What are the phases of an onboarding plan?

11 of February, 2025

You’ve recognized that to be more productive, you need better employee integration. You’ve also heard that a good way to achieve this is through onboarding. But, what are the different phases of onboarding?

In this article, we’ll talk about what onboarding in HR is and its different phases.

Keep reading and learn everything you need to know about onboarding your employees.

What is onboarding in human resources?

In both a business and human resources sense, onboarding refers to the process of integrating a new employee into an organization.

It’s a long and complex process, but it’s essential to guarantee that the new employee is productive and happy in their new role.

The onboarding process consists of various phases, each of which is important in its own way.

It’s important to remember that the phases of onboarding are not a one-off occurrence. Instead, it’s a continuous process that needs to be assessed and updated as necessary.

Phases of onboarding

There are several phases of onboarding to consider to ensure the entire process is successful:

Before onboarding.
During onboarding.
After onboarding.

Each of these phases requires different techniques based on the business’s needs and the employee’s role. Let’s examine each of them in more depth in the following sections.

Later, we’ll see how Sesame HR can help you create a personalized onboarding plan. A plan that fits your company and ensures a smooth transition for your new employees.

Preonboarding: preliminary phase

Within the onboarding phases, preboarding is the phase that precedes onboarding. It’s when the hiring process takes place and your new employee is accepted into your company.

In other words, it’s the time when your company and your new employee get to know each other. And this new employee comes in contact with your company’s processes and culture. This phase consists of preparation for onboarding.

The preboarding process begins with the staff selection process and interview. Your company will assess the candidate’s qualifications and check if they fit the role. If so, your company will move on to the next step, the acceptance process.

The acceptance process is when your new employee agrees to join your company. They will sign a contract, and your company will provide all the necessary information about their new job. They will also receive training materials and begin to understand your company’s culture and processes a little better.

Once the preboarding process is complete, your new employee is ready for onboarding. We move to the next phase of onboarding.

During onboarding

We now come to the second phase of onboarding. During onboarding is when your employee joins the company. And during this time, they will receive training on their job role and tools.

For this reason, it’s crucial that this part is as smooth and simple as possible.

The initial employee training phase is crucial for introducing the new employee to the company’s culture, products, and processes.

It’s necessary to accompany your new team member from the first day. Provide them with all the necessary information that will help them understand the company’s operations and responsibilities.

In fact, it’s important to pre-set a training plan for your new colleagues. This part can be written, personalized, or through video tutorials. However, all of them should explain how each process works from the employee’s or end user’s perspective.

This will save them many hours and will give you a team ready to serve your customers in quantity and quality in a short time.

Also, they will feel better integrated and satisfied. This will result in higher productivity.

Postonboarding: monitoring and closure

Now that you’ve understood all the phases of onboarding through to the end, let’s discuss a bit about monitoring and closing. This monitoring stage occurs after your new employee has completed the formal onboarding process.

Essentially, it’s when your new employee settles into their role and begins to produce results. This phase can last from a few weeks to a few months, depending on the needs of each person.

The real success of an onboarding plan is not only to reach the goal. It’s to ensure that your new hires feel part of the team, understand the overall objectives, and are satisfied with their experience.

An important step in this process is accurate follow-up and feedback collection from your new employees. All to see to what extent their expectations are being met.

This allows you to identify weak points in your process or tasks that you haven’t considered before. Offering the opportunity to improve the program for future employees.

It’s also important to measure the adaptation during the following months to determine whether you’re providing your workers with everything they need to be successful.

In conclusion, if there’s a labor cancellation, you shouldn’t overlook professional offboarding to minimize the impact and maintain a good relationship with your former employees.

And that’s how you fully complete the phases of onboarding.

Phases of onboarding and associated techniques

Let’s now look at the different techniques associated with each of the phases of onboarding.

In the pre-onboarding phase, you can include a variety of techniques for first contact with future employees. For example:

Prepare a virtual or physical tour of the workplace.
Provide basic information about the culture, values, and vision of the company.

