Better Preboarding Starts Here: 8 Steps for Day-One-Ready Talent
Accepting a job offer is like saying yes to a road trip. There’s a ton of excitement mixed with anticipation for the journey ahead. Preboarding is the quick orientation before the drive: adjust the seat, sync the Bluetooth, check your mirrors, and set the route. Small steps that remove friction and build confidence.
A well-structured preboarding does the same for new hires. It bridges the gap between offer acceptance and day one, building momentum so your new hire starts strong.
TL;DR
Preboarding is most effective when it starts right after offer acceptance and leans into digitized paperwork, early tech setup, team intros, welcome kits, first-week expectations, and lightweight learning. With the right workflows and analytics in place, HR can deliver a seamless experience at scale—giving every new hire a strong start from day one.
What Is Preboarding (and Why it Matters)
Preboarding is everything that happens after a candidate accepts your offer and before their first official day. It’s the cross-departmental handoff—however smooth or chaotic—between recruiting, HR operations, IT, and hiring managers.
While onboarding focuses on training, culture integration, and long-term success, preboarding is about day-one readiness. It covers administrative tasks and early introductions that ensure a new hire starts strong, not stressed. And it matters more than most employers realize.
Gartner research from 2023 found that 50% of candidates who accepted a job offer over a 12-month period backed out prior to starting. The percentage of no-shows will vary depending on your industry or market conditions, but even one no-show can cost thousands of dollars in lost time and re-recruiting.
A well-structured preboarding process mitigates the risk of turnover and reduces time-to-productivity. One Brandon Hall Group study found that organizations with a strong onboarding process improve new hire retention by 82% and productivity by more than 70%.
Bottom line: Preboarding isn’t optional; it’s an essential tool to reduce risk and accelerate ramp time.
8 Strategies to Strengthen Your Preboarding Process
1. Start preboarding immediately after offer acceptance.
Build on the excitement your new hire feels right after saying yes. Send a warm welcome message and outline what they can expect before day one. It’s also helpful to confirm key details such as start date, location, and any next steps they need to complete ahead of time.
2. Digitize all paperwork and compliance tasks.
Gone are the days of handing a new hire a stack of forms on day one. Now everything from I-9s, W-4s, and direct deposit forms, to handbook acknowledgements, policy sign-offs, and even background checks can be moved to a secure digital workflow.
With Rival Workflow, HR teams can centralize compliance documents, track completion, automate reminders, and sync everything back to your HRIS, saving hours of manual coordination and reducing compliance risk.
3. Set up tech and system access early.
Loop IT into preboarding early to avoid cringeworthy snafus like “your laptop isn’t ready yet.” Order equipment, provision accounts, and configure system access ahead of the first day. This ensures a seamless start and gives your new hire the tools they need to contribute faster.
4. Send a branded welcome package.
Include essentials like a company overview, team fun facts, branded swag, and quick-start guides to systems and tools. It’s a super simple way to show you’re intentional about creating a positive employee experience.
5. Introduce the team and assign a buddy.
Making a personal connection with just one person can make the difference between a nervous start and a confident one. Share quick team bios and pair your new hire with a buddy they can reach out to with informal questions about your organization and culture. One academic study found the odds of retention were 1.46x higher for new hires participating in socialization programs.
6. Share the first week’s schedule and expectations.
Outline all the meetings, training sessions, onboarding tasks, and short-term goals your new hire can expect in their first week. Use Rival Learn to auto-assign day-one modules and track completions so new hires feel oriented from the very start.
7. Provide early learning and role-based resources.
Give new hires access to quick learning materials—videos, role guides, customer stories, org charts—that help them build context early. Light learning during preboarding can minimize the overwhelming “drinking from a firehose” feeling many new hires experience in their first days and weeks.
8. Keep communication open and ask for feedback.
Without consistent communication, seeds of doubt can fester between offer and start date. Automate check-ins, send short updates, and create opportunities for questions. After they start, ask your new hire for feedback on their preboarding experience.
Rival Workflow makes this easy by automating welcome emails, SMS reminders, and pre-start surveys, keeping every touchpoint timely and on brand.
Measuring the Impact of Preboarding
Preboarding is table stakes for a successful ramp. But don’t just take our word for it. Track the metrics that matter for your business. Measurement gives you a clear picture of where your new hires feel supported and where there are opportunities to improve.
After you implement a structured preboarding program, keep an eye on these metrics:
First-day readiness
Measuring whether or not your new hire arrives fully prepared is fairly straightforward. Was equipment set up beforehand? Was the paperwork completed? Was training assigned ahead of time? If you answer yes to all of these questions, you’re on the right track.
Task and paperwork completion rates
Track how many tasks were completed before day one and how long each task takes. A highly manual process like I-9 verification, for example, can cause delays and signal an opportunity for automation.
New-hire satisfaction and sentiment
Send pulse surveys during preboarding to understand how new hires are feeling. Early sentiment is a strong predictor of long-term engagement.
Time-to-productivity
Keep track of training completion rates, early performance milestones, and when new hires begin performing tasks independently. A smoother preboarding should naturally lead to faster productivity.
Early attrition and no-show rates
Start tracking the number of candidates who back out before day one and those who leave in the first 90 days. High attrition could indicate a broken preboarding experience.
And before you start groaning about creating another spreadsheet to track preboarding, know that Rival’s HR data analytics and workflow reporting can do it all for you. Real-time dashboards give you insight into completion rates, bottlenecks, compliance tasks, and engagement.
Ready to learn more about AI & analytics in recruiting? Watch this webinar now.
Build a Preboarding Experience That Lasts Beyond Day One
All the prep work you put into preboarding pays long-term dividends in terms of retention, productivity, and engagement. Want your new hire to show up on day one excited and ready to contribute? Preboarding is a proven process to increase the likelihood of that happening.
The best part is preboarding no longer has to be a flurry of emails, checklists, and follow-ups. With the right automated journeys, the paperwork and tasks take care of themselves so you can devote more energy to creating a warm, positive welcome.
Ready to modernize HR workflows and achieve measurable results?
Book a demo of Rival Workflow today and see how we can support your new hires from offer acceptance to day one.
