Many of us can remember taking a personality assessment, whether that is in a current position, in a first job - maybe even in college. Personality assessments are typically aimed at identifying strengths and weaknesses. In an educational setting, these assessments may provide the participant with good career matches. In a workplace setting, these assessments can help leadership identify candidate position fit, or overall work team diversity.

You have navigated your new employee through socialization, position training, and overall integration into the organization. They are now confidently going through their day and meeting other co-workers. You have noticed they attend your check in conversations with excitement and suggestions for improvement and began answering questions for newer hires joining the organization.

Now, let’s dive into the core of the onboarding process. If you missed the blog about pre-onboarding, I suggest reading that first and then coming back to this one. We went through the first impression, now the new hire has officially arrived for their first day: the first moment of onboarding. This stage is where the new hire becomes an integrated and productive member of your team. Let's explore this critical phase in the employee journey.

Onboarding is a free, first opportunity to retain your new hires. It allows the organization to set the tone for the new hire experience, while having an opportunity to instill a new culture or proper training. Many organizations focus on the main course of onboarding, and even more often on orientation. There is a less known (but highly valuable) missed step: pre-onboarding. In this blog, we'll explore what pre-onboarding is, how it can positively impact your employees and your organization, and some best practices to bring back to your new hires.

Spoiler Alert:  This blog will not be about which web-based platform is the best investment or the best digital products in the marketplace.  This blog will be about LEARNING, and how, even though today it may be delivered in different ways than we are accustomed to, learning should not take a back seat in the workplace.  In fact, how workers are trained and upskilled today will require great leaps in creativity, innovation, and change management along with strong practices of human interfacing that you may have left to chance before.  So read on …