Automated HR Onboarding & Pre-boarding Platform for Mid-Sized Companies
The Reddit post "How do you actually manage onboarding (and pre-boarding?) in your company? Feeling overwhelmed." and its comments clearly show a consistent and significant niche market opportunity. HR personnel in mid-sized companies are struggling with disorganized, manual onboarding processes, often described as a back-and-forth email mess and a feeling of being all over the place. Even when companies use existing HRIS like BambooHR, there's still a substantial need for manual inputs, and HR often handles the entire process as the sole point of contact, highlighting the inadequacy of current generalist tools for deep onboarding workflow management.
SaaS Opportunity: There's a strong opportunity for a dedicated SaaS platform focused on comprehensive automation and orchestration of the entire onboarding and pre-boarding lifecycle. This platform would go beyond standard HRIS functionalities by specifically addressing workflow, communication, and task management pain points.
Product Form: The SaaS product should be an end-to-end onboarding workflow automation tool. Key features would include:
- Automated Communication Engine: Customizable, triggered email and message sequences for pre-boarding (welcome, document requests, first-day info) and ongoing onboarding communication.
- Dynamic Task Management: Intelligent, role-based checklists and task assignments for new hires, hiring managers, IT, HR, and other relevant stakeholders, with progress tracking and notifications.
- Pre-boarding & New Hire Portal: A branded portal for new hires to access information, complete paperwork digitally, meet their team virtually, and engage before their start date.
- Document Management & E-signature: Secure collection, storage, and tracking of all necessary onboarding documents (contracts, NDAs, tax forms, policy acknowledgments) with integrated e-signature capabilities.
- Scheduling & Calendar Integration: Tools to automate scheduling for orientation sessions, meet-and-greets, training, and 30/60/90-day check-ins, with integration to common calendar systems.
- HRIS Integration: Seamless two-way synchronization with popular HRIS (like BambooHR) to pull new hire data and push status updates, avoiding redundant data entry.
- Customizable Onboarding Pathways: Ability to create and assign different onboarding journeys based on role, department, location, or other criteria.
- Analytics & Reporting: Dashboards for HR to monitor onboarding progress, identify bottlenecks, and measure time-to-productivity.
Expected Revenue/Value Proposition: The primary value is significant time savings for HR departments and a vastly improved, consistent onboarding experience for new employees. By automating repetitive tasks, streamlining communication, and ensuring all steps are completed efficiently, the SaaS could save HR teams numerous hours per new hire (potentially 10-20+ hours depending on current process inefficiency). For a mid-sized company hiring dozens of employees annually, this translates to hundreds of hours saved, directly impacting operational costs and HR productivity. Improved onboarding also leads to better employee retention and faster ramp-up times.
Revenue would typically be generated via a tiered monthly or annual subscription model (SaaS). Pricing could be based on factors such as the number of employees, number of new hires per month/year, or feature set. Given the tangible ROI (time savings, reduced errors, improved retention), companies would be willing to pay a premium for a specialized solution that effectively solves this acute pain point. A conservative estimate for Annual Contract Value (ACV) could range from $2,000 to $10,000+ for mid-sized companies, depending on their size and usage.
Origin Reddit Post
r/humanresources
How do you actually manage onboarding (and preboarding?) in your company? Feeling overwhelmed. [N/A]
Posted by u/Hopeful-Long9246•06/09/2025
Hey!
I’m in HR at a mid-sized company and lately I’ve been feeling like our onboarding process is all over the place.
Our current process just involves back and forth emails, welcome calls
Top Comments
u/Silent-Squash-267
We explain all the benefits and provide the benefit book during orientation and then sign up with them 2 weeks later so they can review pricing/details with spouses (if necessary) in those tw
u/sread2018
Best system I've used is Enboarder
u/SplitEndsSuck
What is mid-sized to you? Just curious from employee headcount perspective. How many people are you onboarding each week?
I work for a global company with well over 5000 employees. Recruiter
u/Silkehop
We have a lot of automation going.
