Preboarding: what is it, and why is it important? 

Preboarding helps to increase the success rate of recruitment processes, improving the new hire’s experience and reinforcing their engagement.

The Human Resources (HR) teams of many companies have seen the importance of implementing a good preboarding plan when it comes to saving costs and improving the support of the new employee.

If you still don’t know what preboarding is, and you want to know why it can be important for your organization, read on.

What is preboarding?

Preboarding is a process that is carried out to prepare a new candidate to be welcomed to their job in a period that usually starts from the acceptance of the offer and runs until before their first day on the job.

This includes all the materials, resources, introduction to the company’s storytelling plan and information necessary for the person to become familiar with his or her new professional role within the company.

This preparatory procedure allows, on the one hand, to improve the experience of the new recruit, and on the other hand, to save time and money for companies by fostering a relationship of trust with the new employee from the very first moment.

To be more precise, during pre-boarding, the company’s Human Resources professionals share information with the candidate about his or her new professional responsibilities, the company culture or the protocols that apply, for example.

In the same vein, virtual presentations can be made to support and orient the new employee, as well as the establishment of direct communication channels in case he/she needs any further information.

The benefits of this approach are multiple, and we will address them in a special section, although we advance that a good preboarding improves the success rate of recruitment processes, helps to consolidate the retention of talent and promotes a positive work environment.

Difference between preboarding and onboarding

In order to go deeper into what does preboard mean, it is necessary to address the difference with the onboarding process.

According to the definition we just shared with you, preboarding encompasses any interaction with the organization from the day the candidate accepts the job offer until their first day on the job.

As for the onboarding plan, it is a welcome program that is activated from the first day on the job and can last up to a year, depending on the company, as it may include a structured training program that extends over time.

Importance of preboarding for employees: 9 reasons for preboarding

The importance of preboarding lies in the fact that this process has multiple positive consequences in all areas of an organization, as it improves the employee experience from the very first contact.

Thus, these positive factors become compelling reasons to incorporate it into your online or face-to-face recruiting process:

1. It reduces the uncertainty of the employee’s first day, which can generate stress or anxiety.
2. It helps build a strong and inclusive company culture that cares about its employees even before they join the company.
3. Improves the talent retention rate by engaging people from day one and building a relationship of trust between the parties.
4. Increases productivity because it helps to better prepare the candidate and thus reinforce the onboarding plan.
5. Increases team engagement and satisfaction by reducing employee flight risk.
6. It serves to transmit crucial information for the relationship in the best conditions for the employee who has time to assimilate it before starting.
7. Facilitates the new employee’s relationship with his or her environment, whether with his or her mentor, if there is one, or with colleagues, since introductions can be made beforehand.
8. It speeds up the administrative management of new hires, avoiding saturation in the department that can occur when everything is left to the last minute.
9. It avoids job ghosting, which can also occur after job acceptance.

In view of all these benefits, you are probably wondering how you can implement preboarding in your company. You can start with a preboarding checklist.

Preboarding checklist

Now that you know what does preboarding mean for a job and what is its importance, we want to share with you a checklist of tasks you can prepare to inform, prepare and welcome your new employee:

Keep in mind that the success of a recruitment process depends on the whole process, not only on preboarding or onboarding, but also on how the candidate perceives the company before responding to an offer and how the evaluative experience of the selection process has been.

In this sense, Smowltech can help you improve your online selection and supervision processes with proctoring plans that work without having to download any external software and provide you with objective evidence for the evaluation.

You can request a free demo with no obligation. Then we can show you the solutions we can offer you, all of them with full support in English and Spanish.