When a new person joins an organization there is a process of socialization and connection both to the people already in the organization as well as the brand and values. This process is called Onboarding. Studies show that it is 69% more likely that an employee stays in the company for up to three years if they attend an organized onboarding program.
Before the first day at work there is a gap from the decision to join the organization up to the first day at work. This phase is called the preboarding-phase. To get the full value of the onboarding activities it is important not to miss out on giving the newcomers a chance to get prepared before their first day and to get a feel for the job and your organization.
Product Manager at Boardon.io
Giving attention and making a newcomer feel special is a good starting point for an excellent onboarding.
Many companies and organizations have some kind of onboarding program but struggle to make it scalable and attractive for the newcomers. There is also a wish to make it mobile friendly using channels readily available for the modern dynamic workforce.
SourceForge discussed with Stefan Sjö, Product Manager at Boardon.io, on how to best achieve an excellent onboarding and preboarding.
To start with, can you give us a brief overview of your company? When was Boardon founded and what are your targets?
Boardon was founded in 2017 to be able to give all employees coming into a company a smooth and attractive onboarding. We especially saw a need for helping companies with the preboarding phase where employees were left hanging and feeling alone without any contact or brand experience from the signing of the contract. Our simple original vision was a recruit leaving the meeting where they had signed the contract, going to grab a coffee, and then directly getting a “ping” on their mobile device with a nicely branded onboarding portal, made personal just for them. The feeling of being special and “in the center” of the company’s attention has been with us for the whole journey.
How do you develop your product and what kind of resources do you have internally?
Boardon was founded by digital learning specialists who had experience with producing numerous onboarding programs for other companies. Partnering up with development specialists made it possible to quickly go to market with a first version in 2017 that has had customers since the start.
Today we are still partner-owned, and the founders are very much a part of the daily operations.
What makes Boardon special and stand out from most products on the market?
The founders had first-hand information on the difficulties of reaching employees with existing infrastructure like LMSs and HR-systems as most of these were made to be activated after the first day at work. It was also difficult to reach the employees before the first day as they had not received a company phone or other devices.
This made us develop the product to be a bridge into the company and made the product a lightweight personal onboarding portal. There is no app to download as this would have been an obstacle to overcome to reach the new employees. Those kinds of activities are easier done once the employees have started. You want to be able to reach as many as possible with your preboarding and with Boardon it’s just a text message or a mail and then a link takes you directly into the portal with your branded content.
What are the main challenges you help companies overcome?
Well, it sounds easy but with Boardon you collect your onboarding content like PDFs, Videos, quizzes, and other types of web-content in an onboarding plan. This is then used as a template to invite newcomers by e-mail or text messages to take part in the onboarding plan. The plan is built in steps so it is easy to see what has been completed and what is left to do. You can also choose to send reminders to both the newcomer and an assigned supervisor.
What makes it personal is that all activities are related to the first day at work, giving the plans a sense of urgency for the newcomer.
Companies can also choose to divide the plan into a preboarding phase and an onboarding phase. The elegant solution here is that the second phase is locked up until a day of choosing, usually the first day at work, and after that the newcomer can get a new invite preparing them for the next step.
The solution supports the HR organization with reports and follow up to check that everyone is on track.
Why is onboarding so important in your opinion?
I think all companies want to give the newcomers the attention they deserve but there is a very human reason why we avoid doing it before the first day: it’s just easier to do it once they are in the workplace. You have all security clearance, and you have access to company equipment etc. I feel that organizations “relax” after the contract is signed and move on to other pressing matters.
We feel that by not giving the newcomers any attention, or less attention, in that crucial timespan from signing the contract to the first day you are giving them a much less engaging start in their new job, and you might also lose them to a competitor before they start. Today’s workforce is agile and will not stay in one place unless they are inspired and get attention.
What is the most common customer you have? Is it a specific business segment or country?
We work with many types of business but to be fair our most common type of client has a geographically spread workforce that is project based or has a high turn-over due to the nature of the business. It could be nonprofits having groups coming in during the year or retail companies with seasonal workers. On the other hand, we also see a trend for companies that have employee branding activities as a high priority.
What size of companies do you usually work with? Is there a perfect size where your product is a match?
As we have an API available for companies to use for automation, there really is not a size that we could not cater to. Our text message service works all over the world using local nodes and video content is handled by embedding services like YouTube and Vimeo that companies already have.
With that said if you want to make it personal, it is easier for small and mid-size companies to handle. Large organizations would benefit from making a few high-level preboarding plans and automate that using the API.
You offer a free version, what’s your reason for this?
It’s actually two reasons:
- The founders really disliked the 30-day trial system because you are never done with your pilot in 30-days. Sometimes you want to keep coming back to a solution until the timing is right and then start paying for the service.
- The second reason for the free version is being able to give small companies the possibility to have professional onboarding. It is easy for small companies to do on-site onboarding, but it is just as easy with Boardon to keep the employees engaged online. Then, when the company grows, they can upgrade the free version to get more seats, but the free version is fully functional for most company’s needs.
What do you see in the future for Boardon and other onboarding systems?
I think that engagement is the key. Once the digital barriers are down and companies are starting to use these kinds of services as a natural step in the journey into the company there will be more demand for interaction between existing employees, newcomers, managers and also between the newcomers on their way in.
There will also be a need for managers and newcomers to own the onboarding as a joint project, ticking off what has been done and what’s left to do. The relationship with the manager is one major factor of employee satisfaction and engagement.
If you would give just one word of advice to a company wanting to get started with onboarding or preboarding.
That’s easy, start small, get something going and build from that. Do not spend too long planning your onboarding program, just get going. There will always be new people coming into the company, and you can improve your program as you go with feedback from the people already onboarded.
About Boardon
Boardon is delivered by the Swedish EdTech company Boardon AB. The founders are dedicated learning specialists with many years of experience within the digital learning industry.
Boardon delivers a cloud-based solution for preboarding and onboarding through a web-based format. Invites and communications are handled by text-messages or e-mail.
The solution is light-weight and very easy to get started with.
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