So when the recruiting request is accepted and found the leader inform in the program details about the new employee, it automatic going to the HR who
u/Catsandchickenslover
We do a 2 week orientation schedule and a 30/60/90. So when the candidate accepts their offer, I immediately follow up with the hiring manager with a “new hire checklist”, 2 week orientation
u/literallyjustagirl_x
Before they start, we have a new hire checklist and each department is responsible for getting their part ready (IT, HR, managers, purchasing, etc).
Then we do a 3-day new hire orientation on
u/Due_Chemical_538
My company was in the same situation when I took over the HR role. We use Bamboo HR,however, there are still inputs required. I also own the entire process. I'm the only point of contact for
u/literallyjustagirl_x
Before they start, we have a new hire checklist and each department is responsible for getting their part ready (IT, HR, managers, purchasing, etc).
Then we do a 3-day new hire orientation on
u/Catsandchickenslover
We do a 2 week orientation schedule and a 30/60/90. So when the candidate accepts their offer, I immediately follow up with the hiring manager with a “new hire checklist”, 2 week orientation
u/Silent-Squash-267
Honestly, I have the process down so good it’s super easy for me to keep up with. As far as emails go, I create a template and save it as a signature in Outlook so I just have to fill in any
u/duckalarm
How big is your HR team? Do you have a HRIS that can automate any of the process? It might help to make a workflow to share with stakeholders so they can know when their part in the line is u
u/Defiant-Lion8183
Power Automate was my bandaid solution. Granted I wasn’t planning on being there long. But it was easy to set up the automation to create the documents needed and attach everything to an emai
u/winkyface01
Set up a buddy (ideally same/similar role, same team or very close by). They should be the fielder of questions like "where is the log in for X?", "how do I book a meeting room?", "which is t
u/cmlopez38
I agree with everything other than the benefits being handle after the first week. I handle that during Orientation and also provide them with benefits booklet as well with the due date writ
u/Esagashi
Something I haven’t seen in this thread that I like having is a chat group for the new hires. There they can ask questions of me/my team and other new hires, then leave or mute the channel wh
u/Silent-Squash-267
Pre-First Day:
1. After the offer letter is signed, HR initiates the background check and drug test. Simultaneously, a form is sent to the hiring manager to capture equipment and access needs
u/Hopeful-Long9246
Wow, this process sounds great! We will definity try that in the future, thanks. Maybe one question: Is there any part of this process that still feels manual or time-consuming on your end? F
u/Due_Chemical_538
My company was in the same situation when I took over the HR role. We use Bamboo HR,however, there are still inputs required. I also own the entire process. I'm the only point of contact for
u/winkyface01
Set up a buddy (ideally same/similar role, same team or very close by). They should be the fielder of questions like "where is the log in for X?", "how do I book a meeting room?", "which is t
u/SplitEndsSuck
What is mid-sized to you? Just curious from employee headcount perspective. How many people are you onboarding each week?
I work for a global company with well over 5000 employees. Recruiter
u/Due_Chemical_538
My company was in the same situation when I took over the HR role. We use Bamboo HR,however, there are still inputs required. I also own the entire process. I'm the only point of contact for
u/SplitEndsSuck
Ours is integrated with Slack and we have a repository that it pulls from to generate a response.
u/Due_Chemical_538
I like software to help with processes, personally, I don't rely on it. From my experience as well, if there is not a process in place now, the software will fail. Figuring out who owns the p
u/Due_Chemical_538
My company was in the same situation when I took over the HR role. We use Bamboo HR,however, there are still inputs required. I also own the entire process. I'm the only point of contact for
u/AppleOk3016
Oh man, I feel this so much. We were in the same spot not too long ago. Onboarding felt like a never-ending loop of emails, half-baked checklists, and new hires asking “who do I talk to for X
u/Silent-Squash-267
Pre-First Day:
1. After the offer letter is signed, HR initiates the background check and drug test. Simultaneously, a form is sent to the hiring manager to capture equipment and access needs
u/Hopeful-Long9246
Hmm okay seems like a good way to handle this. We are actually looking for someone who owns the whole process and standardize so it would make life for everyone in my company easier. The ques
u/Silent-Squash-267
Honestly, I have the process down so good it’s super easy for me to keep up with. As far as emails go, I create a template and save it as a signature in Outlook so I just have to fill in any
u/BlueShoesBling
Asana has onboarding templates that helped us develop our own on 2023. It has literally transformed how we onboard. The onboarding “project board” has all the critical tasks, timelines, stake
u/Hopeful-Long9246
Also another question, does the chatbot know all company intern documents and information? So is it reliable in its answers?
