Preparation is the key to a successful onboarding experience. Pre-boarding is your prep time that helps you gather everything you need before your new hire’s first day.

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March 7, 2022
7 Must-Know Strategies for Pre-boarding New Hires
like a Pro
process.st/pre-boarding-new-hires
Grace Donaldson
March 7, 2022
Human Resources, Onboarding
The first few months of employment are crucial – we get that! Well, what if I told you that
it’s not the first few months you should be worried about.
Don’t get me wrong – those months are important, but you really need to think about the
days BEFORE your new hire is welcomed to the team.
Yes, that’s right, folks. You need to start onboarding before your new hire has even
arrived.
Please put your hands together for your new best friend: Pre-boarding.
Like with most things, preparation is the key to a successful onboarding experience. Pre-
boarding is your prep time that helps you gather everything you need before your new
hire’s first day. It empowers you to set a good impression and helps your new hire
understand what they can expect throughout the whole onboarding (and employment
process).

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Long story short – if your pre-boarding is disorganized, you’re already off to a bad start
and increasing the already staggering chance that this new hire will leave before their first
three months of employment. I’m going to help ensure that doesn’t happen in this Process
Street article.
Taking a look at the advantages of a pre-boarding new hires
process
Employee turnover costs an average of 100% and 300% of a new hire’s salary. Well, what
if I told you you can prevent this from happening by preparing your new candidates from
the second they accept your offer – long before they begin their onboarding journey.
Creating and successfully executing a pre-boarding process can do exactly that. This pre-
boarding is the process your company has in place from when a recruit accepts your offer
up to their start date.
The focus of pre-boarding your new hires is to prepare them for their role in your
company while also keeping them engaged before their start date. How your company
decides to welcome their new hires depends on your budget and existing culture. No
matter these factors, you should always prioritize having a pre-boarding plan.
Why? It helps you achieve benefits that would otherwise be out of reach with only an
onboarding process in place.
1st day experience is improved
“I arrived at the office and no one remembered I was due to start that day”
“None of the information HR gave me was correct. I didn’t even know when to show up
on my first day.”
“My office letter was made out to someone by a different name.”
Disastrous first days are far too frequent events. I know it, you know it, and you’ve
probably experienced a few in your time – I know I have.
Well, these aren’t just bad experiences. They also lead to new hires quitting before their
seat is warm. At least 4% of hires quit after their first day because of these exact
experiences.
A structured and well-executed pre-boarding plan can make your new hire’s first day at
work good. Important tasks are highlighted and all necessary paperwork is completed
before they’ve even entered the office.
They aren’t signing forms or traveling through insane amounts of red tape. Rather, the
pre-boarding process is catered to encourage relationship-building among managers and
colleagues. It’s no secret that people feel involved when they’re part of something bigger.
That’s the recipe for offering a killer first day.

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Offers a more organized process
There’s nothing worse than searching through tons of paperwork looking for that one
form you swear you saw yesterday. Having a dedicated pre-boarding hub helps you
outline the tasks you need to complete before the new hire’s first day.
This might include filling out forms, introducing yourself to the new hire, giving them the
appropriate instructions for their first day, and informing team members of their start
date. Before you know it, you’re already building rapport with your new hire and
solidifying their commitment to your company before they even begin work.
New hire is more productive from the start
I’ve already shown you that a decent pre-boarding process sets the tone for the entire
onboarding experience, but it’s more than just a good first impression you’re giving your
new hires.
Since they get the admin work before their first day, they can sink their teeth into the real
work from the beginning. In-house training and other job-related work can be
streamlined.
At Process Street, our new hires are added to Slack channels before their first day so they
can get a feel for what’s going on. Our People Team is in contact with the new employees
from the moment they accept to even after their first day to ensure everything runs
smoothly.
We also have a pre-boarding workflow for our new employees that automatically sends
them all the required paperwork in advance. By the time it’s their first day, the paperwork
has already been approved and they can get to doing what they were hired for and
building relationships with their co-workers.

