Preboarding is an important yet often underestimated period for each new hire. Preboarding starts as soon as you confirm the hire and ends with their first day at work. HR departments at modern organizations take advantage of this period to build a solid foundation for long term fulfilment and work commitment and eliminate new hire turnover.
Get ready, let’s play
How can organizations achieve a solid foundation? The key is to prepare for preboarding. Prepare in advance the procedures and content you want to share and discuss with the new hire prior to their start date. Communicate with them in a friendly, interactive way, since exerting pressure would result in stress that would disrupt your relationship from the very start.
Modern recruitment and employee relations trends increasingly lean toward interactive tools in guiding new hires. For example, through the use of gamification elements, or a game itself, a new hire can be guided through the company culture, organizational structure, team dynamics, employment conditions, training materials and can even lighten up some topics such as rules and regulations.
If you provide specific incentives that the new hire can look forward to, include them in the preboarding tools. You can also provide a more intimate and revealing look at the company environment and facilities, the workplace for that individual employee, a map of the office or system entries. As they go through the information, the new hire can identify seamlessly with their role in the company culture and, having come onboard, can concentrate with an uncluttered mind on the performance they will do for the company.
Part of the team even before the start date
For new hires, starting a new job comes with a lot of enthusiasm but also stress. They are also constantly re
-evaluating their decision before (and after) their start date and may, at any time, change their mind. A new hire’s existing employer may make use of this pre-start period to try and convince them to turn down an offer and remain in their current position. So, hook your new hire at the interview – assure them that you and the team are looking forward to their arrival and introduce them to the preboarding plan. They will feel like they are already part of the team and won‘t be overwhelmed by negative assumptions or tempted by the efforts of the company they are leaving.
Share stories
Invite your new hire to a company party or dinner with the team. Even if you already feel very well aligned professionally, recruitment is a cultural and social process in which personal contact plays an important role. Share stories and reveal your colleagues’ qualities. In so doing so, you will shift your bond to a more personal level. The new hire will adapt more naturally and won’t run away because they feel they are just another number in the company structure.