To delve into onboarding, you can also organize:

Team presentations.
Trainings with the rest of the team.
Meetings with suppliers, partners, and clients.
Discussions with colleagues so your new hires feel part of the team.

Finally, to measure results you can implement:

Questionnaires and staff climate surveys.
Performance evaluation.

This lets you offer a seamless experience across all phases of onboarding. Thanks to the centralization of all processes in the same platform. To learn more, keep reading.

Benefits of the onboarding process

A well-designed and implemented HR onboarding can bring benefits for both the company and the employee. Below, we can see some:

Benefits for the company:

Increase in productivity: If new workers feel integrated, have clear objectives, and understand the company’s philosophy, they will be much more productive. A good onboarding plan can achieve up to 54% more productivity for a company.
Retention of talent: If you prevent your most professionally qualified workers from leaving, you can always count on the best in each area. Thus, your company will be able to reduce its turnover rate and rely on good professionals.
Lower hiring costs: The fact that workers leave in the first few months means a significant monetary cost for the company. This is because they have to find and hire another worker again. This ends up directly impacting their expense management.
Good impression: If new employees feel comfortable from the beginning, they will have a greater sense of belonging to the company. This helps optimize their employer engagement.

Benefits for the worker:

They are better informed about their duties and the company’s operations, which facilitates internal corporate communication.
Feel that they are part of the company, which optimizes the employer journey and workplace wellbeing.
Are satisfied and will choose to stay with the company for a long time.
Have higher motivation to demonstrate what they know and are worth. This helps create a good working environment.

What is onboarding software?

Onboarding software is a program that responds to companies’ needs to automate the employee integration process. In this way, it offers a better welcoming experience for future collaborators.

A good onboarding program reduces administrative load and guarantees compliance with regulations, reducing associated costs and freeing some resources. These resources could be dedicated to tasks that add higher added value. This type of software also allows shortening the period required for the new worker to increase their productivity.

Features of an onboarding software

Personal information

The employee can access all their personal information and modify it according to their needs. Among these are: name, address, marital status, contacts, nationality, personal website, among others. Besides all this, they will also have access to their curricular information: languages, academic history, certificates, previous employment, etc. This way, they can have full control over all this information.

Documents to process

It speeds up the processing of documents and guarantees compliance with current regulations. This allows the new worker to attend their first day of work with all the administrative process managed. So the employee can focus on their duties from the very beginning. The company, for its part, ensures the compliance with all the protocols and regulatory processes related to its activity.

Development of camaraderie

The new worker can anticipate their integration process, getting to know their future colleagues and starting work conversations. This will make their first day of work much more comfortable and attractive. They will have a prior knowledge of their departmental colleagues.

Sesame HR for all stages of onboarding

Are you looking for an onboarding management tool that meets your company’s needs? Sesame HR is the perfect solution for you. We are committed to developing services and added value to enhance productivity.

Sesame HR offers innovative onboarding software for HR processes. This next-generation solution allows you to easily plan every step of your employee welcome plan and customize your onboarding process.

Our software provides tailored solutions for every stage of onboarding. It all starts with the pre-onboarding phase, where you can manage the entire selection process. You can also add comments about the recruitment process to improve communication among all involved parties, as well as archive the relevant procedures and documentation.

You’ll have the ability to create an onboarding checklist that includes personalized tasks and training, ensuring unified information and facilitating smooth communication across the various departments involved.

Moving on to the follow-up process, Sesame HR enables you to measure your team’s adaptation over time through workplace climate surveys and performance evaluations. Once that phase is complete, you can create an offboarding checklist that centralizes information and ensures a positive employee experience until the very end.

In short, with Sesame HR you can be confident that you have an efficient system for every stage of onboarding, tailored to your specific needs. This way, you can welcome your new employees and optimize your team’s productivity.

If you want to see it for yourself, sign up and get a free 14-day trial. Take your company’s onboarding process to the next level.

Customer-oriented, both internally and externally, specializing in the definition and implementation of HR policies, as well as talent management, recruitment, and retention. Strong leadership, communication, negotiation, organization, and team coordination skills. Over 12 years of experience in Human Resources.

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iriserrador

HR Content Specialist