u/Due_Chemical_538
My company was in the same situation when I took over the HR role. We use Bamboo HR,however, there are still inputs required. I also own the entire process. I'm the only point of contact for
u/SplitEndsSuck
Ours is integrated with Slack and we have a repository that it pulls from to generate a response.
u/Hopeful-Long9246
Hmm okay seems like a good way to handle this. We are actually looking for someone who owns the whole process and standardize so it would make life for everyone in my company easier. The ques
u/Due_Chemical_538
My company was in the same situation when I took over the HR role. We use Bamboo HR,however, there are still inputs required. I also own the entire process. I'm the only point of contact for
u/Defiant-Lion8183
Power Automate was my bandaid solution. Granted I wasn’t planning on being there long. But it was easy to set up the automation to create the documents needed and attach everything to an emai
u/AppleOk3016
Oh man, I feel this so much. We were in the same spot not too long ago. Onboarding felt like a never-ending loop of emails, half-baked checklists, and new hires asking “who do I talk to for X
u/Silent-Squash-267
We explain all the benefits and provide the benefit book during orientation and then sign up with them 2 weeks later so they can review pricing/details with spouses (if necessary) in those tw
u/Hot_Heat7808
try Kinfolk. i met them at Transform and they can automate some big chunks of your onboarding process. you still need to define a process, but once that's in place they can help automate a bu
u/BlueShoesBling
Asana has onboarding templates that helped us develop our own on 2023. It has literally transformed how we onboard. The onboarding “project board” has all the critical tasks, timelines, stake
u/cmlopez38
I agree with everything other than the benefits being handle after the first week. I handle that during Orientation and also provide them with benefits booklet as well with the due date writ
u/Hopeful-Long9246
We are currently about 300 employees and onboarding around 5-10 people per month, though it fluctuates. We do use Teams (not Slack), but I really like your idea of a dedicated new hire channe
u/Hopeful-Long9246
Also another question, does the chatbot know all company intern documents and information? So is it reliable in its answers?
u/Hopeful-Long9246
We are currently about 300 employees and onboarding around 5-10 people per month, though it fluctuates. We do use Teams (not Slack), but I really like your idea of a dedicated new hire channe
u/Hopeful-Long9246
Wow, this process sounds great! We will definity try that in the future, thanks. Maybe one question: Is there any part of this process that still feels manual or time-consuming on your end? F
u/sread2018
Best system I've used is Enboarder
u/Catsandchickenslover
We do a 2 week orientation schedule and a 30/60/90. So when the candidate accepts their offer, I immediately follow up with the hiring manager with a “new hire checklist”, 2 week orientation
u/GotYourFraiche
I’m a broker so I may be biased but I’d work with yours to help facilitate a system that meets your needs and is ideally a one stop shop for all things HR/Benefits Administration
u/Silkehop
We have a lot of automation going.
So when the recruiting request is accepted and found the leader inform in the program details about the new employee, it automatic going to the HR who
u/GotYourFraiche
I’m a broker so I may be biased but I’d work with yours to help facilitate a system that meets your needs and is ideally a one stop shop for all things HR/Benefits Administration
u/Esagashi
Something I haven’t seen in this thread that I like having is a chat group for the new hires. There they can ask questions of me/my team and other new hires, then leave or mute the channel wh
u/Due_Chemical_538
I like software to help with processes, personally, I don't rely on it. From my experience as well, if there is not a process in place now, the software will fail. Figuring out who owns the p
u/Hot_Heat7808
try Kinfolk. i met them at Transform and they can automate some big chunks of your onboarding process. you still need to define a process, but once that's in place they can help automate a bu