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The seven wonders of the pre-boarding world
Preparing your new hire for their role before they embark on their onboarding journey
enhances employee retention. Yes, I might make it sound easy but breaking down the
process can help you create the best pre-boarding experience.
Please let me guide you through the seven magnificent wonders of the world – well, pre-
boarding world – that can help you keep your new hires engaged.
Create a process
The first step to implementing any process is to create it. You want to construct a pre-
boarding process that highlights everything you expect to be done before your new hire
arrives. From here, you can see what tasks are recurring.

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This helps you identify what you can automate to ensure you’re spending your time doing
things that you really need to do – and getting those magical automation robots to do the
rest. Process Street is exactly the place where you can do this.
You can plan how you want this process to perform with Pages and then implement this
plan into workflows. Any other information you might need during the pre-boarding
process – employee handbook, reading list, your favorite coffee shop’s menu, anything –
can be stored in Pages alongside your workflows for easy access. Process automations can
then be linked with recurring tasks to help save time.
Announce their arrival
Once you’ve structured your pre-boarding process, you want to include a specific task to
inform your existing employees about welcoming the new hire. There’s nothing worse
than starting your first day without anyone welcoming you – or knowing that you’re
coming.
Letting your existing employees know about your new hire’s start date helps everyone
prepare for their arrival. It enhances transparency, communication, and ensures you’re
organized for the new hire’s arrival.
If you’re using Slack as your company communication platform, Process Street can
integrate with it. From here, you can write a message within your pre-boarding workflow
informing your employees about this new hire’s arrival.
Get personal with it
Handing out generic onboarding materials isn’t very engaging. Wouldn’t you feel a lot
more welcome if your onboarding process was personalized for you? Personalization is
exactly what you need to get your new hires excited about their role in your company.
The first step to offering this is by considering the individual needs of your new hires.
Then, you can begin designing a pre-boarding and onboarding process that caters to these
needs.
Variables in Process Street are information specific to your workflow run that you can
enter into form fields. Of course, sharing pieces of variable information (like your new
hire’s name, start date, job title, department, and previous work experience) can take time
to gather and share. That isn’t the case with a process management tool – like Process
Street – where you can take whatever variable information you need, put it into an email
widget or send it off into Slack messages.
Whenever we welcome a new hire to Process Street, the announcement is made in our
general Slack channel. This gives us the opportunity to give them a warm welcome.
Why stop at personalized information and onboarding materials? Start building rapport
with lunch during the new hire’s first day. Add a task to schedule it and you’re set! Maybe
lunch isn’t practical, but everyone always has time for a coffee. That works even with

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remote teams.
Virtual coffee ‘breaks’ are all the rave – and for good reason. I can speak from personal
experience. We recently welcomed a new writer to our content team. To get to know him,
our remote team held a Zoom meeting where we played Two Truths and a Lie as a team
icebreaker to get to know the new hire.
Ask for their opinion on your hiring process
I like my opinion to be heard. Maybe it’s because I like the sound of my own voice, but
most of the time it’s because when I can express my thoughts, it makes me feel valued,
understood, and cared for. This is a pretty standard feeling that I think we all share.
A new hire that feels valued helps reduce churn and strengthens their relationship with
their employer. Getting your new hire to share their opinion on your hiring process does
exactly that.
But wait! It also gives you valuable insight into the strengths and weaknesses of your
hiring process, allowing you to improve it. Before the new hire has even started working,
they’ve offered significant contributions to your company and feel valued while doing so.
Help with the admin
It’s no secret that a new hire has to go through a mountain of bureaucracy. They have to
sign copious amounts of paperwork, get familiar with company software, and set up their
workspace. But it doesn’t have to be so tedious. When you offer your new hires some help,
you’re letting them know that you care and want to be supportive.
One way you can do this is by setting up a company email account. By doing that, it’s
ready for them before their first day has even started. Offering some extra help also
empowers them to get right into work faster, which is a win for you.
Getting these tasks out of the way before their first day loops the new hire into current
company communications. It also lets them familiarize themselves with any tech before
it’s essential for them to use it and they can handle any glitches or access problems.
Using an Automation like DocuSign – which you can incorporate straight into your
Process Street workflow – also cuts down on the amount of paperwork to deal with. Who
doesn’t love being able to sign multiple documents with one click?
Another great tip is encouraging managers to invite your new hire to upcoming meetings
once this inbox is live. When I started my role at Process Street, I was shaking in my
boots.
That all came to an end after logging on to my new company email for the first time. I had
invites to all the meetings I needed to attend, a copy of the employee handbook, and links
to other onboarding resources I might need. As a result, I felt far more prepared for what
to expect.

