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10 Features of Pre-boarding with PerStart

Utilizing the pre-boarding time window equips new hires with confidence and teaches them the fundamental values of your organization, which assist them through the onboarding transition faster and with greater success. Onboarding is the time period from offer acceptance through a new employee’s first 90 days and pre-boarding is a specific subset of onboarding. Pre-boarding is the period from offer acceptance to the new employee’s first day during which an organization engages the new hire, preparing them to jump into the first day with momentum.

PerStart is a pre-boarding system that allows an organization to communicate expectations and provide an overview of resources, practical guides, and information that ease common transition anxiety. Here are 10 customizable PerStart features that transition your new hire into a successful onboarding experience.

 

1) Welcome Message

Use your welcome message to communicate who you are and what you value. Also, take a moment to tell your new hire that you’re excited to have them join your team.

2) Role, Team, and Business

Provide an overview of the new hire’s role, the team they’re joining, and the overall business structure.

3) Onboarding Process Overview

The onboarding process starts the moment an offer is accepted and continues through the first 90 days. Use pre-boarding to communicate that your new hire can expect support and ongoing conversations to ease the inevitable transition anxieties.

4) Interactive Glossary

Just because your new hire has experience in your industry doesn’t mean they understand your lingo and acronyms. Provide an interactive glossary with working definitions of common terms, phrases, and other organization-specific knowledge to make your new hire feel part of the team before even arriving on day one.

5) Social Start

Use pre-boarding to introduce your new hire to your social media presence so they can experience your voice, visual existence, and external-facing messaging. Also encourage them to review your competitors to gain insight into your industry. Overall, this social inclusion will help them feel a part of your greater team and presence.

6) Digital Tools

No doubt the digital tools you use support and define your organization’s strategy. Whether digital native or novice, your new employee will not have experience in all of the technologies you use. Use pre-boarding to prime them in the digital tools with which they will interact (email, collaboration, CRM, cloud, web conferencing, etc).

7) Policy Primers

Provide your organization’s relevant policies and procedures during pre-boarding so that your new hire is well-prepared to review them with you during orientation.

8) Location Awareness

Let’s face it, your new hire is the new kid on the block. Give them a look around the neighborhood – their manager, their team, their desk – this makes day one feel familiar.

9) Day One Checklist

Provide an overview of day one expectations and activities so your new hire feels prepared upon arrival on day one. Preemptively answer questions you know will arise: when should they arrive? where do they park? with whom do they check in first thing? This will make a lasting first impression and kicks off a powerful and thoughtful onboarding program.

10) Inclusion and Confidence

First and foremost, remind your new hire that you carefully and intentionally picked them to join your team and that you’re excited to have them onboard. Encourage your new hire to ask questions of HR, the hiring manager, or colleagues, and provide contact information for all relevant people. Successful pre-boarding uses interview momentum combined with a customized PerStart program to establish the groundwork for onboarding activities that lead to career-long performance and development. PerStart is built on a scalable and deployable platform, which allows modules to be branded and customized. Modules speak the common organization language, they communicate with specificity, they are relatable, and they point to tangible results from the organization and employee’s point of view.

Ready to see how we can customize PerStart for your organization? Check out this module or submit an inquiry here.

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