Your best employees form their opinion of you on day one. Make it count.
Most onboarding starts with a welcome email containing 14 attachments and a request to fill in forms that duplicate data already in the ATS. Treegarden's onboarding module starts the moment a candidate accepts their offer — with a pre-boarding portal, automated checklists and zero re-keying of hiring data.
The onboarding experience most new hires get
The gap between offer acceptance and a productive first week is where companies lose the trust they spent weeks building during the interview process.
Welcome email with 14 attachments
The new hire's first interaction with the company after accepting the offer is an email asking them to print, sign, scan and return five documents. Then fill in a bank form. Then complete a health questionnaire. Then watch a 45-minute compliance video. That is the impression you are choosing to make.
IT ticket backlog on day one
The new hire arrives. Their laptop isn't ready. Their email access isn't provisioned. Their building pass hasn't been requested. Their manager is in back-to-back meetings. They spend their first morning in the kitchen drinking coffee and wondering whether they made the right decision.
Onboarding data re-entered from scratch
The ATS has the employee's name, start date, role and department. HR asks them to fill it all in again on their first day. Payroll asks for it again on the form they send. Every system that needs employee data starts from zero.
No pre-boarding engagement
Between offer acceptance and start date, the new hire hears nothing. They have two weeks to check LinkedIn for alternative offers, have second thoughts about leaving their current role, or simply lose the sense of excitement that was there when they said yes.
Onboarding that starts before day one
Six capabilities that eliminate the friction between a signed offer and a productive first week.
ATS-to-HR automatic handover
When a candidate is marked as hired, Treegarden automatically creates their employee profile and triggers the onboarding workflow. Name, role, start date, department — all pre-populated from the hiring record. Zero re-entry, zero manual handover.
Pre-boarding portal
From the day of offer acceptance, the new hire has access to a branded portal where they can complete document signing, review their role information, meet the team directory and complete pre-boarding tasks — before they set foot in the office.
AI-generated onboarding checklists
Define your onboarding framework once. Treegarden's AI generates role-specific checklists automatically, assigning tasks to IT, the hiring manager, HR and the new hire with the right deadlines and dependencies.
Role-based task assignment
IT gets their provisioning tasks. The hiring manager gets their introduction and week-one agenda tasks. HR gets their compliance and documentation tasks. Every stakeholder sees only their part of the checklist — and gets reminded when they're behind.
Document signing
Contracts, NDAs, policy acknowledgements and health declarations can be sent for digital signature directly from the onboarding workflow. Signed documents are stored in the employee record automatically.
Day-one readiness dashboard
HR has a single dashboard showing every pending new hire's onboarding completion percentage, outstanding tasks by assignee and any items at risk of not completing before the start date.
Everything the onboarding module includes
All fourteen capabilities are included in the platform — no add-on fees, no implementation modules to unlock separately.
What HR teams say about onboarding with Treegarden
We used to spend the first week of every hire chasing IT for laptop access, emailing the new hire to remind them to sign the NDA, and manually entering their data into payroll. Now Treegarden triggers all of that the moment we mark someone as hired. Our last three new starters had everything ready before they arrived.
Your first new hire onboarding flow, live in one day
Treegarden's onboarding module connects to your existing ATS data. Configure your onboarding checklist, set task owners and trigger thresholds, and your first automated onboarding flow is ready before the day is out. No implementation project. No data migration. No consultant.
Book a demoCommon questions about employee onboarding
Everything you need to know before configuring your first onboarding workflow.
When does the onboarding process start in Treegarden?
Onboarding is triggered automatically when a candidate is marked as hired in the ATS. The pre-boarding portal becomes accessible to the new hire immediately, and task assignments are sent to IT, the hiring manager and HR according to the workflow you have configured.
Can new hires complete tasks before their start date?
Yes. The pre-boarding portal is specifically designed for this. New hires can complete document signing, policy acknowledgements, benefit selections and personal information updates from any device before their first day. This means day one can be spent on meaningful work rather than paperwork.
Can we create different onboarding workflows for different roles?
Yes. Treegarden supports role-based and department-based onboarding templates. An engineer's onboarding checklist includes different tasks to a sales representative's. You define the templates once; Treegarden selects and assigns the right one based on the hire data from the ATS.
How does IT access their onboarding tasks?
IT team members receive automated notifications with their assigned provisioning tasks — device setup, email creation, software access, VPN credentials — with the new hire's start date as the deadline. IT can mark tasks complete from email or from their Treegarden dashboard. HR sees completion status in real time.
Is document signing legally binding?
Treegarden's digital signature functionality produces a signed record with timestamp, IP address and identity verification. The legally binding nature of electronic signatures varies by jurisdiction — your legal team should confirm applicability for your location — but the signature record Treegarden produces meets the evidentiary standards required in most EU and US jurisdictions.
How does the onboarding module connect to leave and performance?
When onboarding completes, the new hire's leave entitlement is automatically calculated from their start date and configured in the leave module. A probation review is triggered in the performance module at the interval you have set. The entire first-year HR timeline is initiated from a single hiring event in the ATS.
Related HR resources
Practical guides for the teams responsible for the full employee lifecycle — from hire to exit.
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Onboarding is the first chapter of your employee relationship. Write it well.
The companies that retain people longest invest in the experience from the moment the offer is signed. Treegarden automates the logistics so your team can focus on the welcome.