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Taking the same steps is bound to put your new hires at ease.
Offer clear guidance
It’s reported that approximately 50% of workers fear that they’ll be late on their first day.
But being late isn’t the only anxiety new hires have.
Not offering guidance only feeds these anxieties, but you can nip it in the bud by sending
clear guidelines for their first day. Setting up transparency and communication channels
can help alleviate these stresses.
Checking in with your new hires is invaluable. You could have an HR person or direct
manager send a more personal email alongside all the work-related emails. Maybe asking
how the paperwork is coming along and if they have any questions.
Special considerations for international hires
The talent pool is massive, and you might find that international applicants are a better
match for the role. Having a remote team makes managing international hires way easier.
That doesn’t mean it’s impossible to do so in an in-office environment, especially when
you’ve an efficient pre-boarding program in place. International workers are likely to need
additional support and information from you. Hence, you should be ready to address their
needs and answer their questions.
A proactive approach is always the right way to go. Put yourself out there and see how you
can make their relocation easier. Allied found that 41.5% of international workers are
given 30 days or less to relocate. I don’t know about you, but I would be a ball of stress.
You already know that these international workers are valuable assets to your company.
You don’t want to watch them slip through the cracks because of a bad pre-boarding
experience. So, be there to answer their questions and assist them in any way you
can.Click here to get our New Hire Onboarding Process Template!
You only have one first impression – make it a good one!
It’s stressful for most employees starting a new role. They have a new environment to get
familiar with, meeting new people, and so on. Studies have even shown that it’s more
stressful to change your line of work than it is to foreclose on a loan or change your
residence.

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Understanding this can help you construct a pre-boarding process to combat such stress.
Aberdeen Strategy & Research found that companies pre-boarding new hires are 1.6 times
more likely to have a lower cost per new hire than those that don’t.
So, not only do you give a good first impression to your new hire. You help them feel more
relaxed, boosting your new hire’s loyalty, engagement, and productivity towards your
company; overall, reducing hiring costs.
Pre-boarding workflow templates for new hires
The benefits of pre-boarding new hires can’t be overlooked. It can be difficult to create a
pre-boarding process for new hires that meets their needs. Then you’re also met with the
daunting task of integrating this pre-boarding process with your existing onboarding
template.
Don’t worry! We’ve got a library full of these processes to help you pre-boarding your new
hires. Here are a few to get you started:
Approval tasks ensure that all paperwork is completed accordingly. Task assignments
help co-workers and managers aware of their responsibility in the process. Then, you have
the transparency of a centralized pre-boarding hub in Process Street, which holds
everyone accountable.
Process Street streamlines the process so your attention is on
your new hire!
The overall goal of a pre-boarding process is to outline all the tasks you need to
successfully welcome your new hire.
These tasks can be streamlined with a process management tool, like Process Street. By
automating these repetitive tasks, you have more time to build rapport with your new
employee immediately.
Process Street helps you get all your ducks in a roll so that pre-boarding your new hire is
an organized, supportive, and overall a good experience for both you and them.