The Ultimate Digital Pre- and Onboarding Checklist

Digital pre- and onboarding make HR processes quicker, and the integration period of newcomers stress-free. With the right digital pre- and onboarding processes you can ease the workload of your company's HR professionals and make sure your new hires stay engaged and won't decide to leave your company in their first few days or during the probation period. We prepared a checklist for you that you can use in an interactive way to create the perfect pre- and onboarding process!

Why is proper pre- and onboarding important?

A recent employee fluctuation study conducted by HR Evolution Kft. (to learn more make sure to check out our webinar about developing e-learning and onboarding processes) showed some interesting data about new hires. According to the survey, 21-24% of new employees quit their jobs during the probation period, while 25% of newcomers are faced with negative experiences within their first 5 days regarding their treatment by their employers that push them towards leaving. 

So what conclusions can we draw from all this? A good first impression is not only important to HR professionals when looking for new candidates, it is just as important to your new hires right from their very first day on the job. If you are looking to reduce your employee turnover rate, focusing on the pre- and onboarding period and creating a seamless digital process will be your best tool in making your company stand out from other workplaces and engaging your employees from the start. 

Pre- and onboarding is the new hire’s first learning experience at your company 

You can only truly make someone new feel at home in your company if you know how to welcome them. That's why the introduction period of a new employee is crucial. With the right digital pre- and onboarding processes you can ease the workload of your company's HR professionals and make sure your new hires stay engaged and won't decide to leave your company in their first few days or during the integration period. Let’s take a look at how each of these processes will be helping you stay one step ahead of your competitors.

Preboarding: stand out from the crowd of employers

Most people want to know more about their future employer and what to expect when they start working there - and many people are especially thankful for such information to be provided in those few days or even weeks between the successful job interview and their very first day at work. If your future employee has access to these things before starting work, they won't come as a surprise in the first week or month of their employment - thus alleviating some stress.

Obviously, having to reach out to each new hire is a very time-consuming task where - without any automation in the process - it’s easy to get lost in the sea of details, documents and follow-ups. With the help of digitized preboarding, you can:

  • Have newcomers upload their necessary entry documents in your system without having to ask for these in an email (and develop a serious case of a flooded inbox)
  • Easily monitor your new employee’s preboarding progress
  • Ask for more information, details and feedback via questionnaires and forms
  • Provide information necessary for starting to work at your company - for example, the exact location and on-site person of contact or even the best places for lunch nearby.

Onboarding: save time and effort in HR

The onboarding process is the phase of employee integration where newcomers are informed about company policies, procedures, and expectations. A good onboarding process should be enlightening and easy for the newcomer to understand. 

With digital (or hybrid) onboarding the integration process can easily be automated and standardized. This means that:

  • Everything is measurable and easily traceable
  • It simplifies administration and the burdens of HR
  • Instead of having to organize training sessions for every new employee, e-learning materials can be easily accessed anywhere, anytime
  • General information about the company and the team can be easily provided (and employees can check these again anytime)

A positive preboarding and onboarding experience will immediately make your new hire feel more involved, appreciated, and less stressed - which is the first step of boosting engagement from the get-go and reducing employee turnover.

Checklist: How To Create The Perfect Digital Pre- And Onboarding Process

So now we know the importance of smart preboarding and onboarding processes and how you and your new employee alike can benefit from them. But how do you make sure that these processes are well-made and ready to be launched? What elements should be involved and in what order? What belongs to preboarding and what should be an onboarding step?  How do you know you didn’t miss anything important?

To save you from the brainstorming, with the help of our HR professionals and clients’ experiences we did the research and prepared the ultimate checklist for you of the most important elements of an effective preboarding and onboarding process. Forget trying to collect the most crucial steps from scratch: by following this checklist you can build an effective and engaging process in an interactive way. 

With the checklist, you will:

  • Have the most effective order of necessary preboarding and onboarding steps
  • Have a list of all the materials you will need to prepare (e.g. presentations, videos)
  • Have a list of features that will help you and your new employees the most
  • Have a good idea of what will make your new hires feel more valued and engaged

All you need to do is to download the checklist, go through the listed tasks, pinpoint where you need to begin and easily keep track of your pre- and onboarding development process by ticking the boxes. 

For the perfect digitized process, this checklist was designed with a pre-existing digital platform in mind that is both customizable and retrievable, user friendly and has a variety of functions - in case your company doesn’t have something like that (or perhaps you have already been considering to modernize your intranet), we highly recommend checking out the Blue Colibri App solutions.

Download the guide