, and backpacks. To further convey your company’s personality and ideals, choose a more imaginative schwag (such as slinkies, granola, enameled badges, or a plant pot).
Every organization may be unable to afford lavish welcoming kits, but much like birthday presents, it’s the thought that matters. For instance, a handmade, customized postcard communicates — without raising preboarding expenses, you know how valuable your new hire is.
Other options include sending letters from teammates with specific insider knowledge and on-the-job experiences, an introduction clip from the founder or HR professional, or a congratulatory message conveying your joy at seeing them join the league.
2. Request input on your hiring procedure
Constructive feedback on your recruitment procedure signals the change from applicants to team members and enables you to obtain current opinions to enhance your hiring method.
Employee participation is crucial because it fosters productivity, innovation, and alignment between individual and corporate progress. Additionally, it’s simplest to develop right away, like most other components of a healthy corporate culture.
By soliciting comments from your new workers during employee preboarding, you’re setting them up to feel appreciated, motivating them to change things, and establishing a continual line of comments — crucial tactics to increase retention.
Requesting input is not only for a new employee. A recent member is the best source of information regarding your hiring procedure, and the information they provide may significantly affect your financial situation.
72% of job applicants blogged about a negative recruiting encounter, and this negative publicity may discourage talented employees from trying to apply: 55% of job searchers have decided not to join a firm after reading a negative online review. [Source]
Make a quick applicant experience questionnaire to gather feedback. You can improve your recruitment methods and hiring procedures by using an amalgamation of statistical data and subtle personal experiences.
Close-ended queries, including scoring systems and true or false questionnaires, and open-ended questions, that generally start with “how,” “why,” and “what” are examples of close-ended queries.
3. Start your administrative work early
Employee preboarding is probably when your new employee is most nervous and excited, so don’t miss it. To avert the first day filled with busy work, direct part of that energy toward finishing administrative responsibilities.
No one enjoys spending the first day filling out paperwork and opening accounts. Offer your fresh hires the chance to have a jumpstart so that day one will be more thrilling.
Make your intentions known by highlighting that documentation is not required to be completed in advance but also by describing any potential benefits of starting early.
While the workers complete their to-do lists, HR will be responsible for carrying out the bulk of the work, namely maintaining the organization. Create a single, comprehensive list of assignments for new employees to complete, including:
Activating accounts (email, Slack, and other collaboration/productivity tools), validating employee records for your business directory, entering employee details into the payroll system, and completing necessary government employment files are all required. Use a platform like Trello to communicate and organize these activities.
4. Address their inquiries about what to anticipate before they inquire
Each business has its own expectations. It is your job to inform them as soon as possible and upfront. Unknown specifics may be the cause of anxiety in new employees. It doesn’t take much information to avoid misunderstanding and rookie mistakes.
.Not understanding the important things always makes beginning a new career more stressful for someone.
Create a new-hire FAQ to address frequent queries:
- What time should I show up?
- What should I wear?
- Where should I park? How can I locate the entrance?
- What tools should I bring?
- Where should I address inquiries?
- What is the typical lunchtime activity?
To help new hires get over their first-day anxieties, this is also an excellent chance to distribute tools like an employee manual, a benefits reference, and role-specific details.
5. Make the onboarding plan clear by sending calendar invitations
A timetable will keep everybody organized throughout the hectic first few weeks of new employment. Distributing these invitations in advance makes the whole thing appear natural to workers languishing in employee preboarding limbo, so don’t wait.
To further emphasize that they are joining a vibrant community, you can fill their schedule with training modules, manager sessions, and company-wide activities (such as anniversaries, all-hands gatherings, and volunteering days).
6. Request them to hangout before boarding
Although we are significant proponents of asynchronous working, nothing can replace face-to-face interaction for fostering community.
For recruits, an informal gathering with team members is a terrific way to establish connections before the first day. While lunches or happy hours are typical, quick get-to-know-you conversations can also facilitate the formation of early ties. Additionally, resist letting the new normal hinder the process of your efforts to create an online community.
Consider assigning new employees to one or two prospective colleagues who are role models for the workplace culture. Select people who reflect your firm to serve as an induction companion during the onboarding process rather than just inviting a recent hire’s direct manager.
7. Permit them to explore your educational platform
The point has undoubtedly discussed the corporation’s values and beliefs your new employee is in employee preboarding. Giving users priority access to the learning platform gives you the chance to keep their word.
Gaining familiarity with the technology in advance is always a good idea because training portals are an essential component of induction and on-the-job learning. More significantly, giving new hires entry to your learning management system enables them to observe the company’s principles in action.
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8. Ask them to create a unique introduction
Customization during employee preboarding is excellent whenever possible, which works both ways. Give your recruits the freedom to create communities according to their standards and take charge of their first impressions.
Don’t overwhelm your new employee with many alternatives if you want to offer them the chance to influence their initial impression. Set some guidelines, such as making a presentation with pictures and interesting facts, a short introduction clip, or a questionnaire.
Virtual introductions are crucial for big or remote firms, where the recruit cannot shake hands with everyone in the workplace.
Conclusion: Organize and Automate for Efficient Employee Preboarding
Preboarding may be a terrific enhancement to employee engagement, and by preplanning your procedure, you can keep it effortless. To ensure nothing is overlooked, arrange your activities and construct a checklist for the employee preboarding process.
As much as you can, virtualize the workflow and automate it. Even though your recruit will function in person, you may make their experience more accessible by letting them register and transmit correspondence online.
Initial impressions raise the standard for future employee satisfaction. You’ll lay the groundwork for solid employee retention by designing an effective and friendly employee preboarding program.
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