Introduction
Welcome to our guide on setting up pre-boarding in Sana. This article will provide you with a clear, step-by-step process to prepare your new hires for their roles, even before their first day. With Sana, you can streamline their pre-boarding experience, ensuring a smooth transition into their new positions. Let's dive in and get your pre-boarding process up and running!
Why have your pre-boarding in Sana?
Offer a personalized experience: Sana's AI-powered platform allows for a personalized pre-boarding experience, tailoring content to the specific needs and roles of new hires. This ensures they receive relevant information and training, enhancing their readiness and engagement from day one. Pre-boardings prepare new hires for their roles before their official start date, offering a smoother transition into your company, role, and team.
Reduce administrative burden: The automation of many aspects of the onboarding process can significantly lighten the load on your HR teams.
Provide efficiency and accessibility: With Sana, pre-boardings can be done anytime, anywhere, providing new hires with the flexibility to learn at their own pace. This not only makes the process more convenient for them but also speeds up the overall onboarding process.
Suggestions on courses to include in a pre-boarding
Welcome to the company - provide a high-level overview of the company, its mission, vision, values, and culture. It's important for new hires to understand the bigger picture and where they fit in.
Welcome to the team - an introduction to the people working at the organisation, and the different teams and departments that are present.
Employee handbook - an introduction to the principles and ways of working in the organisation
Tools introduction - including information about specific tools or software that the new hire will be using in their role, including a training course on these can help them hit the ground running.
Starter Kit - what to expect from and how to prepare for the first days
To think about when creating courses for pre-boardings
Use reflection cards. Interactive content allows the pre-boarder to stay engaged, it makes the experience more fun as well as it provides you with valuable data on how they feel and how to improve the program.
Connecting the learnings from the pre-boarding to their future role: "Can you share one key insight or skill you've gained from this program, that you believe will significantly impact the success in your role and at Company X?"
Gather feedback: "What did you appreciate about X program?"
Create excitement: "What are you most excited about in your new role?"
Build connections: "Who are you, where are you from and what are your hobbies?"
Provide support and encouragement: Ensure new hires know who they can reach out to if they have any questions or concerns during the pre-boarding process. This can provide reassurance and support, making the new hire feel valued and supported even before their first day.
Step-by-step guide in setting up pre-boardings in Sana
Here's a step-by-step guide on setting up a pre-boarding program with Sana:
STEP 1. Create a program
Start by creating a new program for the pre-boarding. This will serve as the hub for all your pre-boarding content. Read more about creating programs here.
STEP 2. Add courses and emails
After creating your program, you'll need to add relevant content. This could include courses, learning paths, or live sessions learners can enroll.
Click "Add Content" and select the content you want to include in your program.
Decide on the assignment timeline for each course. We recommend that you stagger each course in the program.
Staggered assignments in programs give learners access to the right content at the right time, without overwhelming them with one-time notification bombs. It also saves time for admins. Instead of manually assigning content with the right time intervals, you can set up an automated schedule. You can learn more about it here.
You can set up the trigger schedule for each course, relative to the one before. You can also set a due date (if applicable).
If your program includes Live Sessions, you can decide if the session gets automatically assigned or if learners can self-enroll.
Set Up Triggers and Emails: Sana allows you to set up emails in programs. For example, you could set a trigger to send an email at the beginning of the program, welcoming them and clarifying the program's goals, and another one at the end, congratulating them on their efforts.
To set up a trigger, click "Add Step" and select the action that should prompt the email "Add Email". You can customize the email's content to suit your needs with a headline, a description, and a button text.
💡 Note! If you have the want or need, you can create multiple pre-boarding programs for different locations, roles, etc. Then you can create some courses that are general for all pre-boarding programs, and have
STEP 3. Invite the new hires to Sana
Adding new users to Sana can be managed using either their private or corporate emails. This guide will walk you through three main methods depending on your HR system's capabilities.
Option 1: Add the new hire in your HR system, with their private email
If your HR system allows you to add both a private and work email to the user:
If the new hire doesn't have a corporate email yet, you can add them to your HR system using their private email. You will typically see separate fields for different types of email addresses in their profile, such as work email and home email. In this case, enter their private email in the home email field or any applicable field that is not the work email.
The new hire's account should then be created automatically by the integration in Sana using their private email. Assign the pre-boarding program or course(s) to the user in Sana.
Once the new hire's corporate email is ready, add it to the work email field in your HR system. Sana will then automatically sync the changes, ensuring that the email updates to the corporate one while preserving the pre-boarding program and course history. The logic here is that Sana prioritizes the work email over the personal email. Therefore, while it initially creates an account using the private email, as soon as Sana detects a work email, it will automatically switch to that one.
Option 2: Without adding their private email to your HR system
If your HR system doesn't allow adding a person with a private email, use the following method:
Invite the new hire to Sana using their private email. Read more here on how to invite new users to Sana via email or link. Note: Email login must be enabled in your organization's settings. Talk to your CSM if this is not the case.
Let the new hire log into Sana and take the pre-boarding
When it is time to create the user profile in the HR system with the new corporate email, begin with updating the email address in Sana to the corporate one. It is important that you do this before creating the user profile in your HR system (otherwise, duplicate accounts will be created; one with the private email, and one with the corporate).
Now, create the user profile in the HR system using the corporate email.
Option 3: Without using the HR system at all
The above options only works if you have an integration between your HR system and Sana. If you don't, you can still invite new hires to pre-boardings. How? Simply invite the users manually with their private emails, and assign relevant courses and programs to them. Read more about inviting users to Sana via link or email here.
💡 Note! It is possible to change the email address afterwards without losing progress. Simply go to the user’s profile, click on the 3 dots button in the top right corner, and update email.
STEP 4. Step 3: Assign pre-boarders via enrollment rules
With enrollment rules, you can automate how learners are enrolled based on the attribute criteria you set. You can learn more about them here.
If you connect HR system with Sana, you can set automatic enrollments, so when a new joiner is hired, the program will automatically trigger for them.
💡 Don't forget to set due dates to make sure pre-boarders complete the program in time for their first day with you.
STEP 5: Track the progress
Use Sana's comprehensive analytics tools to track the progress of each new hire through the pre-boarding program. This will help you identify any areas where they might need additional support and ensure they're well-prepared for their start date.
We wish you the best of luck in pre-boarding your new employees!