The importance of preboarding employees

It is a striking fact that 30% of job seekers leave their job within 90 days of starting their new role ¹.

Organisations with strong onboarding processes see significant decreases in staff turnover and increases in staff engagement, and therefore productivity, from team members. In fact, staff who complete onboarding processes are 52% more likely to still be with the company after two years ². You can read more about the benefits of a solid employee onboarding process here. and we cover crossboarding and what should it include here.

Onboarding begins as soon as a new recruit accepts the role. There is usually a period of time, however, that elapses between role acceptance and actually starting the job, during which little to no communication takes place. Notice periods are worked and without communication from their new employer, this period of time can bring with it new job offers and renegotiated contracts. It is all too easy to lose a new recruit (and all the investment made to get to this point) to a competitor before they have even started.

Preboarding employees

This is where preboarding comes in. Employee pre-boarding allows you to build engagement and enthusiasm between offer acceptance and their first day by offering the new hire opportunities to onboard for their new role long before they step foot through your organization’s doors.

Sending a personal welcome email is a great starting point; as is a first day schedule and virtual introductions to the team they will be working with. In fact, many of the checklist tasks for  successfully onboarding an employee [link] that would usually be completed once the team member starts can be initiated prior to starting the role. This frees up time and energy in the first few weeks for your new hire to get to know their team and to get on with the work that they have been hired to do. In addition, this gives the new team member a sense of ownership over the role and ensures they feel valued and wanted by their new organisation.

Using a platform such as Method Grid for your employee onboarding enables you to share a personalized onboarding grid with a new recruit prior to them being onsite and having access to your intranet and internal documents. Key initiation documents, information about the company’s missions, visions, values and culture, along with paperwork requiring signing can be accessed remotely within the shared platform.

In summary, investment in a robust onboarding process is a valuable way to increase employee engagement and productivity. Kickstarting this from the point of new hire job acceptance using a strategic pre-boarding plan is a great way to reduce staff turnover and ensure your next new hire is ready and raring to go on day one.

See our related case study on staff inductions using Method Grid.

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Footnotes

1. Jobvite survey; 2019: The Strength of the Job Market is One-Sided, Accessed May 2020: https://www.jobvite.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/2019_Job_Seeker_Nation.pdf
2. SHRM Guidleines; Onboarding New Employees: Maximizing Success; Accesed May 2020: https://www.shrm.org/foundation/ourwork/initiatives/resources-from-past-initiatives/Documents/Onboarding%20New%20Employees.pdf