The Power of Pre-Onboarding
Starting a new job is a big thing. The transition between old job and new can be full of nerves, apprehension, excitement and expectation. On both sides. If we’ve been at our current company for a while, we have likely forgotten this feeling. As their future manager, this isn’t the time to go quiet on your newly hired team member.
As a new manager, I have recently been through my first rounds of hiring new people to join my team. There are so many aspects to this, and lots about it I could, and probably will, talk about. In this post however, I want to specifically call out the benefits I found in pre-onboarding.
If left to naturally play out, pre-onboarding may only consist of forms to complete and documents to read, sent out by HR ahead of time. However, those things don’t help new hires get the feeling of being welcomed into the actual team they’ll join or the people they’ll work with.
Whilst bringing in my newest team members, one thing I was particularly keen to do was to help that transition to a new team, with new people, rather than just to the high level details of the company.
Here’s a few things I did, which I’ve felt have really helped to smooth out the move into a new job, at a new company.
Let people know
Once formalities are complete, contracts signed, and start date known I like to publicise this to the teams which my new people will be starting on. I find regularly mentioning the new person by name, and when their first day is, helps get people into expectancy mode ahead of the first week.
I found this is particularly powerful when talking about upcoming work where you can attribute your new starter’s name to be working on something in the future. This helps put their name and role in the minds of the rest of the team, as well letting the team know what their colleague will be working on when they join.
Check in via email
As a first step of reaching out to my new team members, I like to send a simple email to check in with how they’ve been since the interview, congratulate them on being successful, and to open the door for any questions they may have, as well as opening the door for future check-ins before they start.
I’ve found this one simple email really opens a two way street ahead of them joining my team.
Check in through voice or video call
The last time you actually spoke to your new team member would likely have been during the interview and selection stages of your hiring process. During those phases we are all a little less relaxed, and our mindsets are much different. The interviewers are trying to work out if the person is right for the role, and the interviewee is doing their own assessment as to whether they want to join the company, and be in that role.
It’s for that reason that I like to get calls in place after those phases have happened and a start date confirmed. I like the nature of a more personal one-to-one call in a much more relaxed environment. It’s a chance to start getting to know each other more, find out how they’re feeling, and how they’re doing as they wrap up time in their previous job. A chance for you to start talking to your new team member as if they are already part of team; because they are.
Have a call close to day one
New hires tend to start on a Monday, so on the Thursday before I like to have a call with them which is focussed on checking in on how they’re feeling ahead of day one, answering any questions they have just a few days before they start, and talking through how their first day will look in more detail.
Being able to talk them through exactly what day one will look like puts everyone at such an advantage, but mostly I’ve found it just eases the nerves for your new starter for day one. I like to confirm with them that they know how to get to where they need to go (usually by bringing up a map on screen), ensuring they know what time to arrive, and what time we’ll actually meet. All this amongst giving a full itinerary of the day.
Introduce to the team
Shortly after that final call before the big day, I like to send out an email to the people that my new hire will be working closely with when they start, with their new team member included on it. I like to promote replies to welcome them, with added points for those people who use fun gifs and images!
I’ve found that it serves as that final reminder for the team that a new person is joining, and your new starter begins to see some of the names they’ll be getting to know more in the coming weeks.
Outcome for day one
When my team members joined and I met them at the office on day one, it felt tension free, with no awkwardness and just felt easy. The phone calls and video calls meant we’d had voice and face time together which wasn’t during an interview. We had got to know each that little bit more than we could have from just an hour or so interview, and we had only spoken to each other less than 5 days ago.
All of this meant we could greet each other and move into day one on the new job with ease.
John Cutler, Product Evangelist/Coach at Amplitude, said on Twitter:
onboarding new team members is probably the most critical internal “product” … worthy of the best service design, product management, etc. you can muster
This really resonated with and it’s something which I’ll continue to iterate on and develop over time. But for me, it really must start with pre-onboarding.
In the situation we were in during this round of recruitment, pre-onboarding was naturally kept to a digital world. One thing I wonder is how this might be adapted to in-person activities in future. I look forward to finding that out.
Considerations
Do remember that a lot of transitions to new jobs will of course come with a transition out of a previous job. Your new hire is another manager’s valuable team member who is in the process of finishing work with them. Be mindful of this with their time. Do them at a time most suitable to them, which may well need to be before work, during lunch time or after work.
Pre-onboarding isn’t the time for giving out information on the people they’ll be working with, the work they’ll be doing or office politics. There’s plenty of time for that when onboarding starts. Keep it light, get to know each other, and aim to make your new starter as comfortable and confident as possible for day one.
What does your pre-onboarding look like?
I’m interested in knowing what other people do in this space to give me ideas to try for future. Please do let me know!
